Chapter XXVII: Some First Experiences 348 (2)

As a rule, humorous stories are of American origin, comic stories are English, and witty stories are French. The humorous story depends upon the incidents and the manner of telling; comic and witty stories depend upon the matter. The humorous story may be spun out to any length; it may wander about as it pleases, and arrive at nowhere in particular; but the comic or witty story must be brief, and end in a sharp point. The humorous story bubbles along continually; the other kinds burst. The humorous tale is entirely a work of art, and only an artist can tell it; while the witty or comic story—oh, any one who knows it can tell it.

The act of telling a humorous story—by word of mouth, understand, not in print—was created in America, and has remained at home, in spite of many earnest endeavors to domesticate it abroad, and even to counterfeit it. It is generally told gravely, the teller doing his best to disguise his attempt to inflict anything funny on his listeners; but the man with a comic story generally tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he ever heard, and he is the first one to laugh—when he reaches the end.

One of the dreadfulest inflictions that suffering humanity ever endures is the result of amateur efforts to transform the humorous into the comic, or _vice versa_. It reminds one of Frank Stockton’s tearful tale of what came of one of the best things in Pickwick by being translated into classical Greek and then brought back into English.

The Rev. Robert J. Burdette, who used to write columns of capital humor for _The Burlington Hawkeye_ and told scores of stories superbly, made his first visit to New York about twenty years ago, and was at once spirited to a notable club where he told stories leisurely until half the hearers ached with laughter and the other half were threatened with apoplexy. Every one present declared it the red letter night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and demanded the stories at second-hand. Some efforts were made to oblige them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections of the stories into comic jokes; so they hunted the town for Burdette to help them out of their muddle.

The late Artemus Ward, who a generation ago carried a tidal wave of humor from Maine to California, with some generous overflows each side of its course, had a long serious face and a drawling voice; so when he lectured in churches, as he frequently did, a late-comer might have mistaken him for a minister, though not for very long. He would drawl along without giving the slightest indication of what was coming. When the joke was unloaded and the audience got hold of it he would look up with seemingly innocent wonder as to what people were laughing at. This expression of his countenance always brought another laugh. He could get laughs out of nothing, by mixing the absurd and the unexpected, and then backing the combination with a solemn face and earnest manner. For instance, it was worth a ten-mile walk after dark on a corduroy road to hear him say: “I once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn’t a tooth in his head”—here he would pause for some time, look reminiscent, and continue, “And yet he could beat a base-drum better than any other man I ever knew.”

Mark Twain is another famous humorist who can use a serious countenance and hesitating voice with wonderful effect in a story. His tale of “The Golden Arm” was the best thing of its kind I ever heard—when told as he himself told it—but everything depended on suddenness and unexpectedness of climax. Here it is, as he gave it:—

“Once ’pon a time dey wuz a mons’us mean man, en’ he live ’way out in de prairie all ’lone by himself, ’cep’n he had a wife. En’ bimeby she died, en’ he took en’ toted her ’way out da’ in de prairie en’ buried her. Well, she had a golden arm all solid gold, f’om de shoulder down. He wuz pow’ful mean—pow’ful; en’ dat night he couldn’t sleep, ’coze he wanted dat golden arm so bad.

“When it come midnight he couldn’t stan’ it no mo’, so he got up, he did, en’ tuk his lantern en’ shoved out troo de storm en’ dug her up en’ got de golden arm; en’ he bent his head down ’gin de wind, en’ plowed en’ plowed en’ plowed troo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop” (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) “en’ say:

“My lan’, what’s dat? En’ he listen, en’ listen, en’ de wind say” (set your teeth together, and imitate the wailing and wheezing sing-song of the wind): “‘Buzz-z-zzz!’ en’ den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a voice—he hear a voice all mix up in de win’—can’t hardly tell ’em ’part: ‘Bzzz-zzz—w-h-o—g-o-t—m-y g-o-l-d-e-n arm?”’ (You must begin to shiver violently now.)

“En’ he begin to shiver en’ shake, en’ say: ‘Oh, my! Oh, my lan’!’ En’ de win’ blow de lantern out, en’ de snow en’ de sleet blow in his face en’ ’most choke him, en’ he start a-plowin’ knee-deep toward home, mos’ dead, he so sk’yeerd, en’ pooty soon he hear de voice again, en” (pause) “it ’us comin’ after him: ‘Buzzz-zzz—w-h-o—g-o-t m-y g-o-l-d-e-n—arm?’

“When he git to de pasture he hear it agin—closter, now, en’ a comin’ back dab in de dark en’ de storm” (repeat the wind and the voice). “When he git to de house he rush up-stairs, en’ jump in de bed, en’ kiver up head en’ years, en’ lay dah a-shiverin’ en’ a-shakin’, en’ den ’way out dah he hear it agin, en’ a-comin’! En’ bimeby he hear” (pause—awed; listening attitude) “—at—pat—pat—pat—hit’s a-comin’ up-stairs! Den he hear de latch, en’ he knows it’s in de room.

“Den pooty soon he knows it’s—standin’ by de bed!” (Pause.) “Den he knows it’s a-bendin’ down over him,—en’ he cain’t sca’cely git his breaf! Den—den he seem to feel somethin’ c-o-l-d, right down neah agin’ his head!” (Pause.)

