Part 10

In fact, to speak with my customary modesty, this demand for amusement places Mr. Depew and me on the same footing. Often I get letters from people who say they expect my friend the Senator, but, if he cannot come, will want me to fill the gap. Not long ago Mr. Depew cheated me out of a famous dinner at Delmonico’s, so I grumbled a bit when I met him. He got off the big, hearty laugh, on which he has a life patent, with no possible infringement in sight, and replied,

“Why, Marsh, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known it, I wouldn’t have gone.”

Ha, ha, pretty good, wasn’t it?

Where do I get the material for my own sketches? From the originals every time. I pick it up in the streets, in the cars and restaurants, get it from the newsboys, from men of all sorts on the curb-stone, from almost everywhere, but never from books or newspapers, for the world is full of fun if one only has the ear to hear it.

When I get hold of a new thing that seems to be good, I always “try it on the dog”—that is, on my friends. I take it down to the Lambs’ Club and work it off on some of the good fellows there. If I escape alive with it, I inveigle a couple of newsboys into a dark corner and have them sample it. If it “goes” with them, I am pretty sure it is good, so I add it to my repertoire; but if it fails there, I never disagree with my critics; it is damned—absolutely, no matter who may think it might be made to work.

Few Americans are busier than the successful entertainer. His hands are full of the work of brightening up the heavy parts of the social affairs that crowd the long winter afternoon and evenings, so with hurrying between New York, Boston and Chicago, with occasional moves to Philadelphia and Baltimore, he is kept “on the jump.” Yet the public hears little of his work, for it is not advertised. Why, not long ago I went to a large party at a house only three blocks from my apartments, and I am sure thirty or forty of the guests had never heard my name before.

Such is fame.

XV

IN THE SUNSHINE WITH GREAT PREACHERS

I am Nicknamed “The Theological Comedian.”—My Friend, Henry Ward Beecher.—Our Trip Through Scotland and Ireland.—His Quickness of Repartee.—He and Ingersoll Exchange Words.—Ingersoll’s Own Sunshine.—De Witt Talmage on the Point of View.—He Could Even Laugh at Caricatures of His Own Face.—Dr. Parkhurst on Strict Denominationalism.

Nat Goodwin once nicknamed me “The Theological Comedian,” because many of my entertainments were given in churches. On such occasions a minister would generally preface the proceedings with prayer—whether that I, or the people, might be strengthened for the ordeal I never was able to discover. But the ministers always laughed at every joke I cracked, so there is a very warm spot in my heart for them.

One of the first of the profession I ever met was Henry Ward Beecher. I became well acquainted with him and—of far more consequence, he was always friendly, fatherly and merry when I met him. I had the pleasure of traveling through Scotland and Ireland with him, and no man could have been better company. Yet he was not traveling merely for pleasure. Wherever he went and was known the people welcomed him effusively, insisted on hearing from him, so whenever he spoke in a church or Sunday-school he had a crowded house.

We spent one Sunday together in Glasgow, and the depression of that city on the holy day cannot be imagined. I have heard that some Scotchmen get full of bad whiskey on Saturday night for the sole purpose of being properly dismal on Sunday, but perhaps that is not true. But the street cars do not run; there is no sign of animation; the very houses look as dull as if they were untenanted; to a person accustomed to the cheer and bright faces of Americans on Sunday the town seemed enveloped in the gloom of death.

In the morning I awoke very early; I veritably believe that the appalling silence disturbed my slumbers. I felt so lonely and dismal that I instinctively went over to Mr. Beecher’s room; better a drowsy American than a whole city full of wide-awake Scotchmen—on a Scotch Sunday. Mr. Beecher was also awake, though in bed, and in spite of the morning being quite chilly he lay with one toe uncovered. I said:

“Mr. Beecher, aren’t you afraid of catching cold?”

“Oh, no,” he replied, “I always sleep that way.” I was greatly mystified at this, and asked him the reason. He laughed—and what a laugh he had! It was as big and solid and enduring as the Berkshire hills amid which he was born. Then he replied:

“Marshall, that toe is the key to the situation.”

In Ireland we went about a good deal together in jaunting cars and extracted a lot of high-grade Hibernian wit from the drivers. Although Mr. Beecher was one of the sensible souls who could discern the difference between poverty and misery, he had an American’s innate soft spot in his heart for a man in rags, so he overpaid our drivers so enormously that Mrs. Beecher, who was with us, begged that she might be allowed to do the disbursing.

One day we were driven to our hotel in Belfast through a drizzling rain. When I paid the driver I said:

“Are you wet, Pat?” With a merry twinkle of his eye he replied:

“Sure, your honor, if I was as wet outside as I am inside, I’d be as dry as a bone.”

