Chapter XXVII: Some First Experiences 348 (3)

At the Orpheum in San Francisco I was received so kindly that my stay was extended to three weeks. San Francisco audiences are very responsive, except on Sunday evenings; then, for some Frisco reason undiscoverable by the eastern man, they are usually cold and the entertainer has to cut ice. On my last Sunday evening there a section of Greenland’s Icy Mountains seemed to have come in collision with a cold-storage warehouse just before I appeared, for the audience was as unresponsive as a cart load of frozen clams. I worked over them a few moments as earnestly as a life-saver over a person rescued from drowning, but to no avail, so I stopped and said:

“Now I’ve got you nice and quiet, just have a good long sleep while I go out and leave a call for you.” Then I tiptoed off of the stage so as not to rouse the sleepers. This started a current of warm good nature; they called me back and for the rest of the performance there was perfect understanding and sympathy between them and me.

VIII

EXPERIENCES IN LONDON

Customs and Climate Very Unlike Our Own.—No Laughter in
Restaurants.—Clever Cabbies.—Oddities in Fire-fighting.—The
“Rogues’ Gallery” in Scotland Yard.—“Petticoat Lane.”—A
Cemetery for Pet Dogs.—Dogs Who are Characters.—The
Professional Toast-master.—Solemn After-dinner Speakers.—An
Autograph Table-cloth.—American Brides of English Husbands.

So many London customs seem strange to an American that I venture to mention a few experiences of my own by way of preparation, for no American knows when he may be nominated for the presidency or get a chance to go to Europe.

The first thing to impress a person from this side of the Atlantic is the climate, which is generally depressing to any one accustomed to the dazzling sunshine, brilliant skies and champagne quality of our atmosphere. Everything seems heavy and solemn by comparison, and life appears to be a serious matter to all whom one meets, although the truth is that the English enjoy life heartily and give ten times as much attention to sports and amusements as we do.

I went one day into a restaurant where a great many people were dining, yet absolute silence prevailed, instead of the buzz of chatter and laughter of a French or American restaurant. I asked a waiter,

“Doesn’t any one ever laugh here?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Sometimes we ’ave complaints, sir.”

But there is so much of interest in even the ordinary street sights that a visitor soon forgets smoke, dampness and gloom. The first natives to accost an American are the “cabbies,” and they are a never-failing source of amusement to me. They abound in natural wit, and are past-masters of sarcasm. One of the sharpest bits I ever heard was told about an old cabby and one of his younger fellows. The former was a master of whip and rein; he boasted that he knew every foot of London and declared that although he had been in many tight places he had never failed to drive out smoothly. One day, however, he lost control of his horse and ran into a young cabby’s outfit. The younger man looked him over condescendingly, contemptuously, and then asked,

“Well? An’ ’ow do _you_ like London?”

A friend of mine once took a cab drawn by an animal which was bony in the extreme. The driver was hailed by the Jehu of a passing cab with,

“Oi saiy, Bill, I see yer goin’ to ’ave a new ’orse.”

“’Oo told yer so?”

“W’y, I see y’ve got the framework there.”

Not all the quick-tongued cabbies are professionals. At one time it was a fad of young “bloods” in London to drive cabs, apparently for the purpose of enriching their slang vocabulary by exchanging remarks with “regulars” whom they could provoke into freedom of speech. Sometimes decently born and fairly educated young men from the rural districts, who have handled horses at home and know no one in London whom they would be ashamed to face from a driver’s seat, try cab-driving as a business. They can hire a horse and cab for five shillings a day; London fares are small and some days they are few, but many men “tip” the drivers, especially those who say smart things that appear to be impromptu, so amateur cabbies sometimes make much more than a living.

London’s fire-fighting service interests an American by its differences from our own. The fire-plugs do not resemble old-fashioned cannon, turned upside down, as ours do; they are so unnoticeable that their whereabouts must be indicated by lamp-post signs like this:—“Fire-plug four feet to the right and three feet to the rear.” Instead of using whistles, the London engines have a string of sleigh-bells on one of the horses, and by way of further warning the men on the engine keep up a constant shout of “Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!” The engines do not respond as quickly to an alarm as ours; it generally takes them two minutes to get under way, though the firemen are a “fit” looking lot. I was told they were selected entirely from ex-sailors of the naval service. To assist the engines’ crews there are many auxiliaries, who sleep and almost live in small red houses on wheels; these portable houses are numerous in the more thickly populated portions of the city, where fires are most likely to occur and extra firemen be needed.

At convenient corners are kept, also on wheels, the portable fire-escapes:—mere shafts or chutes of canvas on wooden framework. In case of fire in the upper part of an inhabited building, the top of the escape is pushed to a window, and the inmates are expected to save themselves by going head first down the inclined chute, clinging to the framework of the sides to keep from descending too rapidly. Of course in a city of lofty apartment houses and “sky-scraper” office buildings such a contrivance would be almost useless, but in London a house of more than three stories is a rarity. “Running to fires” is as popular with some Londoners as it was in New York before fire alarms reached the dozen-a-day mark. The Duke of Sutherland enjoyed attending fires; he would have his private carriage follow the engines, and frequently he was accompanied by the Prince of Wales.