“Den de voice say, right at his year: ‘W-h-o g-o-t m-y g-o-l-d-e-n arm?’” You must wail it out plaintively and accusingly; then you stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone auditor—a girl, preferably—and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly toward that girl and yell: “‘_You’ve_ got it!’”

If you have got the pause right, she’ll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out of her shoes; but you must get the pause right, and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook.

V

ACTORS’ JOKES

All of Them Full of Humor at All Times.—“Joe” Jefferson.—J. K.
Emmett.—Fay Templeton.—Willie Collier.—An Actor’s Portrait on a
Church Wall.—“Gus” Thomas, the Playwright.—Stuart Robson.—Henry
Dixey.—Evans and Hoey.—Charles Hoyt.—Wilson Barrett.—W. S.
Gilbert.—Henry Irving.

Actors are the most incessant jokers alive. Whether rich or poor, obscure or prominent, drunk or sober, prosperous or not knowing where the next meal is to come from, or whether there will be any next meal, they have always something funny at the tips of their tongues, and managers and dramatic authors as a rule are full of humorous explosives that clear the dull air and let in the sunshine. They are masters at repartee, yet as willing to turn a joke on themselves as on one another, and they can work a pun most brilliantly.

Joseph Jefferson one day called on President Cleveland with General Sherman, and carried a small package with him. All his friends know that dear old “Joe” is forgetful, so when the visitors were going the general called attention to the package and asked: “Jefferson, isn’t this yours?”

“Great Cæsar, Sherman,” Jefferson replied, “you have saved my life!” The “life” referred to was the manuscript of his then uncompleted biography. Jefferson delights in telling of a new playmate of one of his sons, who asked another boy who young Jefferson was, and was told:

“Oh, his father works in a theatre somewhere.”

“Pete” Dailey, while enjoying a short vacation, visited a New York theatre when business was dull. Being asked afterward how large the audience was, he replied: “I could lick all three of them.”

On meeting a friend who was “fleshing up,” he exclaimed: “You are getting so stout that I thought some one was with you.”

J. K. Emmett tells of a heathenish old farmer and his wife who strayed into a church and heard the minister say: “Jesus died for sinners.” The old man nudged his wife, and whispered:

“Serves us right for not knowin’ it, Marthey. We hain’t took a newspaper in thirty year.”

Fay Templeton tells of a colored girl, whose mother shouted: “Mandy, your heel’s on fire!” and the girl replied: “Which one, mother?” The girl was so untruthful that her discouraged mother said: “When you die, dey’s going to say: ‘Here lies Mandy Hopkins, and de trufe never came out of her when she was alive.’”

I have been the subject of some actors’ jokes, and enjoyed the fun as much as any one. May Irwin had two sons, who early in life were susceptible to the seductive cigarette, against which she cautioned them earnestly. I entered a restaurant one day where she and her sons were dining, and she called me over and gave me an opportunity to become acquainted with the little fellows. After I left them, one turned to his mother and asked:

“What makes that little man so short?”

“Smoking cigarettes,” she replied. And they never smoked again.

Willie Collier invited me one summer to his beautiful home at St. James, Long Island. He was out when I arrived, and when he returned, Mrs. Collier said to him:

“You’re going to have Marshall P. Wilder for dinner,” and Willie replied:

“I’d rather have lamb.”

There is a colony of theatrical people near Collier, and they have a small theatre in which a dazzling array of talent sometimes appears, although the performances are impromptu affairs. On Sundays this theatre serves as a church for the Catholics of the vicinity. At one side hangs a large lithograph of Willie Collier, concerning which the following conversation between the two Irishmen was overheard:

“I wint into the church this mornin’ airly, while it was pretty dark, an’ I see a picture hanging there, an’ thinkin’ it must be one av the saints I wint down on me knees an’ said me prayers before it. When I opened me eyes they’d got used to the dark, an’ if I didn’t see it was a picture av that actor-man beyant that they call Willie Collier!”

“An’ what did’ you do?” asked the other Irishman.

“Sure, I tuk’ back as much av me prayers as I cud.”

Augustus Thomas, the playwright, who is always “Gus” except on the back of an envelop or the bottom of his own check, was chairman of a Lambs’ Club dinner at which I was to speak. When I began, he joked me on my shortness by saying:

“Mr. Wilder will please rise when making a speech.”

I was able to retort by saying: “I will; but you won’t believe it.”

When an acquaintance said to him after being wearied by a play: “That was the slowest performance I ever saw. Strange, too, for it had a run of a hundred nights in London!” Thomas replied:

“That’s the trouble. It’s exhausted its speed.”

He was standing behind the scenes one night with Miss Georgia Busbey, who while waiting for her cue, said: “Tell me a story, Mr. Thomas, before I go on.”

“It must be a quick witty one then, Miss Busbey.”

“I know it, but I’ve come to the right place for it.”

Stuart Robson was present at a Lambs’ Club dinner of which Mr. Thomas was chairman; but he endeavored to hide when called on for a speech. Thousands of successful appearances on the stage never cured him of his constitutional bashfulness.

Thomas said: “Is Mr. Robson here? If he has not gone, we should like to hear from him.”

Robson said: “Mr. Thomas, will you kindly consider that I have gone?”

Thomas replied: “While the drama lasts, Mr. Robson can never go.”