Mr. Beecher’s quickness at repartee, of which Americans knew well, was entirely equal to Irish demands upon it. One day in Ireland, after he had made an address to a Sunday-school, a bewitching young colleen came up to where we stood chatting and said:

“Mr. Beecher, you have won my heart.”

“Well,” replied the great man quickly, with a sunburst of a smile, “you can’t get along without a heart, so suppose you take mine?”

Which reminds me of the day when he and Col. “Bob” Ingersoll were on the platform together at a public meeting and Beecher went over and shook hands heartily with the great agnostic, though he knew that the act would bring a storm of criticism from people with narrow-gauge souls. Then Ingersoll brought up one of his daughters and introduced her, saying:

“Mr. Beecher, here is a girl who never read the Bible.” Bob delighted in shocking ministers, but he missed his fun that time, for Beecher quickly replied:

“If all heathen were so charming I am sure we should all become missionaries.”

Ingersoll himself was as quick as the quickest at repartee. One day a malignant believer in an awful time for the wicked after death asked him:

“Are you trying to abolish hell?”

“Yes,” said Ingersoll.

“Well, you can’t do it.”

“You’ll be sorry if I don’t,” the Colonel replied.

Agnostic though he was, Ingersoll is frequently quoted by preachers, for in one respect he was very like the best of them; he never wearied of urging men to right living, not through fear of eternal punishment, but because goodness is its own excuse for being. No pastor was ever more severe than he in condemnation of everything mean and wicked in human life, so he was worthy of place among the great teachers of ethics. Personally he was as kind, sympathetic and helpful as some ministers are not; whatever he thought of systematic theology, he was practically a teacher of the brotherhood of man as defined by the founder of Christianity. In his lighter moments he was one of the merriest companions that any one could meet; no matter what he had to say, he would always illustrate it with a story. One day he was talking of people who have a knack of saying the right thing at the wrong time, and told the following, as a sample:

A well-to-do merchant out west lived in a town not remarkable for much but malaria and funerals. His wives had a way of dying, and whenever he lost one he went into another county and married again. A loquacious lady in the healthy county kindly assisted him in finding young women who were willing to marry him and take the chances. About six months after burying his fourth wife he appeared again in the healthy county, called on his friend and was greeted with:

“How’s your wife, Mr. Thompson?”

“She’s dead,” he replied sadly.

“What? Dead again?” the woman cried.

Ingersoll was full of stories hinging on the place he believed did not exist. Here is one of them:

A man who wanted to visit hell was advised to buy an excursion ticket. He did so, and when the train stopped at a place full of beautiful trees, warbling birds and bright sunshine he did not get off. The conductor said:

“I thought you wanted hell?”

“Is this hell?” the passenger asked; “I didn’t think it looked like this.” Then he walked about and met a man to whom he said:

“I am surprised to find hell such a beautiful place.”

“Well,” the man replied, “you must remember that there have been a great many clever people here for many years, so the place has greatly improved. You ought to have seen it when I came here.”

“Indeed? And who are you?”

“I am Voltaire.”

“I am very glad to meet you, Voltaire, and I wish you would do me a favor.”

“With pleasure. What is it?”

“Get some one to buy my return ticket, please.”

Colonel Ingersoll arrived late one evening at a Clover Club dinner in Philadelphia, to which he had been invited, and while looking for his seat he regarded the decorations so admiringly that Governor Bunn exclaimed:

“You’ve found heaven at last, Colonel, and a place waiting for you.”

At a Lambs’ Club dinner in New York, of which the late Steele MacKaye was chairman, Ingersoll was formally introduced and made a speech, in the course of which he made so unfortunate a remark about Deity that he sat down amid silence so profound as to be painful. MacKaye arose and with admirable tact brought the Club and the speaker en rapport by saying:

“Gentlemen, we all know that Colonel Ingersoll dare not believe in God, but those of us who know Colonel Ingersoll and do believe in God know that _God_ believes in _him_.”

The late T. DeWitt Talmage never lost a chance to emphasize a point with a good story. As I knew him to be a good man and a first-rate fellow, I used to be indignant at newspaper abuse of him, and particularly with some caricatures that were made of his expressive features. I took occasion to tell him of this, but he replied:

“Marshall, I’m as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros, and I never mind what is said about me. Some of the caricatures annoy me, but only because they pain people I love—my wife and family. You see, my boy, it doesn’t pay to be too sensitive, for it breaks a man up, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to him if he has any duties in the world. Besides, everything depends on the point of view. Once a German family emigrated to America and settled in Milwaukee. The oldest son, in his teens, concluded he would start out for himself. He ‘fetched up’ in New York, and without any money, so he wrote home, ‘Dear father, I am sick and lonely and without a single cent. Send me some money quick. Your son John.’ The old man couldn’t read, so he took the letter to a friend—a great strapping butcher with a loud gruff voice and an arrogant manner of reading. When the letter was read to him the father was furious and declared he would not send his son a cent—not even to keep him from starving. But on his way home he kept thinking about the letter and wanting to hear it again, so he took it to another friend—a consumptive undertaker who had a gentle voice with an appealing inflection in it. When this man read the letter the father burst into tears and exclaimed, ‘My poor boy! I shall send him all the money he wants.’ You see, the same thing viewed from a different point takes on a different color.”