Scotland Yard, mentioned in every English detective story, is an interesting place to visit; it is the London equivalent of our Police Department’s “Central Office.” I was shown a “Rogues’ Gallery” there which was quite as large and appalling as our own. In photographing a criminal the London police make assurance doubly sure by placing a mirror to catch his profile, which is taken, with his front face, by a single snap. To be still more thorough they have the sitters spread his hands on his chest, for hands, being hard to disguise, are useful tell-tales. Thumb impressions complete a record which the criminal regards with far more discomfort than his evil deeds ever give him.

Petticoat Lane is not a section of the police department, though the officials wish it might be, for as it is a recognized “stand” of hucksters, the thieves flock there to sell their ill-gotten wares, so one may see “Fagins” and “Artful Dodgers” in plenty. Their best customers are men of their own kind—thieves with enough business sense to know where certain kinds of stolen property can be resold to advantage. Jewelry is the principal stock-in-trade, and it is carried in small boxes, resembling cigar-boxes, hung from the neck. When the coast is clear of policemen, the thieves lift the lid long enough for a peep at the contents. I was piloted through “the lane” by a special officer from Scotland Yard and in an underground passage we came upon a score or more of the light-fingered gentry. Unfortunately the officer was recognized, word was passed down the line, everything that might have aroused suspicion was secreted and the entire crowd gazed at us with an affected innocence which was transparent enough to be laughable.

The legitimate trades in Petticoat Lane are more interesting to an American, for they have some business ways which are amusing—even startling. An orange-dealer will drop his fruit in hot water once in a while; this makes it swell to almost twice its natural size and look smooth and glossy. The next wagon to the orange man may be full of second-hand clothing; the dealer will not allow a would-be purchaser to “try on” a coat or vest, for fear he may run away with it, but he will put the garment on his own wife for inspection; the result is often a picture funny enough to print. Theatrical people often go there for costumes for “character” parts; apparently some kinds of English clothing last forever, for in Petticoat Lane may be seen fabrics and fashions and trimmings that look antiquated enough to have come over with William the Conqueror. Some of the hucksters’ carts are decorated with suggestive signs, such as, “Oh, mother, how cheap these eggs are!”

In a corner of Hyde Park I chanced to see a little graveyard; everything about it was little. The mounds were small, the headstones tiny, and little children were decorating the graves with flowers. On inquiry I learned that it was a dogs’ cemetery, but instead of laughing I was touched by the mental picture of heavy-hearted boys and girls going there with floral tributes to departed playfellows. A little girl who was passing noted that one grave was bare, and I heard her say to her nurse:

“That must have been a bad doggie buried there.”

“Why?” the nurse inquired.

“Because he has no flowers on his grave.”

Almost every part of London has its homely “character.” Near St. Martin’s Lane, off Charing Cross, can be seen every day a blind sailor who sits knitting small fishing-nets. In front of him sits his Irish terrier with a cup in his mouth, and passers-by amuse themselves by throwing pennies for the dog to catch in his cup, as he always does. When he has caught several he empties the cup into his owner’s hand and returns to business at the old stand. This goes on till evening, when the dog guides his owner home through the crowded streets.

One interesting London dog is called Nelson, because he accidentally lost a leg at the base of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square. He makes his home in Seven Dials, where he begs for a living, and gets many pennies from his admirers. Instead of giving the money to any one he hides it; whenever he is hungry he goes to his treasury, gets a coin and takes it to a butcher or baker; he knows, too, how much he should get in return and he will not leave the shop till he has received full value for his money.

The professional toast-master is a London institution that America has not adopted. His services are required at the cost of a sovereign, at every public dinner, and his qualifications are pomposity and a loud, deep, resonant voice. Around his neck he wears a big silver chain from which hangs a silver plate inscribed T. M., and when he exclaims, “We will drink a bumper to ’Is Gracious Majesty the King,” it is with a voice that suggests an earthquake announcing its exit from the bowels of the earth. After the presiding officer has indulged in the usually introductory and airy persiflage, it is the duty of the T. M. to introduce the speaker, which he does with a sweep of his arm that is expected to subdue any noisy applause by the guests.

English after-dinner speakers have little or no humor, but they are extremely earnest in their remarks. They incline more to argument than amusement. Occasionally one will indulge in a pun which has the sanctity of long usage—a pun that an American could not get off without a blush, and a turn of his face to the wall, but the hearers like it, so no one else should complain. The English recognize and admit the American’s superiority as an after-dinner speaker. I heard Mr. Beerbohm Tree say, in the course of a speech at the Clover Club (Philadelphia),

“Englishmen can handle horses and Americans their tongues.”

But there are exceptions to every rule, even regarding dinners and after-dinner speaking. London contains some men as clever and witty as any in the world, and when these fine fellows dine together there is no formality about the board nor any heavy talk.

Mr. Henry Lucy, who has been called the “Mark Twain of England,” recently visited this country with Mrs. Lucy, renewing old friendships and forming new ones. The Lucys give delightful dinners at their home in Ashley Gardens, Victoria Street, as I have often had occasion to know, and the guests they gather about them would be welcomed by the cleverest men and women anywhere. For special occasions the Lucys use a table-cloth profusely ornamented with the autographs of many brilliant men who have dined with them, for it is only as a guest that one may write his name on this sacred bit of linen. Many of the names are household words in America, one of which held my eye for an entire evening; it was that of Charles Dickens. It was over the Lucy table that Burnand, editor of _Punch_, and W. S. Gilbert had their oft-quoted encounter:

“I suppose you often have good things sent in by outsiders?” said Gilbert.

