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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continuous Vaudeville, by Will M. Cressy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Continuous Vaudeville
+
+Author: Will M. Cressy
+
+Illustrator: Hal Merrit
+
+Release Date: March 14, 2009 [EBook #28327]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINUOUS VAUDEVILLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other
+inconsistencies are as in the original.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTINUOUS VAUDEVILLE
+
+
+ [Illustration: CONTINUOUS
+ VAUDEVILLE
+
+ BY
+ WILL M. CRESSY]
+
+
+
+
+ CONTINUOUS
+ VAUDEVILLE
+
+ BY
+ WILL M. CRESSY
+
+ _With Illustrations by_
+ _HAL MERRITT_
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER
+ TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+ Copyright, 1914, by Richard G. Badger
+
+ All Rights Reserved
+
+ THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+When you go into a Continuous Vaudeville Theater you expect to see and
+hear a little of everything. You see a lot of poor acts, a few good ones
+and two or three _real_ good ones. In seeking a suitable title for this
+book it struck us that that description would fit it exactly; so we will
+christen it--
+
+CONTINUOUS VAUDEVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+ THE OLD STAGE DOOR TENDER 13
+
+ IT'S HARD TO MAKE THE OLD FOLKS BELIEVE IT 22
+
+ UNION LABOR 28
+
+ MARTIN LEHMAN GOES TO NEW YORK 30
+
+ SOME HOTEL WHYS 43
+
+ IT ISN'T THE COAT THAT MAKES THE MAN 45
+
+ ONE-NIGHT-STAND ORCHESTRAS 48
+
+ "HEART INTEREST" 57
+
+ TOMMIE RYAN'S HORSE 60
+
+ VAUDEVILLE VS. THE LEGITIMATE 70
+
+ A SOCIAL SESSION 75
+
+ BIGALOW AND THE BIG SIX 81
+
+ NEVER AGAIN 90
+
+ THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT 93
+
+ HOW MIKE DONLIN SHRUNK 104
+
+ A NIGHT IN BOHEMIA 109
+
+ BREAKS 120
+
+ THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND CANANDAIGUA 123
+
+ LET US HOPE 127
+
+ THE OLD SHIP OF ZION 130
+
+ FIREMAN, SAVE MY CHILD 137
+
+ PLAYING THE ENGLISH MUSIC HALLS 140
+
+ "WOODIE" 151
+
+ A CORK MAN 153
+
+ THE TROUBLES OF THE LAUGH GETTERS 159
+
+ ASLEEP WITH HER SWITCH 165
+
+ I JOIN THE SUFFRAGETTES 168
+
+ THE PERILS OF A GREAT CITY 174
+
+ DO YOU BELIEVE IN SIGNS? 177
+
+ CLOSING NUMBER 180
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ _Mag Haggerty's Horse_ 60
+
+ _"Shun Licker"_ 64
+
+ _The Widow's Mite_ 66
+
+ _Far from Home and Kindred_ 69
+
+ _"Why?"_ 74
+
+ _"Time All Open. Indefinite"_ 78
+
+ _"Good Morning"_ 90
+
+ _It Isn't the Coat that Makes the Man_ 107
+
+ _"Vengeance is Mine"_ 117
+
+ _One Sure (?) Fire Revolver_ 118
+
+ _"Give 'Em the Gravy"_ 121
+
+ _The Band of Hope_ 127
+
+ _The Cressys in Ireland_ 153
+
+ _Playing Hoboken_ 161
+
+ _Carrying "The Old Man" with Her_ 162
+
+ _"Bring Her Hither"_ 172
+
+ _The Perils of a Great City_ 174
+
+
+
+
+CONTINUOUS VAUDEVILLE
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD STAGE DOOR TENDER
+
+
+Naturally if you are going back on the stage to get acquainted with its
+people, the first chap you are going to meet is the old Stage Door
+Tender. You will find him at every stage door, sitting there in his old
+arm chair, calm, quiet, doing nothing; he is a man of few words; he has
+heard actors talk so much that he has got discouraged. He sees the same
+thing every week; he sees them come in on Monday and go out on Saturday;
+the same questions, the same complaints, the same kicks. So he just sits
+there watching, waiting and observing.
+
+He seldom speaks, but when he does, he generally says something.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the Orpheum Theater in Des Moines there was an old fellow who looked
+so much like the character I portray in "Town Hall To-night" that
+everybody used to call him "Cressy." Finally we came there to play and
+he heard everybody call me "Cressy." He pondered over this for a day or
+two, then he came over to me one afternoon and said,
+
+"What do you suppose they call you and I 'Cressy' for?"
+
+He expressed his opinion of actors in general about as concisely as I
+ever heard any one do; I asked him what he really thought of actors; and
+with a contemptuous sniff he replied,
+
+"I don't."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Nobody in the world could ever convince "Old George" on the stage door
+of the San Francisco Orpheum that that house would survive a year
+without his guiding hand and brain. Old George was hired by John
+Morrisey, the house manager, while Mr. Myerfelt, the president of the
+Orpheum Company, was abroad. George's instructions were to admit no one
+back on the stage without a written order from Mr. Morrisey. A month or
+so afterwards Mr. Myerfelt returned and started to go back on the
+stage.
+
+"Here, here," said Old George; "where are you going?"
+
+"I am going up on the stage," said Mr. M.
+
+"You are not," said George, barring the way, "without a pass from Mr.
+Morrisey."
+
+"What are you talking about?" demanded Mr. M. "I am Mr. Myerfelt, the
+President of the Orpheum Company."
+
+"Yis, and I am King George, The Prisidint of this Door; and me orders is
+that no one goes through here without a pass from Mr. Morrisey. And
+there is nobody goes through."
+
+So deadly earnest is Old George in this matter that, should it be
+absolutely necessary for him to leave the door for a moment, he has
+bought himself a little child's-size slate upon which he writes out a
+detailed account of where he has gone, and why, and how soon he will be
+back.
+
+"Gone to get a drink of water. Be back in a minute. George."
+
+"Gone out in front to ask Mr. Morrisey a question. Be back in three
+minutes. George."
+
+"Helping fill Miss Kellerman's tank; don't know how long. George."
+
+"Inside watching Banner of Light Act. George."
+
+This "Banner of Light" act was Louie Fuller's "Ballet of Light,"
+consisting of eight bare-legged girls dancing on big sheets of glass set
+into the floor of the stage. George would go in under the stage and
+watch the act up through these sheets of glass.
+
+He said it was the best act that was ever in the house--for him.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Old "Con" Murphy was on the stage door of the Boston Theater for
+eighteen years; his hours were from 9 A. M. to 11 P. M., with an hour
+off for dinner and an hour for supper.
+
+The theater faces on Washington Street and the stage door is on Mason
+Street. For eighteen years Con sat in that Mason Street door and only
+saw Washington Street once in all that time.
+
+One day Eugene Tompkins, the owner of the theater, came along, stopped,
+thought a minute, then said,
+
+"Con, how long have you been here?"
+
+"Sixteen years, come August," said Con.
+
+"Ever had a vacation?"
+
+"No, sor."
+
+Tompkins looked at his watch; it was ten minutes of twelve. "Well, Con,"
+he said, "when you go out to dinner, you stay out; don't come back
+until to-morrow morning. Then come and tell me what you did."