Robson had been a close neighbor and friend for many years to Lawrence Barrett. His bosom friend Marshall Lewis fell in love with Barrett’s charming daughter Millie, and Robson pretended to think it was the greatest joke in the world.

“Why don’t you go in, and win and marry her, Marshall?” he used to say in the squeaky voice which was not for the stage alone. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do—the day you marry Millie Barrett I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

This went on for some time, until to Robson’s astonishment and chagrin Miss Barrett accepted Lewis.

By the way, when Barrett learned of it he exclaimed: “My dear boy, you don’t know what you’re doing. You are robbing me out of my only remaining daughter.”

“Not at all,” Lewis replied, with a slap on the back of his father-in-law elect. “I’m merely giving you another son.”

When the marriage day came Robson did not attend the ceremony; but he sent his daughter Alicia in his place, and gave her a check for five thousand dollars, drawn to Lewis’ order, but with emphatic orders not to part from it until Lewis and Miss Barrett were pronounced man and wife. When Alicia returned her father asked her if she had given Lewis the check.

The girl replied: “Yes, father.”

“What did he do and say?” Robson inquired impatiently.

“Why, father, he was so overcome that he cried for a minute after I gave it to him.”

“Egad!” squeaked Robson, “was that all? Why, I cried for an hour when I wrote it.”

Henry Dixey is an adept at the leisurely tale, which is a word picture from start to finish. Here is a sample:

In one of the country stores, where they sell everything from a silk dress and a tub of butter to a hot drink and a cold meal, a lot of farmers were sitting around the stove one cold winter day, when in came Farmer Evans, who was greeted with:

“How d’do, Ezry?”

“How d’do boys?” After awhile he continued: “Wa-all, I’ve killed my hog.”

“That so? How much did he weigh?”

Farmer Evans stroked his chin whiskers meditatively and replied: “Wa-all, guess.”

“’Bout three hundred,” said one farmer.

“No.”

“Two seventy-five?” ventured another.

“No.”

“I guess about three twenty-five,” said a third.

“No.”

Then all together demanded: “Well, how much did he weigh?”

“Dunno. Hain’t weighed him yet.”

Other men kept dropping in and hugging the stove, for the day was cold and snowy outside. In came Cy Hopkins, wrapped in a big overcoat, yet almost frozen to death; but there wasn’t room enough around that stove to warm his little finger.

But he didn’t get mad about it; he just said to Bill Stebbins who kept the store: “Bill, got any raw oysters?”

“Yes, Cy.”

“Well, just open a dozen and feed ’em to my hoss.”

Well, Stebbins never was scared by an order from a man whose credit was good, as Cy’s was, so he opened the oysters an’ took them out, an’ the whole crowd followed to see a horse eat oysters. Then Cy picked out the best seat near the stove and dropped into it as if he had come to stay, as he had.

Pretty soon the crowd came back, and the storekeeper said: “Why, Cy, your hoss won’t eat them oysters.”

“Won’t he? Well, then, bring ’em here an’ I’ll eat ’em myself.”

When Charley Evans and Bill Hoey traveled together, they had no end of good-natured banter between them.

Once when Hoey saw Evans mixing lemon juice and water for a gargle, he asked: “What are you doing that for, Charley?”

“Oh, for my singing.”

“Suppose you put some in your ear; then maybe you’ll be able to find the key.”

While they were crossing the ocean, Evans came on deck one day dressed in the latest summer fashion—duck trousers, straw hat, etc.—and asked Hoey: “How do you like me, Bill?”

“Well, all you need to do now is to have your ears pierced,” was the reply.

At the ship’s table the waiter asked Hoey what he would have.

“Roast beef.”

“How shall I cut it, sir?”

“By the ship’s chart.”

Evans always carried the money for both, and the two men had a fancy for wearing trousers of the same material, though of different sizes, for Evans was slighter than his partner. One day Hoey fell on hard luck. He had been to the Derby races, where a pickpocket relieved him of his watch and his money too. They were to start for America next morning, and Evans had plenty of money and return tickets also, yet Hoey was so cut up by his losses that he went to bed early and tried to drop asleep. This did not work, so after tossing for several hours, by which time Evans had retired, he got up and began to dress himself. But to his horror his figure seemed to have swelled in the night.

This was the last straw; he woke his partner and with tears in his eyes and his voice too, he said: “Charley, beside all my hard luck to-day I’m getting the dropsy.”

“Bill,” said Evans after a glance, “go into the other room and take off my pants!”

A certain diamond broker called on the late Charles Hoyt with a large bill.

While Hoyt was drawing a check the broker said: “Charley, a dear friend of mine was robbed yesterday.”

“Is that so? Why, what did you sell him?”

The English stage is as full of jokers as ours. Wilson Barrett tells that at a “First night” his play did not seem to suit the pit, so he came before the curtain at the end of one act and asked what was the matter. The “Gods” have great freedom in English theatres, so there was much talk across the footlights between the stage and the audience; but it was stopped abruptly by a voice that said:

“Oh, go on, Wilson! This ain’t no bloomin’ debatin’ society.”

W. S. Gilbert, although not an actor, is a playwright and extremely critical. A London favorite had the best part in one of Gilbert’s pieces, but the author thought him slow. Going behind the scenes after the performance, Gilbert noted that the actor’s brow was perspiring, so he said:

“Well, at all events, your skin has been acting.”