“Frequently,” Burnand replied.

“Then why don’t you print them?”

A question frequently asked of late is whether the marriages of American girls to English husbands result happily. My own observation has satisfied me that they generally do. English girls are educated to be good housewives and mothers, but their childhood and early girlhood is usually spent in the nursery, without much association with adults, so when they are thrust into society they are likely to be shy, if not awkward, and have little or nothing to say. But the American girl is “one of the family” from her infancy; she is as much a companion of her father as her brother is, and she knows her brother’s friends as well as those of her elder sister. She acquires quickness of thought and speech, vivacity and cleverness, and can be companionable without overstepping the bounds of strict propriety.

If an English gentleman longs for a wife who will also be his “chum,” who will enjoy his sports with him and be a jolly good fellow, which is only another name for companion—who is competent to amuse and entertain, he cannot easily find her in England except in a class which would preclude his offering her his name, but if he is so lucky as to marry an American girl he has not only a model wife and housekeeper but a companion as well.

Just one more mention of London, for the sake of that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Down by the East India dock is a hospital on the wall of which appears the following request, “Will drivers please walk their horses?” Although heavy traffic passes the building, much noise is avoided if horses are not urged beyond a walk. The drivers are a rather rough lot, like drivers anywhere, but they carefully comply with the request; their knowledge of what it means is more effective than a platoon of police could be. The gratitude of the hospital authorities and patients is expressed by an inscription at the other end of the building—“Thank you, drivers.”

“We cannot chain the eagle;
And we dare not chain the dove;
But every gate that’s barred by hate
Is opened wide by love.”

IX

“LUCK” IN STORY-TELLING

The Real Difference Between Good Luck and Bad.—Good Luck with
Stories Presupposes a Well-stored Memory.—Men Who Always Have
the Right Story Ready.—Mr. Depew.—Bandmaster Sousa’s Darky
Stories.—John Wanamaker’s Sunday-school Stories.—Gen. Horace
Porter’s Tales That go to the Spot.—The Difference Between
Parliament and Congress.

The difference between good luck and bad luck amounts generally to the difference between the men who are said to have the one or the other. Some men are always waiting for something to turn up: others make sure of it by taking something—anything—from a spade to their wits, and digging it up. Anywhere in the country one may see holding down chairs in the store, or in the city lounging at tables in bar-rooms, a knot of men who were born with average brains, yet they will drone dismally of successful men whom they know or have heard of:

“Smith became a preacher at twelve thousand a year.”

“Jones dropped into a Supreme Court Judgeship.”

“Brown stumbled on a business chance that made him a millionaire.”

“Well, there’s nothing like luck”—and they go on sitting still waiting for it, and can’t imagine why it never comes their way. I once chanced to mention Chauncey Depew’s name in the hearing of a crowd of this kind, and a voice replied:

“There’s a lucky man for you! Why, whenever he hears of anything, it is just his luck to have a story that goes to the spot as quick as a bullet from a gun.”

This sort of “luck,” like the other instances referred to, is the inevitable outcome of the man and his ways. There are jokes for every situation, as there are keys for every lock; but the man who lets a good joke go in one ear and out of the other is like him who puts his keys into a pocket with a hole in it, and then grumbles that he can’t unlock his doors. Jokes are like dollars: when you have some that are not needed at the time, it is better to stow them away for future use than to drop them where they can’t be found in case of need.

I can recall from my own experience but one case of sheer luck in story-telling. While dining at an Englishman’s magnificent place one summer, some peaches were served. As the English climate is too cool to ripen peaches, these had been grown on the side of a wall and under glass. They were superb in size and color yet they had small stones and little flavor. When my host told me of the care that had been lavished on them—they must have cost him a dollar each—my mind went back to the peach season at home, so I said to him:

“Peaches that would make your mouth water and send tears of joy chasing one another down your cheeks are to-day piled high on barges beside the wharves of New York and selling at a dollar a basket, with from one to two hundred peaches in each basket.”

I made this truthful statement in a matter-of-fact way, which was all it called for; but my host looked at me in amazement, then laughed heartily and said:

“Well, you Americans have always been remarkable for the stories you tell.”

To revert to Mr. Depew, he can tell a new story every day of the year, and add two or three by way of good measure; but their newness is generally in the patness of their application. He is so able at this sort of thing that he can turn a story against the man who tells it. But he confesses gleefully to having been caught once in the same manner. He was billed to make a speech somewhere up the state, and when he arrived the editor of the local paper called at his hotel to argue politics with him. The editor quoted newspaper statements frequently to support his arguments, but Depew replied:

“Oh, you can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”

After the speech-making ended, the editor and Mr. Depew met again, in the centre of a crowd of listeners.

“Well, my friend,” the genial Chauncey asked, “what did you think of my speech?”

The editor hesitated a moment before he inquired solemnly: “Are you the genuine Chauncey M. Depew?”

“Certainly! Do you doubt it?”

Again the editor hesitated. He regarded the speaker as if he was sizing him up, and asked: “Are you the man all the newspapers have been saying is the finest speaker, the greatest talker, the sharpest stumper and the brightest wit before the public?”

Depew modestly blushed at this array of compliments; but replied: “I guess I am he. But why do you ask?”