+
+Con put on his coat and went out; out to the first vacation he had had
+in sixteen years; the first opportunity to see what this city he lived
+in looked like. The first chance he had had in sixteen years to get out
+into the country; to hear the birds sing; to see the green fields; the
+trees; the flowers growing.
+
+And what do you suppose he did?
+
+He walked across the narrow alley and visited with the Stage Door Tender
+of the Tremont Theater all the afternoon.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I asked the Stage Door Tender of Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater
+in New York once what he considered the best act that ever played the
+house; unhesitatingly he replied,
+
+"Joe Maxwell's Police Station act."
+
+I asked him why he considered that the best.
+
+"Ain't no women in it."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+An agent for some fangled kind of typewriter was trying to interest the
+Stage Door Tender of Keith's Theater in Philadelphia in the machine:
+
+"Now this is just what a man in your position wants and needs. You have
+a lot of writing to do here, and nowhere to do it; now with this machine
+you don't require any table or desk; you can hold this typewriter right
+in your lap."
+
+"Not me, Mister," said the Door Man hastily; "I'm married."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There used to be a door man at Keith's Boston House who could tell more
+in less words than any man I ever saw. One Monday morning some actors
+came in who had never been in Boston before, and they were asking this
+old fellow about the different hotels:
+
+"How is the Rexford?" asked the Lady.
+
+"Burlesque," grunted the old fellow.
+
+"What is the Touraine?"
+
+"Headliners."
+
+"How about the So-and-so House?" naming quite a notorious hotel.
+
+"Been open eleven years and had three trunks."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Where have I seen you before?"
+ And the Judge at the prisoner leers;
+ "Why, I taught your daughter singing."
+ "You did?" said the Judge; "_ten years_."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Nat Haines was playing Keith's, Providence, R. I. The act on ahead of
+Nat was Professor Woodward's Trained Seals. One afternoon Nat, hearing a
+noise, looked around and there was one of the seals coming out under the
+curtain behind him. It took Nat just two jumps to get off the stage. An
+attendant came out and captured the seal. Nat came back. "Well," he
+said, scratching his head; "I have followed every animal on earth but a
+skunk and a lizard, and now I have got that. Humph; Professor Woodward's
+Trained Shad. I think I will learn dressmaking."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I once asked Ezra Kendal how he ever kept track of those seven children
+of his.
+
+"I use the card-index system," he replied solemnly.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Depths of Degradation: A man that plays second violin and double
+alto in the band.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mary Richfield (Ryan & Richfield) had a headache; the Los Angeles sun
+had been too much for her. She went in to a drug store and asked the
+clerk for a headache powder. This clerk was not a first-class drugger;
+he was just a student; but he knew where the headache powders were, so
+he got one for her; got his ten cents and started away. Mary looked
+around; there was no soda fountain, no water tank.
+
+"Well, here," she said; the young man stopped and looked back at her.
+"Where am I supposed to take this powder?"
+
+"In your mouth, Mam."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One cold, blustery day several of us were sitting in the stage door
+tender's little room at the Orpheum, Denver, when the door was thrown
+open and in hurried a boy of fifteen or sixteen.
+
+"Where's Cressy?" he asked briskly.
+
+"Right here," I answered in the same manner.
+
+"I want a sketch."
+
+"All right."
+
+"What do you charge?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars."
+
+"Gee Zip!"
+
+And he was out the door and gone.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the Minneapolis Orpheum a chap with a jag came weaving his way out
+from the auditorium and over to the box-office window.
+
+"Shay," he said thickly; "wha' do you want to hire such bad acters for?
+They're rotten."
+
+The ticket seller asked which ones he objected to.
+
+"Why, tha' ol' Rube, and that gal in there; they're rotten."
+
+"What are you talking about?" said the ticket seller; "that is Cressy
+and Dayne; they are the Headliners; they are fine."
+
+The man looked at him a moment, as if to see if he really meant it; then
+he asked earnestly,
+
+"Hones'ly?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+For another moment he studied, then as he turned away, he shook his head
+sadly and said,
+
+"I shall never go to another vaudeville show as long as I live."
+
+
+
+
+IT'S HARD TO MAKE THE OLD FOLKS BELIEVE IT
+
+
+We may be Actors and Actresses (with capital "A's") to the public; we
+may have our names in big letters on the billboards and in the programs;
+but to The Old Folks At Home we are just the same no-account boys and
+girls we always were. We may be Headliners in New York, Boston, Chicago
+and San Francisco, but back home we are still just Jimmie and Johnnie
+and Charlie that "went on the stage."
+
+Charlie Smith, of Smith & Campbell, in his younger days used to drive a
+delivery wagon for his father's fish market. But tiring of the fish
+business he started out to be "a Acter." At the end of five years he had
+reached a point where the team commanded (and sometimes got) a salary of
+eighty dollars a week. As driver of the fish wagon he had received
+eight. And he determined to go home and "show them." Dressing the part
+properly for his "grand entre" put a fearful dent in his "roll"; so much
+so that he had to change what remained into one and two dollar bills in
+order to "make a flash."
+
+But when he struck the old home town he was "a lily of the valley"; he
+had a Prince Albert coat, a silk hat, patent-leather shoes, an
+almost-gold watch and chain, a pretty-near diamond stud and ring and the
+roll of ones and twos, with a twenty on the outside.
+
+After supper, sitting around the fire, he started in telling them what a
+success he was; he told them of all the big theaters he had appeared in;
+how good the newspapers said he was; what a large salary he received,
+etc., etc.
+
+All seemed highly impressed; all except Father; finally, after a couple
+of hours of it, he could contain himself no longer, and burst out--
+
+"Say, when are you going to stop this dumb fool business and come back
+and go to driving that wagon again?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Ed Grey, "the Tall Story Teller," went from a small country town on to
+the stage. It was ten years before he ever came back to play the home
+town. When he did the whole town turned out _en masse_; the Grey family
+ditto; after the show the family was seated around the dining-room
+table, talking it over. Mother sat beside her big boy, proud and happy.
+The others were discussing the show.
+
+"That Mister Brown was awful good."
+
+"Oh, but I liked that Blink & Blunk the best."
+
+"That Miss Smith was awful sweet."
+
+But not a word did any one have to say about "Eddie." Finally he burst
+out--
+
+"Well, how was _I_?"
+
+There was an ominous pause, and then Mother, reaching over and patting
+his knee lovingly, said,
+
+"Now, don't you care, Eddie, as long as you get your money."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Cliff Gordon's father doesn't believe it _yet_. Cliff was playing in New
+York and stopping at home.
+
+"Vere you go next veek, Morris?" asked Father.
+
+"Orpheum, Brooklyn," replied Cliff.
+
+"How mooch vages do you get dere?"
+
+"Three fifty."
+
+"Tree huntret unt fifty tollars?"
+
+"Uh huh."
+
+Father nodded his head, sighed deeply, thought a minute, then--
+
+"Then vere do you go?"
+
+"Alhambra, New York."
+
+"How mooch?"
+
+"Three fifty."
+
+"Then vere?"
+
+"Keith's, Philadelphia."
+
+"How mooch you get ofer dere?"
+
+"Just the same; three fifty."