After the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst visited some notorious New York “dives” and preached his famous sermon on New York politics he was the sensation of the day and also one of the best abused men in the land. He was besieged by reporters until he had scarcely time to say his prayers and came to hate the sight of a newspaper man. About that time I was making a trip to Rochester and saw Dr. Parkhurst enter the car I was in. I said to some friends:

“That is Dr. Parkhurst. Now watch me; I’m going to have some fun with him.”

His chair was at the other end of the car and he was having a good time with newspapers and magazines and far away, as he supposed, from reporters. I passed and repassed him two or three times; then, assuming as well as I could the manner of a newspaper man I stopped and said:

“Dr. Parkhurst, I believe?”

He looked up with a savage frown, and I saw that he took me for one of the tormenting fraternity. I continued in an insinuating, tooth-drawing manner until he became so chilling that I could hear the thermometer falling with heavy thuds. When I felt that I had made him as uncomfortable as I could I said,

“Pardon me, Doctor, but evidently you don’t remember me.” Then I handed him my card. His manner changed like a cloudy day when the sun breaks through, and he said cordially:

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Wilder. I mistook you for a reporter.”

“I thought, you would,” I replied, “for that’s what I was trying to make you believe.”

We laughed together and for the remainder of the trip we were close companions. He is a delightful talker, full of anecdotes and reminiscences. I never met a keener lover of good stories than he, and, beside being an appreciative listener, he is so good a raconteur himself that a listener is willing that he should do all the story telling. He has no patience with narrow, hide-bound denominationalists; he defined them by telling me a story of a minister who preached a sermon so touching that all his hearers were melted to tears—all but one man. When asked how he had succeeded in keeping his eyes dry the man replied:

“Well, you see, this isn’t my church.”

XVI

THE PRINCE OF WALES

(_Now King Edward VII_)

The Most Popular Sovereign in Europe.—How He Saved Me From a Master of Ceremonies.—Promotion by Name.—He and His Friends Delight two American Girls.—His Sons and Daughters.—An Attentive and Loving Father.—Untiring at His Many Duties Before He Ascended the Throne.—Unobtrusive Politically, yet Influential.

If all kings were as competent as the genial and tactful gentleman who recently ascended the British throne, it would be a thankless job to start a new republic anywhere. Personally, I have strong grounds for this opinion, for I had the pleasure of meeting His Majesty many times while he was Prince of Wales, and these meetings were due entirely to his kindness of nature and generally were of his own initiative.

I don’t imagine he knew it, but the Prince of Wales once lifted me out of as uncomfortable a fix as I ever got into in London. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery, Boston’s swell military organization, visited England in 1896, as guests of the Ancients and Honorables of London, who entertained them handsomely and had them presented to Her Majesty the queen. The Boston company in turn, gave a great dinner to their hosts. Some Americans then in the city were invited, and I had the good fortune to be of the number, through the kindness of Mr. B. F. Keith, who was one of the Boston Ancient and Honorables.

The spectacle was brilliant in the extreme, nine out of every ten men present being in full dress uniform. The entire assemblage was gathered informally in two long, glittering rows, awaiting the Prince of Wales, who was always the soul of punctuality. I had many acquaintances in the two uniformed bodies, as well as among the non-military guests, and was moving about from one to another. I was in conventional evening dress, and had a tiny American flag pinned to the lapel of my coat.

The Master of Ceremonies, whose manner was more consequential than that of any distinguished person in the room, seemed annoyed that any civilians were present, and he did his utmost to separate them from the soldiers. I had the misfortune to become his _bête noire_; whenever he found me among the military men he gently but persistently pressed me away, but no sooner did he eject me in one direction than I reappeared from another and between two pairs of gaily-appareled soldiers’ legs, so I made the poor fellow nervous and fussy to the verge of distraction.

Exactly at eight o’clock the Prince of Wales was announced and every one came to attention. He entered with the genial smile which was an inseparable part of him and shook hands with the American minister and other dignitaries. Soon he spied me, came across the room, greeted me very kindly, and said:

“How are you, little chap?”