Gilbert can give evasive answers that cut like a knife. A player of the title part of Hamlet asked Gilbert’s opinion of the performance.

“You are funny, without being vulgar,” was the reply.

Forbes Robertson, who essayed the same part, asked Gilbert: “What do you think of Hamlet?”

Gilbert answered: “Wonderful play, old man; most wonderful play ever written.”

E. S. Willard tells the following story of Charles Glenny, of Irving’s Lyceum Company. “The Merchant of Venice” was in rehearsal, and Glenny did not repeat the lines: “Take me to the gallows, not to the font” to the liking of Irving, so the latter said in the kindly manner he always maintained at rehearsals:

“No, no, Mr. Glenny; not that way. Walk over and touch me, and say: ‘Take me to the gallows, not to the font.’” The line was rehearsed several times, but unsuccessfully.

Finally Irving became discouraged and said: “Ah, well; touch me.”

Irving witnessed Richard Mansfield’s performance of “Richard III,” in London, and by invitation went back to see the actor in his dressing-room. Mansfield had been almost exhausted, and was fanning himself, but Irving’s approach revived him, and natural anticipation of a compliment from so exalted a source was absolutely stimulating.

But for the time being all Irving did was to slap Mansfield playfully on the back and exclaim in the inimitable Irving tone: “Aha? You sweat!”

VI

A SUNNY OLD CITY

Some Aspects of Philadelphia.—Fun in a Hospital.—“The Cripple’s
Palace.”—An Invalid’s Success in Making Other Invalids
Laugh.—Fights for the Fun of Fighting.—My Rival Friends.—Boys
Will Be Boys.—Cast Out of Church.—A Startling Recognition.—Some
Pleasures of Attending Funerals.—How I Claimed the Protection
of the American Flag.

A hospital is not a place that any one would visit if he were in search of jollity, yet some of the merriest hours of my life were spent, some years ago, in the National Surgical Institute of Philadelphia. I was one of about three hundred people, of all ages, sizes and dispositions, who were under treatment for physical defects. Most of us were practically crippled, a condition which is not generally regarded to be conductive of hilarity, yet many of us had lots of fun, and all of it was made by ourselves. I was one of the luckiest of the lot, for Mother Nature had endowed me with a faculty for finding sunshine everywhere.

Yet part of my treatment was to lie in bed, locked in braces, for hours every day, and each of these hours seemed to be several thousand minutes long. So many other boys were under similar treatment that an attendant, named Joe, was kept busy in merely taking off our appliances. These were locked, for between pain and the restiveness peculiar to boys, we would have removed them for ourselves or for one another. Joe was not a beauty, yet I distinctly remember recalling his appearance was that of an angel of light, for I best remember him in the act of loosening my braces. Whenever the surgeon in charge was absent, we would beg Joe to unlock us for “Just five minutes—just a minute”—and sometimes he would yield, after making us promise solemnly not to tell the doctor. The result recalls the story of the old darky who was seen to hammer his thumb at intervals. When asked why he did it, he replied,

“Kase it feels so good when I stop!”

To keep from thinking of my pain and helplessness, I kept looking about me for something to laugh at, and it was a rare day on which I failed to find it. When there came such a day, I had only to close my eyes and look backward a few months or years; I was sure to recall something funny. Then I would laugh. Some other sufferer would ask what was amusing me, and when I told him he would also laugh, some one would hear him and the story would have to be repeated. Soon the word got about the building that there was a little fellow in one of the rooms who was always laughing to himself, or making others laugh, so all the boys insisted on being “let in on the ground floor”—which in my case was the fourth floor. I made no objection; was there ever a man so modest that he didn’t like listeners when he had anything to say? So it soon became the custom of all the boys who were not absolutely bound to their beds to congregate in my room, which would have comfortably held, not more than a dozen. Yet daily I had fifty or more around me; the earlier comers filled the chairs, later arrivals sprawled or curled on my bed, still later ones sat on the headboard and footboard, the floor accommodated others until it was packed, and the belated ones stowed themselves in the hall, within hearing distance.

’Twas a hard trip for some of them, poor fellows for there were not enough attendants to carry them all, and three flights of stairs are a hard climb for cripples. So, to prevent unnecessary pain while I was outdoors taking the air, I hung a small American flag over the stair rail opposite my door, whenever I was in; this could be seen from any of the lower halls. I learned afterward that it was the custom of royalty and other exalted personages to display a flag when they were “at home,” but this did not frighten me; in memory of those hospital days, I always display a flag at my window when I am able to see my friends.

Boys are as fond as Irishmen of fighting for the mere fun of it, so we got a lot of laughing out of fist fights between some of the patients. The most popular contestants were Gott Dewey from Elmira, N. Y., and a son of Sheriff Wright of Philadelphia. Both were seriously afflicted, though they seemed not to know it. Wright was a cross-eyed paralytic, while Dewey had St. Vitus’s dance and was so badly paralyzed that he had no control over his natural means of locomotion. He could not even talk intelligibly, yet he had an intellect that impressed me deeply, even at that early day. He could cope with the hardest mathematical problem that any could offer; he read much and his taste in literature and everything else was distinct and refined.