+
+Father sighed again, thought deeply for a few minutes, then, with
+another sigh, said, half to himself,
+
+"Dey can't _all_ be crazy."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Tim McMahon (McMahon & Chapelle) had a mother who did not believe
+theaters were proper and Tim had a hard time getting her to come to see
+him at all. But finally she came to see her "Timmite" act. It was a big
+show, ten acts, and Tim was on number nine. After the show was over Tim
+went around in front of the house to meet her; she came out so indignant
+she could hardly speak.
+
+"Why, what's the matter? Wasn't I good?" asked Tim.
+
+"Yis, sor, you was; you was as good as iny of them; you was _better_
+than any of thim; and they had no right to let thim other eight acts on
+foreninst ye: _You ought to have come on first, Timmie._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The first time Josephine Sabel's father and mother saw her on the stage
+she was in the chorus of a comic opera company and was wearing tights.
+Mother ran out of the theater and Father tried to climb up over the
+footlights to get at Josephine and got _put_ out.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Charlie Case had been on the stage for years before he ever got a chance
+to play his home town; then he came in with a minstrel show; he had a
+special lithograph, showing him standing beside an Incubator, which was
+hatching out new jokes every minute.
+
+The house was crowded and Charlie was even more nervous than usual.
+Everybody else in the show got big receptions; Charlie walked out to
+absolute silence. He talked five minutes to just as absolute silence;
+then, discouraged, he stopped to take a breath; the instant he stopped
+the house was in a pandemonium; they really thought he was great, but
+hadn't wanted to interrupt him. After that he would tell a joke and then
+wait; he was a knockout.
+
+Later he was talking it over at home:
+
+"Why, that awful silence had me rattled," he said; "I couldn't even
+remember my act; I left out a lot of it."
+
+"Yes," said his father; "we noticed you forgot to bring on your
+Incubator."
+
+
+
+
+UNION LABOR
+
+
+A Song and Dance Team (recently graduated from a Salt Lake City picture
+house) got eight weeks booking on the Cort Circuit out through the
+Northwest. The first show told the story. They were bad: awfully bad.
+But they had an ironclad, pay-or-play contract and as the management
+couldn't fire them, it was determined to freeze them out. The manager
+started in giving them two, three and four hundred mile jumps every
+week, hoping that they would quit. But no matter how long or crooked he
+made the jumps they always showed up bright and smiling every Monday
+morning.
+
+Finally they came to their last stand: and it happened that the manager,
+who had booked them originally, was there and saw them again. He could
+hardly believe his eyes, for, owing to the fact that they had been doing
+from six to sixteen shows a day for the past eight weeks, they now had
+a pretty good act. As they were getting about as near nothing a week as
+anybody could get and not owe money to the manager, he wanted to keep
+them along. He was fearful the memories of those jumps he had been
+giving them would queer the deal, but he determined to see what a little
+pleasant talk would do; so he went to them and said,
+
+"Now, boys, you have got that act into pretty good shape; and if you
+like I can give you some more time. And," he hastened to add, "you won't
+get any more of those big jumps either. I was awful sorry about those
+big fares you have had to pay."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," replied one of the boys; "we belong to the
+Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and always ride on the engine free
+anyway."
+
+
+
+
+MARTIN LEHMAN GOES TO NEW YORK
+
+
+Martin Lehman is the manager of the Orpheum Theater in Kansas City.
+Martin Beck is the general manager of the Orpheum Circuit. Mr. Beck had
+wired Lehman to come to New York at once. What Mr. Beck said went. So
+Lehman went.
+
+If there is any one thing on earth that Martin Lehman loves better than
+another it is _not_ traveling. He is probably the only man on earth who
+can get seasick anywhere and everywhere. A sprinkling cart will give him
+symptoms. His son Lawrence says that he always has to stand by and hold
+his father's hand when he takes a bath. He always walks to and from the
+theater because the street car might pass through a mud puddle and he
+would get seasick. The next worst thing in the world is a railroad
+train. He dies twice a mile regularly. _But_--Martin Beck said, "Come at
+once."
+
+So, with his suit-case full of Green River, Hermitage and other
+well-known mineral waters, a couple of lemons (who had been playing for
+Louis Shouse at Convention Hall the previous week), and his Orpheum
+pass, poor Lehman boarded the night train for Chicago, hoping for the
+best but expecting the worst--and getting it.
+
+He got on board early so he could get into his berth before the train
+started. Lower seven, right in the middle of the car. He placed his
+bottles of life preservers in the little hammock beside him, punched a
+little hole in the end of one of the lemons, closed his eyes and said
+his evening prayer.
+
+The train started. So did his troubles. The train gained headway. Ditto
+the trouble. But, like his forefathers in far-away Prussia, he fought
+for freedom. He brought all the strength of his powerful mind to bear.
+He tried "The New Thought," "Self-Hypnotism," "Silent Prayer"; he tried
+every religious belief he could think of except Mormonism. And finally
+he slept; or died; he was not sure which; and he didn't mind; he lost
+consciousness; that was all he cared for.
+
+The next thing he knew somebody was shaking him and telling him to
+"Change cars!" It seemed that this car had developed a hot box and
+passengers would have to change to the car ahead, taking the same
+numbered berth in the new car that they had occupied in the first one.
+
+Poor Lehman's getting up and dressing was absolute proof of the power of
+mind over matter. But finally, with part of his clothing on his back and
+the rest over his arm, he managed to stagger into the other car, only to
+discover that he had lost his berth ticket.
+
+The conductor said that the only thing to do was to wait until the other
+passengers got located, and the berth that was left would naturally be
+his. It doesn't take a mind reader to see what he got. Upper number one;
+right over the wheels: just beside a smoky kerosene lamp.
+
+As in all good novels we will now have a line of stars.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Arriving in Chicago, he varied the misery of the trip by a taxicab trip
+across the city to catch the New York train: this time drawing lower
+nine.
+
+"Troubles never come single." In the seat back of him was a woman with a
+baby. The lady in front of him indulged in perfume of a most violent
+type. The weather and the porter were warm and humid.
+
+He went up into the smoking room, but some rude drummers were smoking in
+there so he had to come back to his seat. The lady in front of him said
+something about people "reeking with tobacco smoke," and took another
+perfume shower-bath. Then the porter leaned over him to open the window.
+
+So the day passed, and the night came; and Lehman went to bed. About two
+o'clock in the morning the end of the world came. Or so Lehman thought
+for a moment. It was afterwards discovered that the car he was on had
+broken a wheel and jumped the track. Upon coming to and taking account
+of stock, Lehman found that his injuries consisted of one fractured
+bottle, a dislocated vocabulary and a severe loss of temper.
+
+For the second time on this awful trip he was invited to "change to the
+car ahead." The first thing he did was to hunt through his clothes for
+his ticket. No more of that upper number one business for your Uncle
+Martin! No sir! Having at last found it, he placed it in his mouth,
+picked up what there was left of his clothes and made his way up ahead
+to the other car.
+
+"Tickets!" said the conductor.
+
+"You bet!" said Lehman, taking the ticket from his mouth and handing it
+to the conductor.
+
+The conductor took it, copied the number on to his plan, handed the
+ticket to the porter and the porter took him in and put him to bed
+_again_.
+
+Lehman tried to say his evening prayer again, but couldn't remember it.