“Oh, because one can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”

And Depew made haste to shake hands with the editor and call it square.

Mr. Depew’s humorous speeches read so well that nobody misses one of them if he can help it; but it is impossible for cold type to suggest the inimitable manner with which they are given. A mature maiden woman once called upon him at an hour when his time was worth about a dollar a second and asked his advice about buying a certain bit of real estate. He evasively answered that there were two things of which he knew absolutely nothing: they were women and real estate.

This amused her so greatly that she lingered instead of going away, and to prolong her stay she asked about a mutual acquaintance: “Where is Mr. Blank, Mr. Depew?”

“He is still in the city.”

“Does he stammer as much as he did?”

“Oh, yes; worse, I believe.”

“Strange he never married.”

“No, it was not strange, my dear madam. Blank courted a lovely girl—he told me of it years afterward—and this is the way he proposed.” Then Mr. Depew looked soulfully at his visitor and stammered: “‘D-d-d-dear a-a-angel, I l-l-l-love y-y-you!’ And the woman replied: ‘You need not proceed further, Mr. Blank. I do not care to be wooed on the instalment plan.’” But the visitor had fled too rapidly to get the benefit of the joke.

Bandmaster Sousa is one of the “lucky” story-tellers, for he can always cap an improbable story with a bigger one. After listening to an extraordinary yarn about some man’s appetite, and another about unquestioning confidence in another man’s directions, he “covered” both with the following, which he attributed to a Southern negro:

“Down on our fahm we’ze got a man by de name o’ Jim. Now, Jim’s de champion ham-eater of all de country roun. Unc’ Henry hed cha’ge o’ de fahm, an’ ev’ybody ’spected Unc’ Henry, an’ when Unc’ Henry tol’ any of us to do anythin’ we jus’ done it, ’ithout stoppin’ to ask any questions, ’cause we had conf’dence in him. We knowed he wouldn’t ever tell us to do anythin’ dat we hadn’t orter.

“But dat Jim—w’y, folks come f’om all de country roun’, jes’ to see Jim eat ham, fo’ de way he could tuck ham away was amazin’; it suttinly was. How you would laugh to see Jim a-settin’ by de fence one day, a-eatin’ one ham after another, like ez ef dey was cakes or biscuits! ’Twas ’ez easy to him as pickin’ teeth, an’ he’d got down eight hams, an’ de ninth was a follerin’, but I reckon it wuz f’om a middlin’ old hawg, for some gris’le got in his throat, an’ choked him an’ stopped his breath, so we wuz a-feared dat we wuz a-goin’ to lose Jim.

“But up got Unc’ Henry sort o’ easy-like, an’ he went over to de fence—dey was a lot o’ slabs on top o’ de fence—and he tuk a slab, an’ he walk t’ward Jim, an’ he sez: ‘Jim, git down on all fours!’ Dat slab looked mighty big, it did, an’ right in front o’ Jim was a big pile o’ stones; but Jim had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry, like ev’ybody did, so he got down on all fours an’ waited, an’ de gris’le in his throat, why, dat waited too. An’ Unc’ Henry pahted Jim’s coat-tails, an’ histed de slab, an’ fetched it down wid a mighty swish, an’ give Jim a hit, an’ Jim went head first onto dat pile o’ stones; but he had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry so he knowed he wouldn’t be knocked through de stones, but would stop ez soon ez he hit ’em—his conf’dence in Unc’ Henry was dat great. An’ when he struck dem stones dat piece o’ gris’le ’lowed it had bizness somewhar else. An’ Jim riz up an’ hollered ‘Gimme anudder ham!’”

It will amaze millions of John Wanamaker’s customers to know that the man who is so busy that they can never get a glimpse of him unless they attend his church is an industrious teller of stories and always has the “luck”—though that is not his name for it—to have the right story for any situation. That most of his yarns are spun in Sunday-school does not make them any the less good. I wish Sunday-school teachers had told stories when I was a boy, and I will bet Bibles to buttons that if teachers were practically instructed in story-telling, all the Sunday-school rooms would have to be enlarged to hold the increase of attendants.

But I was speaking of John Wanamaker. While reproving some of his Sunday-school pupils for laughing at a deaf boy’s wrong answers to misunderstood questions, he said:

“Boys, it isn’t right to laugh at any one’s affliction. Besides, you never know when your own words may be turned against you. I once knew a deaf man—let us call him Brown—who was disposed to stinginess and to getting every dollar he could out of everybody and everything. He never married; but he was very fond of society, so one day he felt compelled to give a banquet to the many ladies and gentlemen whose guest he had been.

“They were amazed that his purse-strings had been unloosed so far, and they thought he deserved encouragement, so it was arranged that he should be toasted. One of the most daring young men of the company was selected, for it took a lot of nerve to frame and propose a toast to so unpopular a man as Miser Brown. But the young man rose, and Brown, who had been notified of what was to occur, fixed his face in the customary manner of a man about to be toasted. And this was what was heard by every one except Brown, who never heard anything that was not roared into his ear:

“‘Here’s to you, Miser Brown. You are no better than a tramp, and it is suspected that you got most of your money dishonestly. We trust that you may get your just deserts yet, and land in the penitentiary.’

“Visible evidences of applause made Brown smile with gratification. He got upon his feet, raised his glass to his lips, and said: ‘The same to you, sir.’”