Yet, being still a boy, he enjoyed a fight, and as he and Wright were naturally antipathetic by temperament, they were always ready for a set-to. These affairs were entirely harmless, for neither could hit straighter than a girl can throw a stone. The result of their efforts was “the humor of the unexpected,” and it amused us so greatly that we never noticed the pathetic side of it.

These two boys did me the honor to become very fond of me; why they did it, I don’t know, unless because I never did anything in particular for Wright, yet he was always teasing Dewey, who was quite proud and self-reliant, and insisted upon doing everything for himself. That he might serve himself at table, a little elevator was made for his convenience, and I was mischievous enough to disarrange the machinery so that food intended for his mouth should reach his ear. Yet he loved me dearly and dashed at me affectionately though erratically whenever we met. I was unable to get about without crutches, so I frequently fell; if Dewey were in sight, he would hurry to my assistance, with disastrous results to both of us; often Wright would offer assistance at the same time and the two would fall over each other and me and attempt to “fight it out,” while I would become helpless with laughter and the three of us would lie in a heap, until some attendant would separate the warriors and set me on my feet and crutches.

One rule of the Institute was that no patients were to leave the building on Sunday—the day on which the physicians and attendants got most liberty. To enforce this rule there was a doorkeeper named Smith. He was a dwarf, hardly four feet high, who, on Sunday would curl up in a box under his desk and wish he could have a mouthful or more of whiskey, although a little of it would put him sound asleep and leave the door unguarded against any one who cared to go out. How whiskey got into the Institute to be used upon Smith, I don’t know.

I recall a Sunday when we three, Dewey, Wright and I, conceived the idea of going to church. There was a church directly across the street, so we started for it a few moments after throwing a sop of whiskey to our Cerberus. We had several mishaps on the way, due to my friend’s well-meant but misdirected efforts to assist me, but passers-by kindly put us on our feet again. We got into church quite early, and passed up the aisle and entered the front pew, under the very droppings of the sanctuary. Soon after the service began a young lady at our left compelled our attention by eyeing us intently; apparently she thought us the newest thing in “The Three Graces” line. Something moved me to nudge Dewey and tell him to stop flirting with that girl. Apparently he thought I was trying to be funny, for he began laughing in his peculiar laugh, which was a sputter, with which no one familiar with it could help being amused, so Wright laughed too, after which it was impossible for me to keep quiet. We really were reverent little chaps, so we tried hard to suppress ourselves, but—boys will be boys. Suddenly we three exploded as one; we could hear tittering around us, the minister stopped in the middle of an eloquent period, raised his glasses, and I shall never forget his pained expression of astonishment as he caught sight of us for the first time. Suddenly there appeared a platoon of deacons, two of whom attached themselves to each of us, and we were conducted down the aisle, facing an array of hymn-books, behind which the congregation were trying to hide their own laughter. The next day the church sent the Institute a polite but earnest request that no more cripples be allowed to attend service in that church.

After leaving the Institute I lost sight of Dewey, though I never forgot his hearty way of greeting me whenever he met me, a heartiness which caused him to tumble all over me and compel me to put out my arm to save him from falling. Five years ago on reaching a Philadelphia church whose members I had been engaged to “entertain,” the committee of arrangements met me and said they wished to prepare me for the unusual appearance of their chairman. He had endowed the church, they told me, and was almost idolized by the people for his many noble qualities of head and heart, yet he was a paralytic and his visage was shocking at first sight. Suddenly the chairman himself entered the room and I saw my old friend Gott Dewey. At the same instant he recognized me; he dashed at me in his old way; my arm instinctively caught him as it had done hundreds of times before; the committee supposing I was frightened, endeavored to separate us, but we weren’t easy to handle, so there was a close mix up, while, in which, the dear old boy with tears streaming down his cheeks, endeavored to explain that we were fast friends. Then he told me he had read my book “People I’ve Smiled With,” and been so greatly amused by it that he had suggested my engagement to entertain his church people, yet he had never imagined I was the Wilder boy of “The Cripple’s Palace.”

It took him fifteen minutes to say all this and conquer his emotion; then he wanted to go on the platform and tell his people about me and what old friends we were. I realized that if he were to do it, I would never reach the platform myself, so I persuaded him to let me tell them the story. He consented, but insisted on accompanying me, and tearfully confirming every thing I said, so with him beside me, for “local color,” I got along so well that there was not a dry eye in the house. It was an inexpressible relief to me to set everybody laughing afterward, for I never needed a “bracing up” more than on that night.

Dewey had always longed to be a lawyer and I learned that he had succeeded in gratifying this ambition, in spite of his heavy physical handicap: he became so able as a counselor that he gained a large practice and was specially skilful at preparing briefs for his partner to take into court. He was held in high honor for his charitable work and for many years led a successful, useful and happy life; but not long after our unexpected meeting he was complained of as a public nuisance and was actually arrested on this charge. His appearance and manner were really terrifying to people that did not know him, for in trying to avoid collision with passers-by his lack of control often caused him to act as if about to strike. The magistrate, before whom he was arraigned expressed extreme sympathy, but insisted that he keep out of the streets except when in a carriage or when properly attended, and poor Dewey took the affair so deeply to heart, that afterward he kept himself almost secluded from the world.