+While he was thinking it over the door at the ladies' end of the car
+opened and something came down the aisle. As this "something" came out
+of the ladies' apartment, it was presumably a woman. But Lehman disputes
+that fact to this day. She was about six feet long, nine inches wide,
+all the way, and about the color of a cowhide trunk. Her hair was in
+curl papers, her teeth in her pocket and her trust in Heaven. Like a
+grenadier she marched down the aisle until she came to the berth where
+Lehman was trying to die as painlessly as possible. Upon arriving here
+she pulled the curtains aside, sat down on the edge of the berth, jabbed
+Lehman in the stomach with her elbow, and said loudly--
+
+"_Lay over!_"
+
+Lehman groaned, got one look at the female, then placed both feet in the
+small of her back and shot her out on to the floor, yelling loudly for
+the police.
+
+The car was in an uproar in an instant. Lehman was lying on his back,
+shouting "Police!" The female was screaming and hunting for her teeth.
+The conductor, the porter and the brakeman came running in to see
+whether it was a political discussion or just a murder. All the old lady
+could do was to mumble and hunt for her teeth. A man across the aisle
+swore that he saw Lehman stab the old lady with a bowie knife and throw
+her out into the aisle. The woman with the baby corroborated him,
+excepting that she thought he hit her with a piece of lead pipe.
+
+By this time the old lady had found part of her Fletcherizing outfit and
+informed the congregation that she was neither struck nor stabbed; but
+that her husband in the berth there had certainly gone crazy.
+
+There was a sympathetic chorus of "Oh!s" from the other passengers and
+the conductor jerked the curtains aside and asked Lehman what he meant
+by treating his wife this way.
+
+"_My wife?_" screamed Lehman. "Why you ---- --!$!--&--$&'o$--! Are you
+calling that old goat face _my wife_?"
+
+"Sure that's your wife! Don't you suppose she knows?"
+
+"Well, don't you suppose _I know_! Do I look as if I would be the
+husband of anything that looks like _that_?"
+
+The old lady now caught sight of Lehman for the first time.
+
+"Why," she gasped; "that isn't my husband."
+
+"I know darn well it ain't," said Lehman.
+
+"Then what are you doing in my berth?" demanded the old lady.
+
+"I am not in your berth!"
+
+"You _are_ in my berth!"
+
+"Let's see your tickets," said the conductor.
+
+"Here is mine," said the old lady. "Lower seven."
+
+"And here is mine," said Lehman. "Lower seven."
+
+The conductor looked at them closely; then stepped back under a lamp and
+looked at them closer. Then he handed the old lady's back to her. Then
+he turned to Lehman and, handing him his ticket, said,
+
+"That is your yesterday's ticket from Kansas City to Chicago." Lehman
+looked at it dazed for a moment, then dressed and went up into the
+baggage car where he sat on a trunk all the way to New York.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+E. M. Chase, a Norfolk (Va.) newspaper man, has for years been
+collecting newspaper clippings. The following are from some of his rural
+exchanges:
+
+"The funeral was conducted at the home by the Rev. Mr. Browles and was
+afterwards buried in the old family burying ground."--_Lebanon (Va.)
+News._
+
+"Mrs. W. G. Neighbors is suffering with a rising corn on her
+foot."--_Lebanon News._
+
+"J. N. and Alfred Quillen were grafting in our neighborhood a few days
+last week."--_Gate City Herald._
+
+"Rev. W. C. Hoover preached an excellent sermon at the Union Chapel on
+last Sunday, his subject being entitled, 'I go to prepare a place for
+you.' Rev. Hoover and family then spent the rest of the day with Mr.
+Luther Armentrout and family."--_Shenendore Valley Newmarket._
+
+"The members of Moore's Store String Band met Saturday evening and
+rendered some very fine music, as follows: W. E. Lloyd, H. E.
+Weatherholtz, V. M. Weatherholtz, B. H. Golliday, C. S. Moore and 26
+spectators."--_Shenendore Valley Newmarket._
+
+"Selone Sours is out after a severe cold.
+
+"Her daughter Emma Sours is still nursing her risings.
+
+"Your scribe took a trip to Louray one day last week and purchased three
+sacks of fertilizer, one peck of clover seed and a half bushel of
+timothy seed.
+
+"We remarked to our little son the other day that it was going to rain,
+as certain birds were singing, and he said, 'Pa, rain don't come out of
+a bird.'"--_The Page News._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There is a sign over in Newark that somehow doesn't just strike my
+fancy; it reads--
+
+ P. Flem. Delicatessen.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A couple of young country chaps wandered into the lobby of Shea's
+Theater in Toronto and stood watching the people go up to the
+ticket-office window and purchase tickets; finally they got into the
+line, worked their way up to the window, then one of them laid down a
+two-dollar bill and said,
+
+"Give me two tickets to Hamilton, Ontario."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Irish Billie Carrol" was standing in the wings at the old Olympic
+Theater in Chicago, watching the show. There was a chap on who was one
+of those men who can never let well enough alone; if he said or did
+anything that the audience laughed at, he would immediately say or do it
+right over again. Billie watched him awhile, then turned to his friend
+and said,
+
+"All the trouble with him is, he always takes three bases on a single."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Barney Reiley, then with the Old Homestead Company, now the manager of a
+theater in Indianapolis, and I were walking down the street in
+Baltimore, when the sun, shining through a magnifying glass, set fire to
+an oculist's show window.
+
+"By Golly," said Barney, "it's a lucky thing that didn't happen in the
+night, when there was nobody around."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Boston newspapers one week contained the following interesting
+announcement:
+
+"At Keith's; Cressy and Dayne; Don't fail to bring the children to see
+the Trained Dogs."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At the Majestic Theater in Chicago they have a big, two-sided, electric
+sign upon which are displayed the names of the acts playing there. They
+place the names of two acts on each side and use no periods. One week
+the two sides read--
+
+ "CRESSY & DAYNE THE VAGRANTS."
+
+ and
+
+ "ELBERT HUBBARD NIGHT BIRDS."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ Said the Actress to the Landlord,
+ "Want to see 'The Billboard,' Mister?"
+ Said the Landlord to the Actress,
+ "I'd rather see the board bill, Sister."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+An English actor, just over, was playing at the Fifth Avenue Theater in
+New York City. He was in love with America and wanted to see it
+all--quick. One night he came to me and said,
+
+"I think I will take a run over to Buffalo Bill's place in the morning,
+before the matinee."
+
+I told him I would; it would be a good run for him.
+
+Buffalo Bill lives in North Platte, Nebraska.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One of the provincial music halls in England has the roof arranged like
+a roll-top desk, so that in hot weather it can be rolled back, thus
+making a sort of roof garden out of it. An American Song and Dance Team
+was making their first European appearance there; their act was a much
+bigger hit than they had anticipated; and when they came off at the end
+of their act one of them said delightedly to the other,
+
+"Say, we just kicked the roof off of them, didn't we?"
+
+"I beg pawdon, old chap," said the stage manager, overhearing him; "it
+rolls off, you know."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+James Thornton and Fred Hallen were coming out of the Haymarket Theater
+in Chicago; Jim, who was ahead, let the door slam back against Fred.
+
+"Oh, Good Lord," howled Fred, hanging on to his elbow; "right on the
+funny bone."