General Horace Porter is another of the men whose stories always fit. It is said that he accepted the post of American Ambassador to France for the sole purpose of taking a rest from making after-dinner speeches. He can even use a pun in a manner to compel admiration, in which respect he differs from almost every one. On one occasion he said:

“New England speakers have said that the Puritans were always missionaries among the people with whom they came in contact. I saw recently a newspaper paragraph that indicated the disposition of the Puritan to busy himself with the great hereafter, and to get as close to it as possible. The paragraph announced that the _Puritan_ had collided in Hell Gate. (The Puritan last-named was a steamboat.)

“But when the wooden Puritan—the New Englander, gets a man on the perilous edge, so that one or other must topple over into the pit, he takes care that he shall not be the unfortunate. He is as cautious in this respect as was the night-cab driver in front of a house where there had been a bibulous dinner party. A man emerged from the house, staggered across the sidewalk, laying out more zigzags than did our patriot sires at the siege of Yorktown, opened the door of the cab and threw himself on the seat.

“The driver asked: ‘Where will I go, sor?’

“‘To hell!’ was the unexpected reply.

“The cabby drove about for some moments to take a think, for though he had heard of many sure roads to the torrid destination mentioned he was not ‘up’ on the conveniences at the entrance, and he didn’t want to scorch the paint on his cab. Soon he asked again: ‘Where am I to take you, sor?’

“‘To hell,’ was again the reply. Cabby scratched his head, studied the situation, and asked: ‘Beg pardon, sor, but can I back up when I land you?’”

To an interviewer who expected to get a good article on the difference between the English Parliament and our Congress (this was at a time when many Congressmen were tobacco-chewers) he said:

“In Parliament the men sit with their hats on and cough; in Congress they sit with their hats off and spit.”

X

JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS

Not All Journalists are Critics, nor are All Critics
Fault-finders.—The Most Savage Newspapers not the Most
Influential.—The Critic’s Duty.—Horace Greeley.—Mark Twain’s
First Earnings.—A Great Publisher “Approached” by Green
Goods Men.—Henry Watterson.—Opie Reid.—Quimby of the _Free
Press_.—Laurence Hutton, Edwin Booth and I in Danger Together.

When you say “journalist” to a man of my profession—or of any other that devotes its time and wits to the task of amusing and entertaining people, it is taken for granted that you mean “critic,” and that “critic” in turn means faultfinder. This is extremely unfair to journalists in general and to critics in particular, for not all journalists are critics, nor all critics faultfinders. Run over the names of all the critics you’ve heard of here or in London or Paris—critics, dramatic, musical and literary, and you will discover, to your surprise, that those who are best known and have most influence, are those who are quickest to praise and slowest to find fault.

As a proof of it, and how it strikes the men and women most concerned, both in pocket and pride, is the following:—almost every new play, concert and entertainment of any kind tries to give its first real performance in New York. It may endeavor to get some money out of the later rehearsals by giving a few performances out of town:—“Trying it on the dog” is the name for this sort of thing, but New York is trusted to set the pace, and this is what follows;—on the day on which New York newspapers containing a report of the performance reaches any city or town where the same attraction has been booked conditionally, or where managers or entertainment committees have heard enough in advance about it to want to hear more, there is a run on news-stands for certain New York papers. I won’t indicate them closer than to say that they are not those sheets which support the brilliant chaps who skilfully ride hobbies of their own, or who are most skilled at vivisecting and eviscerating a playwright and splitting each particular hair of an actor, singer or entertainer. The papers for which there is general demand are those which tell whether the performance was good of its kind, specify the kind and tell how the audience regarded it. At the end of the third act of a new play in New York a noted critic was buttonholed in the lobby by a club-man who had a friend in the cast and asked for his opinion.

“It’s a success—a great success,” was the reply.

“Good! I’m so glad you like it.”

“Like it? My dear fellow, I never was worse bored in my life. I’d rather have heard ‘Julius Cæsar’ done by a lot of high school boys. But that has nothing to do with it. If pieces were written and played for me and my kind, they’d have to charge ten dollars a ticket to get money enough to pay for the gas and music. Plays are made for audiences; this audience likes this play—likes it immensely, so other audiences will like it too, and if I don’t say so in our newspaper to-morrow morning I deserve to be bounced and have this week’s salary docked.”

Of course it is a critic’s business to see defects and call attention to them. When he does so he confers a favor upon the performer, who generally is so absorbed in what he is doing that he doesn’t know what he is leaving undone or doing badly. But the faults of stage or platform can’t be remedied with a sledge-hammer or a double bladed dagger—not ever if you give the dagger a turn or two after you have jabbed it in. A prominent critic said to me:

“I don’t criticise a play according to my own feelings and tastes. Although I’ve a very good opinion of my own personal standard of judgment, I don’t believe the people collectively would give a snap of the finger for it. I simply try to ascertain the opinion of the audience and express it for the benefit of the people of whom audiences are made. I greatly dislike ⸺ and ⸺ (mentioning a popular actor and actress) but who cares? It would not be fair to try to impress my dislikes upon others, unless I chance upon some one who takes the stage seriously, and there are only two classes who do this—conceited critics, and actors who don’t get their pay. Fortunately I know very few professional people; if I knew more I would become insane through trying to dissociate their personality from their work. It is bad to know too much about anybody or anything, if you don’t want to throw the world out of joint. Except in matters of morals and manners, ‘where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’ Did you ever hear how Horace Greeley once got cold feet? A friend—one of the wise, observant, upsetting kind of friends called on Greeley, one cold winter day, and found the great journalist with a favorite book in his hand, a beatific smile on his face and his feet over the register. The visitor had previously been through the building and learned that the furnace had gone wrong and been removed, the cold air flue could not be closed, and zero air was coming through all the registers, so he said:

“‘Mr. Greeley, why do you keep your feet there? There is no heat—only cold air is coming up!’