Mention of Philadelphia almost always suggests graveyards to me, not that the city prides itself on being “well laid-out,” but because I have visited all its cemeteries many times. When I left the Surgical Institute I boarded with a woman whose husband kept a large livery stable. I made friends of the drivers, and, as I was still under treatment and could not get about much, they would kindly give me an airing, whenever they were engaged for funerals, which was almost daily. This often meant an all day trip; my motherly landlady would put up a substantial lunch for me and the drivers granted me special privileges; that is, I was generally taken on the seat of the driver of the carriage which followed the hearse. The one that “carried the criers,” to use the stable parlance. It would not seem a cheerful way of spending a day, but I was always very much alive, and the drivers were as cheerful as if going to a wedding, and, while the ceremony at the grave was in progress, I ate my lunch with the hunger sauce that a long drive always supplies, and in summer I could generally find some flowers in the path to take home to my landlady. Besides, some of the cemeteries were so well kept that they were as sightly as gardens, which reminds me of a story that I once inflicted on the Clover Club of Philadelphia, as follows:

“While dining at my hotel yesterday, I noticed that the water looked muddy, so I complained to the waiter. He admitted that it looked bad, but said it was really very good water.

“‘But,’ I continued, ‘they tell me that the water here passes through a graveyard (Laurel Hill Cemetery) before reaching the people.’

“‘That’s right, sir,’ the waiter replied. ‘But it’s a first-class graveyard; only the best people are buried there.’”

I have traveled much in foreign countries, but Philadelphia is the only place in which I was compelled to beg the protection of the American flag. I had been engaged by Mr. John Wanamaker to “say something” to his great Sunday-school on two consecutive evenings. Being a New Yorker, I did not care to spend the intervening hours in Philadelphia, so after leaving the platform the first evening, I took the ten o’clock train for home. As haste was necessary, I merely changed my evening coat and vest for street clothes. In New York next day, I changed my black trousers for gray, attended to so much business that I had to take a late afternoon train, and did not realize until it was almost time to go on the platform, in a “swallow-tail” coat that I had no black trousers. Worse still my figure was such that I could not be fitted from any clothing store in the city. For a moment my invention was at a standstill, but the people were not, and the hall was filling rapidly. I consulted the committee hastily, and though they were greatly amused by my suggestion, they acted upon it promptly: they moved a table to the centre of the platform, draped it with the stars and stripes, and all the people on the platform arranged themselves, so that I could be unseen as I passed behind them to the table, where only my coat and vest could be seen, the objectionable trousers being hidden by my country’s flag.

Small wonder that I have a merry remembrance of Philadelphia.

VII

MY FIRST TRIP TO LONDON

Large Hopes vs. Small Means.—At the Savage Club.—My First
Engagement.—Within an Ace of Losing It.—Alone in a Crowd.—A
Friendly Face to the Rescue.—The New York Welcome to a Fine
Fellow.—One English Way With Jokes.—People Who are Slow to
Laugh.—Disturbing Elements.—Cold Audiences.—Following a Suicide.

When first I visited London I carried large hopes and a small purse and the latter became so much smaller in the course of time, that I had to live on next to nothing; to be exact, I restricted myself to fifty cents a day. For seventy-five cents a week I had a little room in Tottenham Court Road—a very narrow-minded room indeed, with furnishings to match. Cold, damp weather was the only guest or companion I had, and the room’s carpet served two purposes; it covered the floor by day and the bed at night. From the tiny window there was a long vista of chimney-pots, which, next to an array of ready-made coffins, offer as disquieting a spectacle as a homesick boy can gaze upon. The boy Chatterton came to my mind many times in those days, and although I hoped his fate would not be mine, I nevertheless learned at times how annoying hunger may be when it passes the point of anticipation of “a square meal.”

One treasure did much to sustain me; it was a card, given me by an American friend before I left home, introducing me to the Savage Club, which is similar to the Lotos Club of New York. I had the freedom of the Savage at all times, and was allowed to have my letters addressed there—a privilege which literally “saved my face,” for I would never have dared to pose as an entertainer if my address had been Tottenham Court Road. I had good clothes and I kept a stiff upper lip, so no member of the club knew of my financial straits. I was careful to refrain from forcing myself upon any of the club members who had been so kind as to notice me, yet dinner invitations from some of these good fellows were all that saved my slender bank balance from extinction.

Despite my own economy and the hospitality of others there came a day when Melancholy—with a large M,—threatened to mark me for her own, for my sole assets, excepting my clothing, were six dollars and my return ticket; the latter I could not convert into cash without burning my bridge behind me—and the Atlantic is too wide for a return trip by raft. Just as this crisis had made me as miserable as any man could be, I received the following dispatch from a club member who probably had been present at some of the volunteer entertainments I had given at the Savage.

“What are your terms? Come to-night; No. 5 Princess Gate.”

I quickly wired back: “Will come. Terms ten guineas.”

For the remainder of the day I stayed away from the club, and tormented myself with fears that I had named too high a price, though I had always believed there was wisdom in Emerson’s advice—“Hitch your wagon to a star.” I resolved to go that night to 5 Princess Gate; then, if they had canceled the engagement, I could honestly say I had not received notice.

In the evening I made a careful toilet, using my last bit of clean linen, and took a twopenny ’bus to my destination. The powdered footman who opened the door said he would bring his Lordship’s secretary to see me. The secretary came in, much embarrassed, and said he had wired me that other arrangements had been made.