+
+Jim looked at him, and in that ministerial way of his said,
+
+"You haven't a funny bone in your body."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A young man asked me recently what spelled success on the stage. I told
+him the only way I had ever found of spelling it was W-O-R-K.
+
+
+
+
+SOME HOTEL WHYS
+
+
+Why are porters and bellboys always so much more anxious to help you
+_out_ than _in_?
+
+Why do so many hotel bathrooms have warm cold water and cold hot water?
+
+Why is it that on the morning you are expecting company you can never
+find the chambermaid? And every other morning she tries your door every
+fifteen minutes regularly.
+
+Why does a hotel clerk always try to give you some room different from
+the one you ask for?
+
+Why does a hotel cashier always look at you pityingly?
+
+Why does a bellboy always try to get two quarts of water into a quart
+pitcher?
+
+Why do hotels feed actors cheaper than they do folks?
+
+Why is a mistake in the bill always in the hotel's favor?
+
+Why does the landlord's wife always have theatrical trunks?
+
+Why do drummers always leave their doors open?
+
+Why does my wife always try to get a corner table, and then put me in
+the chair facing the wall?
+
+Why do "American" hotels always have French and Italian cooks?
+
+Why does the fellow in the next room always get up earlier than I do?
+
+Why does the elevator boy always go clear to the top floor and back when
+the man on the second floor rings for him?
+
+Why is the news stand girl always so haughty?
+
+Why does the night clerk always dress so much better than the day
+clerks?
+
+Why do I think I know so much about running a hotel?
+
+
+
+
+IT ISN'T THE COAT THAT MAKES THE MAN
+
+
+A seedy-looking chap came up to Roy Barnes in Toronto and said in an
+ingratiating way:
+
+"I don't know as you will remember me, Mr. Barnes, but I met you down at
+Coney Island last summer."
+
+"Yes, sure, I remember you easy," said Barnes, grasping his hand in both
+his own. "I remember that overcoat you have on."
+
+"I hardly think so," said the seedy party, trying to draw his hand away;
+"I did not own this overcoat then."
+
+"No," said Barnes, "I know you didn't; but I did."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Grace Hazard has a washlady. Washlady has a thirteen-year-old son. Son
+became infected with the acting germ and ran away to go with Gertrude
+Hoffman's Company. His mother was telling Miss Hazard about it.
+
+"'Deed, Mis' Hazard, yo' know 'tain't right for dat po' li'le innocent
+child to be pesterin' roun' dem theater houses dat er way. 'Twas jes'
+dis ver' mo'nin' dat he's Sunday-school teacher wuz sayin' to me: 'Dat
+boy has got too much--too much--intelligence to be in dat stage bus'ness
+nohow.'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Hanging in each room of the Great Southern Hotel at Gulfport, Miss., is
+a small sign stating--
+
+ +-------------------------------+
+ |GUESTS CAN HAVE BATHS PREPARED |
+ |ON THEIR FLOOR BY APPLYING |
+ |TO THE MAID ON THEIR FLOOR. |
+ +-------------------------------+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A friend of mine in St. Louis is a Police Captain. One day he went into
+a bank to get a check cashed. He was in citizen's clothes and the paying
+teller did not know him anyway; so he said,
+
+"You will have to be identified, sir. Do you know anybody here in the
+bank?"
+
+"I presume so," said the Captain cheerfully; "line 'em up and I'll look
+'em over."
+
+Seen from the car window: "Shuttz Hotel. Now open."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo: "Organs and Sewing Machines tuned and
+repaired."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the St. James Hotel, Philadelphia:
+
+Mrs. Cressy. "Waiter, have you any snails today?"
+
+Waiter. "No, mam."
+
+Mrs. C. "What's the matter? Can't you catch them over here?"
+
+
+
+
+ONE-NIGHT-STAND ORCHESTRAS
+
+
+My idea of what not to be is Musical Director of a Musical Comedy
+playing one-night stands. This is the real thing in the Trouble line.
+
+Max Faetkenheuer was musical director with an opera company that was
+playing through the South. They arrived in one town at four in the
+afternoon, and Max found the orchestra waiting at the theater. They
+looked doubtful; they sounded dreadful. Individually they were bad;
+collectively they were worse. During the first number the cornet only
+struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped
+playing. The clarinet player had been taking lessons from a banjo
+teacher for three years and had never made the same noise twice. There
+were six French horns, all Dutch. The trap drummer was blind and played
+by guess and by gorry.
+
+Max labored and perspired and swore until 7:15; then he had to stop
+because the audience wanted to come in and didn't dare to while the
+riot was on.
+
+"Now look, Mister Cornet Player," Max said; "I'll tell you what you do;
+you keep your mute in all through the show."
+
+"Yes, well, I shan't be here myself, but I will speak to my 'sub' about
+it."
+
+"What's the reason you won't be here?" asked Max.
+
+"I play for a dance over to Masonic Hall."
+
+"So do I," said the bass fiddler.
+
+"We all do, but the drummer," said the flute player.
+
+"_You do?_ Then what the devil have you kept me here rehearsing you for
+three hours for?" demanded Max.
+
+"Well," said the cornet player, "we knew this was a big show, and we
+presumed you would be a good director, and we thought the practice would
+do us good."
+
+"It will," said Max.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On another occasion he struggled all the afternoon with a "Glee Club and
+Mandolin Serenaders'" orchestra. Finally, by cutting out all solos,
+playing all the accompaniments himself, and confining the "Glee Club"
+to "um-pahs," he got everything figured out except the cornet player; he
+was beyond pardon; so Max said to him,
+
+"I am awful sorry, old man, but you won't do; so you just sit and watch
+the show to-night."
+
+"Oh," said the Not-Jule-Levy, "then I don't play, eh?"
+
+"You do not play," said Max.
+
+"All right then; then there'll be no show."
+
+"Why won't there be a show?" asked Max.
+
+"Because I am the Mayor, and I will revoke your license."
+
+He played.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At some Southern town we played once with "The Old Homestead"; the
+rehearsal was called for 4:30. At 4:30 all the musicians were there but
+the bass fiddler.
+
+"Where is your bass fiddler?" asked our director.
+
+"Well, he can't get here just yet," replied one of the other players.
+
+"When will he be here?"
+
+"Well, if it rains he is liable to be in any minute now; if it don't
+rain he can't get here until six o'clock."
+
+"What has the rain got to do with it?"
+
+"He drives the sprinkling cart."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The worst orchestra I ever heard was with an Uncle Tom's Cabin show
+playing East St. Louis. It consisted of two pieces; a clarinet and a
+bass fiddle, each worse than the other.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At North Goram, Maine, I once hired an entire brass band of twenty-two
+pieces to play for an entire evening of roller skating in the town hall,
+for three dollars. They were worth every dollar of it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In one of my plays I issue a newspaper called _The Wyoming Whoop_. At
+the top of the first column are the words--"In Hoc Signo Vinces." One
+day one of the stage hands came to me with a copy of the paper in his
+hands, and pointing to this line, said,
+
+"That means 'We Shoot to Kill,' don't it?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+My wife was in a hair-dressing parlor in Cleveland; the girl who was
+doing what ever she was doing to her, discovered that she was the Miss
+Dayne at Keith's Theater.