“Greeley tumbled out of his chair and in the childish whine that always came to him when he was excited, replied,

“‘Why didn’t you let me alone? I was entirely comfortable; but now, I’m near you, I’m frozen.’”

Mention of Greeley, who was too busy a man to think of being a humorist, yet was one in spite of himself, recalls one of Mr. Depew’s stories about him. A man who was in search of financial aid for some evangelistic work got into Mr. Greeley’s sanctum one day, and found the great editor writing, with his head held sideways and close to the desk, like a schoolboy, as was his custom. He waved his hand, to signify that the man should go away, but Greeley had the reputation of being an easy-mark, financially, and the visitor’s mind was fixed on business, so he asked,

“Mr. Greeley, how much will you give to prevent your fellow men from going to hell?”

“Not a damn cent!” was the reply, as the great editor went on writing. “Not enough of them go there now. I could name hundreds who ought to have been there long ago——” all this in a whining drawl that carried conviction with it.

Speaking of drawls, I wish all my readers could have heard Mark Twain’s voice as he told me a tale of juvenile woe. I had asked him if he could remember the first money he had ever earned.

“Yes,” he said. “It was at school. All boys had the habit of going to school in those days, and they hadn’t any more respect for the desks than they had for the teachers. There was a rule in our school that any boy marring his desk, either with pencil or knife, would be chastised publicly before the whole school or pay a fine of five dollars. Besides the rule there was a ruler; I knew it because I had felt it; it was a darned hard one, too.

“One day I had to tell my father that I had broken the rule, and had to pay a fine or take a public whipping, and he said:

“‘Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before the whole school, so I’ll pay the fine. But I don’t want you to lose anything, so come up-stairs.’ I went up-stairs with father and he was for-_giving_ me. I came down-stairs with the feeling in one hand and the five dollars in the other, and decided that as I’d been punished once, and got used to it, I wouldn’t mind taking the other licking at school. So I did, and I kept the five dollars. That was the first money I ever earned.”

This unexpected shift of the moral point of view is peculiar to boys. James Whitcomb Riley, author of no end of things, humorous and pathetic, told me of a small boy who astonished his mother one night by saying his prayers in German. When reproved, he said:

“Oh, that was a joke.”

“You must not joke with heaven,” said his mother severely.

“Oh, the joke isn’t on heaven; it’s on you,” was the reply.

Another small friend of Mr. Riley jumped quickly into bed one cold night. His mother said:

“Johnny, haven’t you forgotten something?”

“No, mamma,” was the reply. “I’ve made up my mind not to say my prayers to-night or to-morrow night or the night after, and then if I have luck I won’t say them any more at all.”

My friend Frank Doubleday, a member of a publishing firm that all authors regard admiringly, would rather get a laugh on some one than get a record-breaking novel. He is a fine, tall, handsome fellow and like many another handsome man who is really manly, he is careless of his dress, looking more like a busy farmer than a successful publisher. Going through Greenwich Street one day, near the ferries and steamboat landings, his rural appearance and manner attracted the attention of one of the “bunco” or “green goods” gentry, who accosted him with:

“Why, Mr. Brown, I’m very glad to see you.”

“But my name isn’t Brown,” said Doubleday, in his most innocent manner.

“What? Aren’t you Mr. Brown, of Paterson?”

“No, my name is Marshall P. Wilder.”

“Oh, you go to h⸺ll!” growled the bunco-man with a glare.

To get back to journalists, with whom I began, I believe I have said elsewhere that Henry Watterson is the most quoted editor in the United States. Yet a lot of his best things do not appear over his signature; he says so many that only a phonograph could keep tally of them. One evening at the Riggs House in Washington he found his friend Col. Dick Wintersmith, the poet lobbyist, in a gastronomic quandary, for the colonel longed for a dinner of beefsteak and onions but dreaded to carry the perfume of onions in his breath. Watterson said:

“Colonel Dick, I’ll tell you how to avoid it.”

“Do!”

“Why, go to John Chamberlin’s for your beefsteak and onions; when you get your bill it will take your breath entirely away.”

Opie Reid, editor and author, frequently appears on the platform, to the delight of every one who listens to him. One night he was greatly puzzled, for although his audience laughed heartily no one applauded. He learned afterward that he had been engaged to entertain the inmates of a home for disabled railway employees, and his audience was composed of switchmen, each of whom had lost an arm, perhaps two. He got a laugh even on one of the dreadful eating-houses peculiar to southern railroad stations. Most of his fellow passengers were commercial travelers, and knew by experience what to expect at such places, so they got off of the train with sullen looks, as if sorry rather than glad that they were to dine, and their complainings began before they reached the table. A negro was walking to and fro on the station platform ringing a dinner-bell, and near him was a small dog howling so piteously that the darky stopped and exclaimed:

“What’s you hollerin’ for? _You_ don’t have to eat here.”