“I have been so busy all day,” I replied, “that I’ve not called at the club; consequently I did not get your message. What was the trouble?—my terms?”

“We have engaged a different entertainer,” he replied evasively.

“But, you see,” I said, with my heart in my mouth, which had need of something more edible, “your telegram this morning told me to come, so my evening is lost. As I am here, suppose I go up and do what I can. As to my fee—oh, I’m quite willing to leave that to his lordship.”

Just then I heard his lordship’s voice saying, “Come in, Mr. Wilder.” He seemed to have grasped the situation, and with the tact and courtesy which is never lacking in English gentlemen, he quickly made me feel entirely at ease. He also offered me refreshments, and as I had not dined, I gladly accepted. That I might not be alone at table, he kindly waited with me. I told him many stories, hoping he would not notice my appetite, but I noticed it myself so persistently that I felt that his every glance said distinctly:

“You poor little devil, how hungry you are!”

But I persisted; I was conscious of a need to be well fortified, for I had heard all sorts of stories about entertaining at social functions in England—stories of arrays of old ladies in low-necked gowns displaying more bones than beauty,—of a subdued patter of gloved hands in place of real applause—of “the stony British stare,” which, really, is never encountered in society, so I felt like a soldier about to face fearful odds. I was so wrought upon by my fears that when I did appear it seemed to me that there was not in that great drawing-room a single sympathetic face at which I might play; all appeared to wear an expression which said:

“Now, then;—make us laugh if you can.”

I began to feel as if I was looking into the rear end of an ice wagon, but suddenly my eye found a man’s face which filled me with courage—a face full of kindness, humor and sympathy. It seemed to say:

“My poor boy, you’re in hard luck, and I’m going to give you all the help I can. If there’s an excuse for a laugh, you’re going to get it.”

My heart swelled and went out to him; although I had much to think of at the moment, business being business and I about to put my wedge into it for the first time in an English drawing-room, I mentally vowed that if ever I met that man again he should know what a tower of strength he had been to me. I “spread myself,” I “laid myself out,” and was told afterward that I had succeeded. My own view-point of success was reached next morning, when I received his lordship’s check.

Several weeks afterward, at a dinner given to Henry Irving, I saw again the kind face that had been a world of encouragement to me. At the earliest possible opportunity I went over to him and said:

“I want to thank you for helping me at a very trying moment.”

Through forgetfulness or modesty he appeared not to remember the affair, so I detailed the circumstance to him. He expressed delight at having been of any service to me, and confessed that he was a fellow professional, and could therefore imagine my feelings when first face to face with an English audience. I asked him what he was doing; he replied that he was at the Princess Theatre with Mr. Wilson Barrett. I begged him to let me knew his whereabouts whenever he came to the United States, so that I might renew my expressions of gratitude and be of any possible service to him. He promised, but just as I was taking leave of him it occurred to me that I did not even know his name, so I asked for it. He replied:

“My name is Willard—Edward S. Willard.”

We became quite close friends in the course of years, although Mr. Willard did not come to America until 1891. Soon after his arrival I gave a breakfast at Delmonico’s in his honor and ransacked the city and vicinity for fine fellows to meet him. Among the guests were Gen. W. T. Sherman, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, George W. Childs, editor of the Philadelphia _Ledger_; Whitelaw Reid, editor-in-chief of the New York _Tribune_; Hugh J. Grant, Mayor of New York; Chauncey M. Depew, president of the New York Central Railway Company and his secretary Captain Henry Du Val; Hon. Daniel Dougherty, the most brilliant member of the Philadelphia bar; theatre managers Augustin Daly, A. M. Palmer, Frank Sanger, Henry E. Abbey, and Daniel Frohman; Joseph I. C. Clarke, editor of the _Morning Journal_; Foster Coates, editor of the _Mail and Express_; St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn _Union_; J. M. Stoddart, manager of _Lippincott’s Magazine_; Chester A. Lord, managing editor of the New York _Sun_; Bradford Merrill, managing editor of the New York _World_; Arthur Bowers managing editor of New York _Tribune_; Joseph Howard, Jr., America’s most noted newspaper correspondent; Col. T. P. Ochiltree, the world’s most effective impromptu story teller; John Russell Young, editor, librarian of the congressional library and ex-minister to China; Major Moses P. Handy, journalist, club president and United States Commissioner to the Paris exposition; William Edgar Nye (Bill Nye, the humorist); Sam Sothern, brother of E. H. Sothern the actor; W. J. Arkell, manager of _Puck_ and _Leslie’s Weekly_; Harrison Gray Fiske, editor _Dramatic Mirror_; Col. W. F. Cody (“Buffalo Bill”); W. J. Florence, the comedian, Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville _Courier-Journal_ and also the most quoted editor in America, and Joseph Hatton the noted English author.

Toward the end of the breakfast I said:

“Gentlemen, I should like to tell you the story of a poor boy and an actor and the kindness the actor showed the poor boy.” I then related, in the third person, the story of my first evening as an entertainer in London, and concluded with:

“Gentleman, I am that poor boy, and the actor, whose kindness I can never forget, is our guest, Mr. Edward S. Willard.” And straightway the entire company rose and let Willard know what they thought of that sort of chap.