+
+"Oh, say," she said, "I wish you would tell me something."
+
+"Yes? what is it?" asked Miss D.
+
+"Is that old man that plays on the stage with you as homely as he looks?
+His face is just like one of those soft rubber faces that the men sell
+on the street; the ones you pinch up into all sorts of shapes. He
+doesn't look as bad as that all the time, does he?"
+
+Miss D. told her that there was not much choice.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Jim Thornton was playing his first engagement for Kohl & Castle in
+Chicago. As he came off from his first show, he stopped in the wings to
+watch the next act. A gentleman came along, touched him on the shoulder
+and said,
+
+"You are not allowed to stand in the wings here."
+
+Jim looked at him a moment, then said,
+
+"And who are you?"
+
+"Who am I? I am Kohl."
+
+"You belong in the cellar," and Jim turned back to watch the show.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+William Cahill was playing Paterson, N. J., and living at his home at
+the furthermost end of Brooklyn. Three hours and a half each way, twice
+a day. A friend meeting him on the ferry said,
+
+"You are playing Paterson this week, aren't you, Bill?"
+
+"A little," replied Bill, "but I am going and coming most of the time."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I met Fred Niblo on Broadway:
+
+"Hello, Fred," I said; "I went by your house this morning, and--"
+
+"Thank you, Bill," he said, grasping my hand and shaking it heartily.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Clifford & Burke were playing Shea's, Buffalo. There was also a
+bare-back riding act on the bill. There is a very old lady who comes
+around the theater every night selling laundry bags, money bags and such
+stuff to the actors. She had seen Clifford & Burke's act several times
+and knew that they finished up their act with a dance.
+
+Friday night she was sitting in our dressing room; Clifford and Burke
+were on the stage when she came in but had finished their act and gone
+to their room, although the old lady didn't know this. The horse act was
+on and the old horse galloping around the stage "clickerty clack;
+clickerty clack; clickerty clack," when suddenly the old lady stops
+talking, pricks up her ears, listens a minute, then said,
+
+"By garry, thim byes is doin' a long dance this night."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There was a German artist playing on the bill with us in Buffalo. He was
+a very polite chap, but his English was very Berlin. One night, after
+holding a rehearsal with a German acrobat, who was not much better off
+than he was as to the English language, he came over to my wife, and
+very slowly and laboriously he said,
+
+"Goot evening, Madam Mees Dayne; eet iss colder than h----, don't it?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Charlie Case was telling me how bad his teeth were:
+
+"Why, Will," he said, "I have indigestion something awful. I can't chew
+a piece of meat to save my life. I just bite it hard enough to make sure
+it is dead, and swallow it."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Chick Sale comes from some one-night stand up in Illinois, I have
+forgotten the name of it; but there are two rival hose companies in the
+town. As fires are scarce, every once in a while they have a "contest."
+The two companies line up side by side, somebody counts three and away
+they go across the square to the watering trough. Upon arriving there
+they unreel their hose, stick one end into the watering trough, man the
+pumps, and the first one to get a stream on to the flag pole wins.
+
+Last summer there came a real fire. As the fire was nearest to their
+engine house the Alerts got there, and got a stream on to the fire
+before the Reliables arrived. As they came panting and puffing up the
+hill the captain of the Reliables saw this, stopped, waved his hand back
+at his company and said,
+
+"They have beat us, boys; you can go back."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There is one good thing about Des Moines, according to the
+advertisements they are running in the magazines. There are twenty
+railroads running out of it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On 125th Street in New York City there is a piano dealer by the name of
+Wise. On every window of his store he has painted--
+
+"What is home without a piano? Wise."
+
+And he is correct.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One week in Omaha, Neb., the advertising in front of the Gaiety Theater
+read--
+
+ "The Midnight Maidens.
+ 15 to 75 cts."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A Montreal furrier advertises--
+
+ "Fur cap, $1.00.
+ Good Fur Cap, $1.25.
+ Real Fur Cap, $1.50."
+
+
+
+
+"HEART INTEREST"
+
+
+When you go into a Continuous Vaudeville show you expect to see all
+sorts of acrobatic marvels, trained animals, and funny people. You
+expect to hear sweet singers, talented musicians, and funny comedians.
+But once in awhile you see and hear some little gem of sincere, heart
+interest.
+
+And so, just in order to give that little touch of the "heart interest,"
+I am going to tell you of a couple of little incidents that came into
+our lives at different times.
+
+One night several years ago we were playing in a little town way up in
+the mountains of Pennsylvania. The night telegraph operator at the
+railroad station was an old schoolmate of mine. And so after the show
+was over I went over to the station to have a visit with him. It was a
+still cold night in the middle of winter and we sat around the little
+stove in his office, talking over our boyhood days back in New
+Hampshire.
+
+Along about midnight the outer door opened and a poor, ragged,
+hungry-looking young chap of twenty-two or three stepped in and walked
+to the stove. After he had got his hands thawed out a little he came
+over to the window of the telegraph office and handed the operator a
+piece of paper. It was just a piece of common wrapping paper with a
+message written on it in lead pencil.
+
+"How much will it cost me to send that message?" he asked.
+
+The operator counted the words.
+
+"Ten words; twenty-five cents."
+
+The young fellow withdrew his closed hand from his pocket and emptied
+out exactly twenty-five cents in pennies and nickels, sighed and went
+out.
+
+The operator sat down and sent the message. Then he sat looking at the
+paper for quite a few seconds; then he turned to me and said,
+
+"Well, I have been jerking lightning quite a while now, but there is the
+biggest ten words I ever sent."
+
+He handed me the message; it read--
+
+"Kiss Mother good-by; I am too poor to come."
+
+The second is just a letter which Miss Dayne received in Pittsburg, from
+a poor old mother who thought she recognized in Miss Dayne her erring
+daughter.
+
+ MCKEESPORT, PA., Mar. 5.
+
+ Dear Daughter Blanch.
+
+i recognized your picture in one of the Pittsburg papers. Blanchie will
+you write me a few lines and releived my heart and mind. if it is
+concealment you dont want any one to know from me if you will only write
+me a few lines i am your mother how i have longed to see you my health
+is failing me the children often ask about you and wonder dont fail me
+dear child you are just the same to me as the rest love to you Blanchie
+from your heart broken mother
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mag Haggerty's Horse.]
+
+TOMMIE RYAN'S HORSE
+
+
+Tommie Ryan and his wife (Mary Richfield) live in a very charming house
+at Sayville, Long Island. The Ryan horse lived in the barn. Although, if
+Mrs. Tommie had had her way, he would have lived in the parlor. For
+"Abner" was the pride of her heart.
+
+Abner had been in the family so long he had become a habit. He had grown
+so old that Tommie had to go out at night and fold him up and put him to
+bed; then in the morning he would have to go out and pry him up on to
+his feet again.
+
+When Mrs. Ryan wanted to go for a drive, Tommie had to go along on his
+bicycle, to push the horse up the hills and hold it back going down the
+hills.
+
+Abner's teeth had grown so long that he looked like a wild boar. Tommie
+vows that he chewed all his hay for him for two years.
+
+Finally Tommie got tired of acting as wet nurse to Abner and wanted to
+dispose of him some way; but Mrs. Ryan absolutely refused; she said
+Tommie had given her that horse "to keep" and she was going to keep him.