My friend Quimby of the Detroit _Free Press_ tells of “meeting up” with two strangers who became so friendly that soon the three were introducing themselves.

“I’m from Detroit,” said Quimby to one. “Where are you from?”

“Boston,” was the reply. The Bostonian turned enquiringly to the third, who said:

“I’m from Pawtucket. Now, d⸺mn you, laugh!”

I am indebted to hundreds of critics and other journalists for kind things they have printed about me. As to authors, one of them saved my life a few years ago, and this is how it occurred:—I had rooms in Thirty-fourth Street, in New York, next door to the late Laurence Hutton, author of many well-known books. One night, on returning home very late, I discovered that I had neglected to take my keys, so I was practically locked out. I rang the bell, but no one responded. Suddenly I noted that lights were still burning in Mr. Hutton’s house, and I recalled that he had given a dinner that night to Mr. Edwin Booth, the tragedian. Hutton was the most obliging neighbor any one could have had, so I rang him up, told him of my trouble, and asked permission to go into his yard and climb the division fence, after which I would get into my own house through a rear window.

“All right, Marshall,” Hutton replied, “and I’ll go with you, and help you over the fence.”

My only fear was of a lodger in my own house—a nervous man, apprehensive of burglars, and who kept revolvers and a quick temper ready for use at any moment he might be aroused. I said as much to Mr. Hutton, and the affair immediately changed from a neighborly courtesy to an adventure with a spice of danger to make it more attractive. Mr. Booth who had overheard the conversation, announced that he wasn’t to be left out of any fun in sight, so we three crept silently into Hutton’s back yard like three burglars, or more like three schoolboys out for mischief. Finding that he could not lift me over, as he had intended, Hutton got a chair, stood upon it and helped me to the top of the fence, which was high. Even there I was no better off, for the fence was as tall as I was not, so like Mohammed’s coffin I was poised between heaven and earth and unable to drop without breaking something. But Hutton was a man of expedients: he stood on the extreme top of the chair-back, leaned over the fence and held my cane, by its crook, as if it were a dangling rope, down which I slid safely, thanks to a running fire of tragic stage-whispers, by Mr. Booth, to the general effect, that it is always well to keep very tight hold of a good thing, until you strike a better one.

I reached the ground safely and began the more dangerous part of my enterprise, which was to open a window of the main floor without rousing the lodger who was a light sleeper and kept pistols. A spectator, had there been any excepting the blasé man in the moon, might have gazed at an unusual scene—honest little me apparently burglarizing a house, while a prominent author and the greatest living tragedian, both honorable and law-abiding citizens, standing shakily on the highest back-bar of a single chair, steadying themselves by leaning heavily on a fence-top and giving me all the moral support that could be signified by heart-throbs and irregular breathings. Suddenly Hutton whispered hoarsely,

“Look out, Marshall!”

But I looked up, and right into the business end of a revolver, and I did not at all approve of what I saw. Had I looked toward the fence I would have beheld two eminent Americans in the undignified act of “ducking.” But I was too busily engaged in flattening myself against the window to have eyes for anything but fragmentary visions of the world to come: I shriveled so utterly that it seemed a million years before I had lungs enough to shout.

“Don’t shoot! It’s Marshall!”

We never settled it to our mutual satisfaction—Hutton’s, and Booth’s and mine, by which of us the world might have lost most had the revolver been fired and hit one of us. Mr. Booth was the incarnation of modesty, Hutton could eloquently praise any one but himself, while I—— But, as already said, we never agreed as to which would have been the world’s greatest loss.

XI

THE UNEXPECTED

Robert Hilliard and I and a Dog.—Hartford’s Actors and
Playwrights.—A Fit that Caused a Misfit.—A Large Price to Hear
a Small Man.—Jim Corbett and I.—A Startled Audience.—Captain
Williams and “Red” Leary.—“Joe” Choate to the Rescue.—Bait for
a Dude.—Deadheads.—Within an Inch of Davy Jones.—Perugini and
Four Fair Adorers.—Scanlon and Kernell.

In one respect personal experiences are like jokes—those least expected cause the most lasting impression. I may be excused, therefore, for recording some of both.

Some years ago a party of ladies and gentlemen, among whom were Mr. Hilliard and myself visited David’s Island, an important military post on Long Island Sound. We were handsomely entertained during the day, so at night we endeavored to return the compliment. There was a large gathering in the mess room, the post band gave a few selections and Mr. Hilliard announced that he would recite “Christmas Night in the Workhouse.” Instantly a large Newfoundland dog who had been quite conspicuous, looked sad, dropped upon the floor and went to sleep. The joke was on Bob and every one was obliged to laugh. But when my turn came and I announced a few stories about camp life that dog arose, looked straight and reproachfully into my eyes and walked out of the door. When the laughter subsided I felt obliged to say:

“I don’t blame you, old chap.”

As I was a Hartford boy, I have always had a special liking for the men and women whom that city has given to the stage and platform. They make an imposing array, too—William Gillette, Mark Twain, Otis Skinner, Harry Woodruff, Lew Dockstader, Francis Carlyle, Musical Dale, Frank Lawton, C. B. Dillingham and Mesdames Lucille Saunders and Emma Eames.