“Very well, thank you, sir,” I replied.

“I am to hear you to-morrow night at the Duke of Devonshire’s, I understand,” he continued. “Won’t you give us that mother-in-law pantomime of yours?”

“Certainly, sir,” I answered; as the Prince left me and ascended the stairs I saw that the Master of Ceremonies, who had witnessed the meeting, was visibly disturbed. Soon he literally hovered about me and displayed a fixed and conciliatory smile. The guests began to follow the Prince, and as they passed up the stairs many of them greeted me. Senator Depew remarked:

“Hello, Marshall, how are you?”

That dear old gentleman and English idol, John L. Toole, passed, blinked merrily at me and said:

“Glad to see you again, Marshall. How are you?”

Presently the Master of Ceremonies turned nervously to an English officer and asked, with an aggrieved tone in his voice:

“Who is this little chap, anyway? Everybody seems to know him.”

The officer did not chance to know me, but an English Sergeant who was of the attendant guard and was willing to impart information said:

“He belongs to the American Army. He’s a marshal.” The great functionary immediately regarded me with profound respect, not unmixed with wonder at the modesty of great American soldiers, for an officer of my supposedly exalted rank was entitled to follow close behind His Royal Highness.

At the Duke of Devonshire’s on the following evening I was assisted by two young Americans—twin sisters, the Misses Jessie and Bessie Abbot. Miss Bessie had a wonderful voice, and has since achieved a great success in Paris in the title part of the opera “Juliet.” Both girls were clever and charming and we three maintained a friendship which was delightful to me and which they, too, seemed to enjoy. At that time they were living in London with their mother, and taking part in private entertainments, but the evening at the Duke of Devonshire’s was their first appearance before the Prince of Wales or any of the Royal family. They charmed the audience and were loaded with compliments, some of which were expressed by the Princess of Wales in person.

While the Princess was conversing with the sisters she mentioned the Prince, upon which Miss Jessie said:

“I have not yet met the Prince, but I wish to very much.”

“Oh, have you not?” the Princess exclaimed, as she smilingly regarded the pretty girl who was unconscious that she had committed a breach of etiquette. “Then I shall arrange it.” Immediately she walked the entire length of the long picture gallery in which the entertainment had been given, found the Prince, came back on his arm, and Miss Jessie’s request was granted. The Prince, noting the resemblance of the sisters to each other, asked if they were really twins.

“Oh, yes,” Miss Jessie replied, and then turning to me she continued, “Aren’t we, Marshall? Her ingenuous manner compelled the Prince to laugh, after which he said to me:

“You seemed to be posted, little chap.”

Among royal children whom I have had the honor to entertain, none are more widely known, through their portraits and also by common report, than the sons and daughters of the present King and Queen of England. The first time I ever appeared before them was at an exhibition given for the benefit of the Gordon home for boys. It was a social affair of great prominence, the audience being composed principally of the royal family and the nobility. The Prince and Princess of Wales were accompanied by their children—Prince Albert Victor, who has since died but was then heir-apparent, Prince George, who is now Prince of Wales, and the Princesses Louise, Victoria and Maude. Other members of the royal family in the audience were the Duke of Connaught (brother to the Prince), the Duke and Duchess of Teck and the Princess Louise of Teck.

I suppose I ought to do the conventional thing by likening King Edward’s daughters to Washington Irving’s “Three Beautiful Princesses,” but my first impression of them has remained clear that I frequently revert to the day I received it—three wholesome, pretty, dainty English little girls of demure manner, with exquisite complexions, and whose blonde hair was very long and their simple white frocks rather short. They had many points of resemblance to one another, but their brothers were quite dissimilar in one respect, Victor being slight and delicate while George was sturdy and robust. All seemed to enjoy the entertainment, but did not forget and lose control of themselves, as well-bred American children sometimes do in public. Princess Louise of Teck, who is considered the handsomest of the princesses, was at that time a very beautiful and attractive child.

I afterward met them all at the Duke of Devonshire’s and found that in conversation with their elders their manner was marked by the simplicity, thoughtfulness and kindness inseparable from good breeding. They frequently rode or drove in the park, accompanied by a lady-in-waiting or a gentleman of the Queen’s household. The universal respect manifested for them did not turn their heads in the least; in acknowledgment of the bared heads about them they did not bow haughtily, but graciously and kindly, as if grateful for the attention bestowed upon them. It seemed impossible, to any one who had observed the condescending and even arrogant manner in public of so many English children whose dress and equipage indicated parental wealth and station, that the Prince of Wales’s children could be what they really were—scions of the most firmly-rooted royal stock in all Europe and that from among them would in time come an occupant of the only throne whose influence is felt entirely around the world.