+
+But finally, along towards fall, when it was time for them to start out
+on their winter's tour, Tommie evolved a deep, dark scheme. So he framed
+it up with the local livery stable man, that, as soon as they were gone,
+he was to dispose of Abner; sell him, if he could; if not, then give him
+away to some one who would treat him kindly and see that his last days
+were spent in peace and plenty. And, in order to cover up his duplicity,
+he left three letters with the livery stable man to be copied and mailed
+to him on stated dates.
+
+Everything went off as planned; Abner was disposed of, and upon the
+first stated date the Ryans received the first letter; it stated that
+the distemper was rather prevalent among the best circles of Long Island
+Horse Society, but that as yet Abner was free from it.
+
+Two weeks later a letter came to St. Louis stating that Abner was
+afflicted, but very slightly.
+
+At Milwaukee a week later the third letter came, describing in detail
+the last sad rites attending the death and burial of Abner.
+
+As the weeks passed by Mrs. Ryan grew resigned and Tommie grew happy.
+And then came their engagement at Buffalo. Upon arrival at the theater,
+Tommie found eleven letters; one was from the livery stable man at home;
+this one he slipped into his overcoat pocket for a private reading later
+on. While he was reading the other ten, his turn came to rehearse his
+music; he slipped the ten letters into the same pocket with the livery
+stable man's letter, and forgot all about the whole lot.
+
+Arriving at the hotel, Mrs. Ryan asked him for the mail and he handed
+the whole lot over to her. The first one that she opened was the livery
+stable man's. It stated that the family he had given Abner to, according
+to Tom's directions, had just been arrested for beating and starving
+Abner.
+
+I can't tell the rest; it is too sad; but to this day, every time Mrs.
+Ryan thinks of Abner, she looks at Tommie, and he goes out and sits in
+the Park.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Thou Shalt Not Steal," said the sign in the car.
+
+The conductor looked at it and laughed "ha ha."
+
+And he pinched four dollars, and whistled the air,
+
+"None but the brave deserve the fare."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+After six weeks' travel the Harry Lauder Company had reached San
+Francisco; every night of that six weeks Hugo Morris had taken Lauder
+out to some restaurant to exhibit and feed him. On this first night in
+San Francisco, the show had been an uncommonly large success, and
+"Spendthrift Harry" was feeling generous. So he said to Hugo,
+
+"Wull, Hugo, I bane thinkin'; every nicht sen we left New York you ha'
+taken me oot as your guest; you ha' entertained me grand; I ha' never
+seen anything like it in ma own country. An' I ha come to the conclusion
+tha' it is not richt for me to let yo' do a' the treatin'. An' so
+to-nicht I wi' toss yo' a penny to see who pays for the supper."
+
+He did so, and Hugo got stuck.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Wouldn't Alan Dale feel at home in a "Pan"tages theater?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Shun Licker."]
+
+One morning in Chicago I received a pressing invitation to come over to
+the police station and bail out "A Fallen Star." Upon arriving there I
+found the aforesaid Star sitting on the edge of his bunk holding his
+head in his hands and wishing it had never happened.
+
+Like all Good Samaritans I started in delivering a Frances Murphy to
+him; I told him how he was ruining his health, fortune and reputation; I
+was really making quite a hit--with myself. Suddenly a rat scampered
+along the corridor by the door. The Fallen Star saw it, started,
+glanced sharply at me, then regained his composure. I was going ahead
+with my temperance lecture, when he glanced up at me a second time and
+said sharply,
+
+"I know what you think; you think I think I saw a rat--but I didn't."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One summer we took our Property Man up on the farm in New Hampshire with
+us; one day my wife was trying to describe a man that she wanted him to
+find over to the village:
+
+"He is a rather stout man," she said; "has reddish hair, wears blue
+glasses and has locomotor ataxia."
+
+"Oh, yes," interrupted the Property Man, "I seen it; he keeps it up in
+George Blodgett's barn; I see it every night when I go after the cow."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The manager of a little theater in Des Moines closed an act on a
+Thursday; I asked him what the matter was with the actor:
+
+"Too officious, front and back."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+B. F. Keith had two theaters in Philadelphia; one on Eighth Street and
+one on Chestnut Street. One week while we were appearing at the
+Chestnut Street house one of the papers had a picture of me. Not having
+space enough for the whole name of the theater, they cut it down so that
+the announcement read--
+
+"WILL M. CRESSY. KEITH'S CHESTNUT."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: The Widow's Mite.]
+
+The train had stopped at Reno for a few minutes; it was just at dusk and
+as the night was warm we got out and were walking up and down the
+platform. There was a billboard at the end of the station and the bill
+poster was pasting up some paper advertising the coming of "The Widow's
+Mite" Company. An old chap came along, stopped and looked at it, but,
+owing to the poor light could not quite make out what it was; so he said
+to the bill poster,
+
+"What show is it, Bill?"
+
+"The Widow's Mite."
+
+The old fellow pondered on it for a moment, then as he turned away he
+said, half to himself,
+
+"Might? They _do_."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One night in San Francisco, Bonnie Thornton woke up, heard a suspicious
+noise in the next room, and nudged Jim, her husband.
+
+"What's the matter?" inquired Jim.
+
+"There is a burglar in the other room," said Bonnie.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I can hear him."
+
+There was a pause, then she whispered excitedly,
+
+"_Jim, he is under the bed._"
+
+"No, he isn't," said Jim.
+
+"How do you know he isn't?"
+
+"Because I am under there."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Jack Wilson went into an auto supply store in New York and wanted to buy
+a pedometer for his car.
+
+"A speedometer you mean, don't you?" said the clerk, smiling.
+
+"No; I want a pedometer," said Jack.
+
+"But," persisted the clerk, "a pedometer is for registering how far you
+have walked. You don't want that on your car."
+
+"Humph," said Jack, "you don't know my car."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A Critic had criticized me rather severely, and then, not satisfied with
+that, had come around to see me and tell wherein I was wrong.
+
+"See here," I said, "how is it that you, a newspaper man here in a small
+town; a man that never wrote a play; never produced a play; and never
+played a part in your life; how is it that you feel competent to give
+lessons to me, who have made a life's study of this line of work?"
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "it is true that I never wrote, produced or took
+part in a play. Neither have I ever laid an egg. But I consider myself a
+better judge of an omelette than any hen that ever lived."
+
+There was a kind of a R.S.V.P. in his tone but I did not have any answer
+to make right at the time.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: Far from Home and Kindred.]
+
+It was at a little station way out on the plains of Nebraska. There were
+exactly sixteen houses in sight. Two men met just outside our window.
+
+"Why, hello, Henry," said one; "what are you doin' down town?"
+
+
+
+
+VAUDEVILLE VS. THE LEGITIMATE
+
+
+A few years ago a handsome, immaculate young man came over to me as I
+was sitting in the office of the Adams House in Boston and said,
+
+"Mr. Cressy, my name is so-and-so; I am an actor; a good actor too, and
+I have always been very proud of my profession. My mother is one of the
+most popular actresses in America to-day. But last summer I had an
+experience that set me to thinking a little. As you were mixed up in it
+I am going to tell it to you.