I greatly admire Mr. Gillette’s plays; they contain so wonderful a variety of characters that it seems to me he must have searched the whole country for originals. One day he told me of a pleasant trip he had made on the St. Lawrence River and said:

“I’m going to live up there.”

“Are you? Where?” I asked, supposing he would name a hotel where a large lot of human nature could be studied, but he named a lonely part of the Thousand Islands, and said he owned an island there, so I asked:

“Why do you go there? You will be all alone.”

“I want to be alone,” he replied.

“Will no one live there but yourself?”

“No one but a hen—a little bantam hen.”

“What do you mean by that? What do you want of a hen?”

“Well, I’ve always had great fondness and respect for hens, but have been unable to get acquainted with them, but this is my chance.”

Mark Twain was once asked to write a testimonial for a map of the world, and this is what he wrote:

“Before using your wonderful map, my family were afflicted with fits, but since using it they have nothing but freckles.”

There was a time when I wished for Mark’s wonderful map, for I was afflicted by a fit. It was at an entertainment at Long Branch given in aid of the Monmouth Hospital. Many actors and actresses who were stopping at “the Branch” gave their services, among them Neil Burgess, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Dowd Byron, Mr. and Mrs. Matt Snyder, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Chanfrau, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Miss Theresa Vaughn and others. I was to appear, and when I arrived, I saw Miss Vaughn and Mr. Snyder, who was stage manager, holding an animated discussion. Snyder came over to me and said:

“Miss Vaughn has been billed to follow you, but she doesn’t wish to. She would like to precede you.”

“All right,” I replied, “I’m perfectly willing.”

She went out and made a great hit. Then my turn came, and I had just got a recitation under way when a woman in the audience began to have a fit, at the most critical part of my number. I had to stop as it was not a duet, and go off of the stage. Mr. Snyder asked:

“What’s the matter, Marsh?”

“There’s a woman out there having a fit.”

“Oh, go back and do the best you can,” he replied.

“This is not where I fit,” I answered. But I went back and told my pianist to play number seven of my repertoire, which was called “Poor Thing!”

The audience saw the joke, and helped me out, but I wish my readers could have been in my position if they do not believe that fit was an affliction—one which Miss Vaughn was fortunate enough to escape.

A great many men have told me they greatly wanted to hear me recite, and I am convinced that one in particular meant what he said. I refer to Bingham the ventriloquist. He chanced to be in a town where I was to appear before the Young Men’s Christian Association. He went to the hall to reserve a good seat, but was told that no tickets would be sold; the entertainment would be for members only.

“But I want to hear Mr. Wilder,” he said, “and this is my only chance within sight. Is there no way of my getting in?”

“None: unless you join the Association.”

Incredible though it may seem, Bingham did join the Y. M. C. A. for the sole purpose of listening to me. He never asked me to refund his initiation fee on the ground that he didn’t get the worth of it, either, though I’ve scrupulously avoided recalling the incident to his memory.

Nothing is more unexpected by any one than to be mistaken for some one else. One day while I was walking with James J. Corbett, the handsome actor-pugilist, who is about twice as tall as I, two young ladies passed us and one exclaimed:

“Why, there’s James J. Corbett.”

“Which one?” the other asked.

Light-weight though I am, there was a time when I got Corbett badly rattled. He was living at Asbury Park, training for one of his fights, and I, while in a railway car with him, got out some friends—a pack of cards—and did some tricks for Jim. Soon I got him so puzzled that he exclaimed:

“Hold on there, Marsh! These tricks get me nutty.”

It was the unexpected that brought James Young, the actor, a roar of laughter one evening when he addressed as follows an audience composed entirely of his own acquaintances:

“My friends—I cannot call you ladies and gentlemen, for I know you all.”

It was the unexpected, too, that only severely jarred Capt. Alex. Williams, a noted ex-police official in New York. A woman fainted in the street, the captain caught her by one arm, and “Red” Leary, a noted criminal by the other.

“Cap’n,” said “Red” politely, “this is the first time you and me have ‘worked’ together.”

Minister Choate—“Joe” Choate, has a reserve fund of the unexpected. Some American dishes were served up at a breakfast party in England, one being ham and eggs. A young lady at the minister’s right was ignorant of the slippery ways of fried eggs on a dish, so she accidentally spilled the contents of her plate.

“Oh, Mr. Choate!” she exclaimed, “I don’t know what to do, for I’ve dropped an egg on the floor,” and Choate replied:

“If I were you, I’d cackle.”

Matt Snyder, the actor, found at his table one night a young man so elaborately dressed as to be a startling dude, so he asked his daughter:

“What did you bait your hook with to catch that?” but he was floored by the sweet reply:

“Cake, papa.”

Sometimes the unexpected will cause a man to be grievously wounded in the house of his friends. Here is an illustration, clipped from a New York newspaper:

“Marshall P. Wilder, the professional humorist, was in the Lambs’ Club, surrounded by some spirits, yesterday evening. He looked at his watch and remarked wearily, ‘I’ve got to run away, for I’ve got to go up-town to be funny. It’s an awful bore.’

“Wilton Lackaye, who has been taking up the rôle of smart cynicism left by poor Maurice Barrymore, drawled, in his most irritating manner: ‘I wouldn’t do it, then. Why don’t you give your usual entertainment?’

“‘Cruel boy,’ chirped Wilder, as he made for the door.”