Chapter I: Preface

It has been said that any man of mature age could write at least one interesting book, if he confined himself to relating his own experiences.

Well, that is what I have done. This is primarily the story of my life, interspersed with various anecdotes, “wheezes,” and “gags,” pertaining to a profession concerning the real inside of which the public is mostly ignorant.

Like Topsy, the book “growed.” An incident recalled here, a story remembered there, has been jotted down at haphazard as the mood seized me.

I may add that the incidents recorded in Chapters XIV. and XV., as also the human telescope story in Chapter XIII., first saw the light in the _Strand Magazine_, to the Editor of which periodical I am indebted for permission to reproduce them here.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

EARLY EXPERIENCES
PAGE
Work as a telegraph messenger boy--First attempts at “public”
entertainment--Small but appreciative audiences--I introduce
the cycle to the post office--Christmas-boxing on my own--
I am rewarded with the “Order of the Sack”--Hard times--A
home-made conjuring outfit--On tramp to Southend--Busking on
the sands--Wrathful “niggers”--“Stage” fright--“Best clear,
kid”--I clear--On the road back to London--Hunger and
thirst--Four shows for fourpence--A “welcome” home--No food
in the house and the brokers in--“Covering the spot”--Jimmy
Jennings--I win watches--Beat a game and gain a friend--“A
quick way of making money”--Learning to be a street patterer
--Tricks of the showman’s trade--Nearly a riot--Jimmy grows
anxious--Good-bye to London once more--A new pitch--And the
beginning of a new life 3

CHAPTER II

I POSE AS A SHOWMAN

Practising conjuring--Why I rarely play cards--The great
Maskelyne and Cooke box trick--I make a trick box of my own--
The “Flying Lady” who flew--away--In partnership with Gypsy
Brown--My life with the show folk--I begin to make money--
The kings of the fair grounds--Caravan life and cookery--The
Romany people and their ways--Gypsy Brown cheats me--How the
“bluers” work--Fights in the Fair Ground--The etiquette of
the showmen--In a boxing booth--Taking on all comers--A
rough life--“Do a slang to get a pitch”--The tricks of the
travelling boxing-booth proprietors--A gypsy duel with cocoanut
balls 17

CHAPTER III

WITH THE GYPSIES

I start a show of my own--Gypsy Brown plays me a dirty trick--
The hunchback in the box--Bank Holiday at Cheriton Fair--I
plan to circumvent Gypsy Brown--And succeed only too well--
The crowd wrecks Brown’s booth--Pandemonium in the fair ground
--The gypsies attack my show--The fate of a peace-maker--
My fight with Gypsy Brown--£10 to £1 on my opponent and no
takers--A knock-out blow--Gypsy Brown vows revenge--My
life in danger--How I outwitted the gypsies--The last of my
experiences as a fair-ground showman 30

CHAPTER IV

THE TRICK THAT FAILED

Back in London--At the Westminster Aquarium--“The Pro.’s Casual
Ward”--Zæo’s Maze--“Oriental beauties from the Far East-End
of London”--“Fake” side-shows--A “fasting lady’s” prodigious
appetite--A lively subject for a coffin--I sell conjuring
tricks to visitors--“Uncle” Ritchie--An audience of one--
Annie Luker, the champion lady high diver--I find myself barred
from the Aquarium--The mysterious voice in the maze--Mr.
Ritchie investigates--And Mr. Wieland scores--Penny-gaffing
in London--Working the shops--Sham hypnotism--How to eat
coal and candles--And drink paraffin oil--The box trick again
--Venice in Newcastle--I offer a £1000 prize--The trick
that failed--My first engagement in a regular “hall”--My
absent-minded partner 41

CHAPTER V

CLIMBING TO FAME AND FORTUNE

I give an impromptu show at the Palace Theatre--“Chuck him out!”
--I seek out Mr. Wieland again--At the Crystal Palace--
I adopt my present make-up--“The Human Hairpin”--Charlie
Coborn and “Two Lovely Black Eyes”--I do a trial turn at the
Bedford Music-hall--Billed as a star turn at the Alhambra and
Palace Theatres--And at the “Flea Pit,” Hoxton--My reception
there--I work the Alhambra, Palace, Middlesex, Metropolitan,
and Cambridge together--A record for those days--A Press
“spoof”--Continental engagements--Paris, Milan--An overdose
of Chianti--And its results--The night life of Milan--
A blood-curdling adventure--Murder most foul--Callous
passers-by 54