After I had broken the ice in London by Mr. Willard’s aid, as already described, I got along quite swimmingly, and felt so at ease that I imagined I never could find myself unable to capture whatever audience I might face. But there is no accounting for audiences; occasionally they take an entertainer right to their hearts, read his stories in his face and have their applause ready for us the instant the point appears. A day or two later the entertainer may appear before a lot of men and women of intelligent appearance without eliciting a smile. These unaccountable differences are not peculiar to either England or America. Every summer when I revisit England, some old acquaintance is sure to say, “Mr. Wilder, those stories you told last year are awfully funny.” It has really taken him about a year to get at the points of the various tales; he doesn’t lack appreciation of humor, but he is so accustomed to having it served in only one way that he is puzzled when it appears in a new form. One day I told an English audience about New York’s fire department and its methods; great interest was manifested, so I ventured to tell the old story of a fire in an India rubber factory. This factory was a large, tall building, and when the alarm of fire was given one of the employees found himself on the top floor, with burning stairs under him. His only chance was to jump, but the pavement was so far below his windows that death seemed inevitable. Suddenly he bethought himself of the elastic properties of rubber, of which the room was full; could he envelop himself with it he might jump and strike the sidewalk softly! So he donned rubber coats, belts, diving suits and everything else he could find, until he made the serious mistake of putting on too much, for when he jumped he rebounded from the pavement again and again and continued to do so, for five days, when a merciful police officer came along and shot the poor fellow to save him from starving to death.

About half an hour after I told this veracious story one of my audience came to me and asked:

“Mr. Wilder, do you think that police officer was justified?”

He was no worse than the person, to be found in both England and America, who sees a joke so slowly that his laugh comes in when there is nothing to laugh at. I recall a woman of this kind whose belated laugh was so immense when it did arrive that I stopped and said:

“Madam, if you will kindly keep that laugh till a little later, it will do me lots of good.”

Some people who have been of my audience meet me afterward and proceed to “take the gilt off of the gingerbread” in an amusing fashion—if I am sensible enough to take it that way. Once I encountered one of the blundering old chaps who mean well, yet invariably make a break and he said:

“Mr. Wilder, there was one very good thing among those stories you told.”

I was disconcerted for a moment, but recovering myself I said:

“Well, that’s better than missing the point of all of them.”

At one of my private entertainments I was “making good” and was keeping my audience in continuous merriment, but my hostess begged me to cease making them laugh and say something sad and pathetic, so that they might catch their breath and rest their aching sides.

“My dear madam,” I replied, “I am never sad or pathetic—I mean, not intentionally.”

With a properly developed sense of humor one can sometimes bring a laugh out of disconcerting surroundings. While I was talking to an audience at Flint, Mich., one night, the lights suddenly went out but I succeeded in saying:

“That’s too bad. Now I’m afraid you won’t be able to see through my jokes.”

One evening in the course of an engagement I was playing at the Orpheum in Brooklyn; one of the boxes was occupied by a quartette who had evidently been drinking “not wisely, but too well.” They were giving the audience the benefit of their conversation and even sharing the honors of the entertainment with the ladies and gentlemen on the bill, much to the annoyance of these, for the disturbance was interfering seriously with good work. I had been watching from the wings and determined I would not submit to such distraction, so when I went on I said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is an oft-repeated remark that it takes all kinds of people to make a world. Some people in an audience are so sensitive that they are affected by any unusual conditions or surroundings. For instance, if they find themselves among ladies and gentlemen they are so elated by the fact that their conduct has every appearance of intoxication—but it really is not intoxication, though it may look that way.” My performance, which followed immediately, was not disturbed, nor was that of any one who followed me.

Every entertainer knows what terrible up-hill work it is to stand before a cold audience. Cold that affects the body is bliss in comparison with the awful atmosphere that creeps chillingly into one’s soul and the very marrow of his bones. How an audience can get into such a condition and become so appalling an influence passes comprehension, for not all the men and women present can have become dyspeptic on the same day, or had their consciences awakened at the same hour, or simultaneously “gone broke” or seen themselves as others saw them. Sometimes I’ve thought it came of the actual atmosphere of the house, for there are theatres, halls, churches and parlors that are never properly aired unless hailstorms or hoodlums chance to break the windows.

But all such speculation is getting away from the audience, whereas that is the one thing the entertainer daren’t do, much though he may wish to. He is “stuck” for a given period, and he is reminded of trying to climb slippery mountains of ice in the fairy tales of childhood’s sunny hour, and the parallel continues, for the chill—the reserve, is more often melted by some happy impromptu than by conscientious work.

I recall a time in Pittsburg when I struck the afore-mentioned Polar current through no fault of my own or of the audience. It was the custom of the house to begin the evening with a play and follow with a vaudeville performance. The play on the occasion referred to was “Captain Swift,” in which the hero was a charming rascal who always took an audience by the heart, even when he ended the play by killing himself. It was my misfortune to follow the play and find the audience in a very low state of mind which, in turn, threw a wet blanket upon me and my work. After laboring a few minutes I said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve often followed a prayer, and sometimes followed a hearse, but this is the first time I ever followed a suicide.” This touch just tipped the balance—lifted the cloud, squeezed the water out of the blanket, made the audience mine and kept it so while I held the stage.