CHAPTER VI

PLAYING IN HUNLAND

Vienna and the Viennese--Churls by nature and instinct--How I
made “There’s a Girl in Havana” go down there--Chorus men and
waiters--Some innocent tricks of the music-hall trade--In
Berlin--Death of my giant--Official boorishness--German
sharp practice--I engage a Hun giant--Uncomfortable railway
travelling--At Buda-Pesth--More sharp practice--I throw up
my engagement and return to England in disgust--Litigation and
worry--My case is taken up by the Variety Artistes’ Federation
--A new “Battle of Prague”--Which I lose--A story of a
“misspelled” railway station--Back in Old England--A day’s
rabbit shooting--The two “Arthur Carltons” 72

CHAPTER VII

AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCES

Eastward bound on the _Ortona_--Dinners and diners--Spoofing a
chief steward--A brush with the master-at-arms--“Queering” a
poker game--Trouble in the smoke-room--We plan revenge--And
execute it--Potatoes as ammunition--The cold water cure--
The Captain sends for me--I decline to go--Trouble brewing--
I run my head into the lion’s mouth--And am frog-marched before
the captain--A stormy interview--I am threatened to be put in
irons--All’s well that ends well--A benefit performance at
sea--Arrival in Melbourne--A tale of two champions--Rabbit
shooting extraordinary--I bag a laughing jackass--And am
hauled before the “beak”--Fined ten shillings and costs--I am
glad at having “got the bird”--The “interfering parrot” 90

CHAPTER VIII

MELBOURNE TO LONDON

The “Under the Earth” bar in Melbourne--A swimming challenge
spoof--The Australian Vaudeville Association--My connection
therewith--They present me with an Address--At Adelaide--
A cheery send-off--I bring to London with me Charlie Griffin,
the feather-weight Australian champion--Fix up a match at
the London National Sporting Club--I train him myself during
a pantomime engagement--He is beaten by Jim Driscoll--But
afterwards defeats Joe Bowker--My fight at the National
Sporting Club with “Apollo”--All the “pro.’s” present--A
great night--I am beaten by “Apollo”--Congratulations all
round--Only Mrs. “Carlton” does not approve--Other boxing and
sporting yarns 107

CHAPTER IX

SOME AMERICAN EXPERIENCES

To New York on the _Mauretania_--Gambling on ocean liners--A
“dear” old gentleman--Phenomenal luck--My suspicions are
aroused--I play the part of a private detective--A puzzling
proposition--The light that shone by night--My suspicions
are confirmed--An artful dodge--A new use for smoke-coloured
glasses--Doctored cards--The most beautiful American city--
Los Angeles--Tuna fishing at Santa Catalina--Monsters of 400
lb. weight--The Tuna Club--A record catch--Fishing with
kites--Wild goat stalking--Outwitting a gambler--Diamond
cut diamond--A ride on an ostrich--American police methods--
An unpleasant experience 121

CHAPTER X

MORE AMERICAN EXPERIENCES

Through the Great American Desert--A land of desolation--An
adventure at Santa Fé--“Hands up!”--Railway strike methods
in the wild and woolly West--At Kansas City--The Magicians’
Club--“Welcome to our city”--A disappointing show--In
the land of the Mormons--Salt Lake City--Brigham Young’s
seraglio--The Mormon Temple and Tabernacle--Something like
an angel--Brigham Young’s statue--My worst Press notice--A
journalistic tragedy--In New York--I am served a scurvy trick
--Hammerstein’s--A row with the management--Sharp Yankee
practice--I perform in the New York Synagogue in the presence
of the Chief Rabbi--A unique honour--Rubber-neck cars--The
almighty dollar--The Statue of Liberty--A suggestive pose--
New York hotels--A tip as to boots 136

CHAPTER XI

PANTOMIME SPOOFS AND JOKES

Harry Tate and I--Together we found the order of “The Beautiful
Swells”--The Birmingham spoof supper--A mouthwatering menu
--The “Beautiful Swells” anthem--Cockroach soup--Property
viands--A mysterious waiter--Ernie Lotinga’s little joke
--The spoofers spoofed--A pigeon pie that flew--A surplus
of farthings--Rehearsing for pantomime--My first rehearsal
--I am “fired” out of the theatre--Pantomime in Hoxton--
The gallery boy’s irony--A cutting retort--I get married--
Courting under difficulties--The married chorus-girl and the
lovesick manager--Supper for two in a private room--Hoaxing
the police--A sham tragedy and its sequel--The fat policeman
and the big lobster--Sold again 149