+
+"Last season I was out with a company that made one of those 'artistic
+successes,' but which did not seem to interest the public very much. As
+a result, when the merry springtime came around, I had a trunk full of
+good clothes, good press notices and I.O.U.'s from the manager, but not
+a dollar in money.
+
+"But I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from a luckier
+actor friend to spend a month at his summer home on the shores of Lake
+Sunapee, N. H. Did I went? I did went! _Quick_.
+
+"He had a beautiful home. And I was certainly some class; I had linens,
+flannels, yachting clothes, tennis clothes, evening clothes; in fact I
+had everything but money.
+
+"One night we were sitting down on his little wharf enjoying our--no,
+his--cigars, and a very pretty little launch passed by.
+
+"'Whose launch is that?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, it belongs to some Vaudeville player by the name of Matthews, I
+believe. They live over on the other side of the lake. I don't know
+them.'
+
+"Pretty soon another little launch came into the bay, cruised around the
+shore, and went.
+
+"'Whose boat is that?' I inquired.
+
+"'That belongs to a Vaudeville fellow by the name of Merritt. I don't
+know him.'
+
+"A little while after a big cabin launch came into the bay and cruised
+slowly around. Out on the deck was a party of young folks: two of the
+girls were playing mandolins and they were all singing.
+
+"'By Jove!' I exclaimed. 'That's a beauty! Whose is it?'
+
+"'Oh, that is Will Cressy's boat,' replied my friend impatiently. 'He is
+another of those Vaudeville people. There are a number of them over
+across the lake there, but we don't know them at all.'
+
+"I sat for a while--thinking. Here I was, a recognized Broadway player
+of legitimate roles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearian
+role without a rehearsal, a member of The Lambs and The Players Clubs.
+And here I was sitting out on the end of a wharf because I didn't have
+money enough to hire even a bum rowboat. And the three first launches
+that had passed by were all owned by _Vaudeville players_--whom my
+legitimate friend 'did not know at all.' I thought it all out and then I
+turned to my friend and said,
+
+"'All right, Tom, but you want to make all you can out of this visit of
+mine. For the next time I come up here you won't be speaking to me.'
+
+"'Why won't I?' he asked in surprise.
+
+"'Because the next time I come up here I am going to be "one of those
+Vaudeville players." I am going to have some money in my pocket; and I
+am going to have a boat; and I am going to sail by here every evening
+and make faces at you "Legits."'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Copy of a letter received from the proprietor of a hotel in Youngstown,
+Ohio:
+
+"To the Manager of the ---- Company.
+
+"I can highly recommend you to my hotel we get all the best troups our
+rates are as follows.
+
+One man or one woman in one bed, $1.25.
+
+Two men, or two women, or one man and one woman in one bed, $1.00.
+
+And the hens lay every day.
+
+ "---- ----, Proprietor."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Hanging in each room of the Freeman House at Paterson, N. J., there used
+to hang a neat little frame of "House Rules." Among these rules were the
+following:
+
+"Towel Service will be restricted to one clean towel for each guest
+daily. The face towel of the previous day may (and should) be retained
+for hand use the following day."
+
+"Gentlemen will not be allowed to visit ladies in their sleeping rooms,
+nor ladies to visit gentlemen in their rooms _except under extenuating
+circumstances_."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Why?"]
+
+A little boy playing around the stage door of the Orpheum Theater in
+Kansas City spoke to me as I came out one afternoon.
+
+"Hello, Mister."
+
+"Hello, young feller."
+
+"Do you work in there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you an actor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+And I couldn't tell him of a single reason.
+
+
+
+
+A SOCIAL SESSION
+
+
+_Being "An Outsider's" Views of an Elks' Social Respectfully dedicated
+to Archie Boyd, a Real Elk._
+
+ Have you ever, when benighted
+ In a strange town, been invited
+ To a social of the B. P. O. of E.?
+ 'Twas too early to be sleeping
+ And the "blues" were o'er you creeping
+ And you wished that at home you could be.
+
+ But when once you got inside,
+ Got to drifting with the tide
+ Of Goodfellowship that seemed to fill the room;
+ Was there not a better feeling
+ That came softly o'er you stealing
+ That seemed to send the sunlight through the gloom?
+
+ There is magic in those letters;
+ Binding men in Friendship's fetters,
+ Wondrous letters; B. P. O. of E.
+ There's "Benevolence," "Protection,"
+ Mark you well the close connection
+ As they beam down from above on you and me.
+
+ And you listen to the stories
+ That they tell about the glories
+ Of this Brotherhood you meet on every hand.
+ Of a hand outstretched in pity
+ To some Elk in foreign city,
+ A Stranger, and in a stranger land.
+
+ And now the murmur is abating;
+ And you notice men are awaiting
+ For the hour of Eleven's drawing near.
+ 'Tis the sweetest hour of any;
+ Each remembered by the many,
+ As they drink to "Absent Brothers," held so dear.
+
+ And now I want to ask a question,
+ Or rather make a slight suggestion
+ To you "Strangers" that these invitations reach.
+ When you're asked to entertain them
+ Do not bashfully detain them
+ With that chestnut that you cannot make a speech.
+
+ You may not be a dancer;
+ Or your voice may have a cancer,
+ And as a singer you may be an awful frost.
+ But if you can't do recitations
+ Or other fancy recreations,
+ Don't consider that you are completely lost.
+
+ For somewhere in your travels
+ You've heard a story that unravels
+ All the kinks you had tied up in your heart.
+ And can't you, from out the many,
+ Tell one, as well as any?
+ It will show them that you want to do your part.
+
+ So do get up and make a try;
+ You can't any more than die;
+ And if it's rotten, your intentions will atone.
+ And you'll show appreciation
+ For the greatest aggregation
+ Of "Good Fellows" that the world has ever known.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Time All Open. Indefinite."]
+
+Several years ago the Quigley Brothers, Bob and George, were living at a
+boarding house on Fourteenth Street, New York. One afternoon George was
+standing in front of the looking glass, shaving, and at the same time
+practicing a new dance step. Bob was seated on the floor, writing
+letters, on his trunk, to different managers for "time." He stopped,
+looked up and said,
+
+"How do you spell eighty, George?"
+
+"Who are you writing to?" asked George.
+
+"Huber."
+
+"_F-o-r-t-y._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+All Artists, while playing "the Provinces" in England, stop at
+"lodgings," that is, private houses. The landlady always keeps a book,
+in which she has the visiting Artists write their autographs, and a line
+telling how much they have enjoyed her "lodgings."
+
+E. J. Connelly got into one house where he did not feel like writing
+just what he thought about it; but the landlady was so insistent that
+finally he took the book and wrote--
+
+"Quoth the Raven; E. J. Connelly."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One night at the Vaudeville Comedy Club the conversation drifted around
+to Stage Tramps. It happened that there were several of this style of
+the genus homo present and they began a good-natured dispute as to which
+had been playing tramp parts the longest.
+
+Nat Wills went back as far as 1885. Charlie Evans said that "Old Hoss"
+Hoey could beat that, as he was at it in 1881. John World said they
+were mere novices; as he was playing a tramp part in 1874.
+
+Just then Walter Jones wandered in, and the matter was referred to him.
+
+"Boys," he said, stifling a yawn, "you are all Pikers; Mere Johnnie
+Newcomers. Why, I played a tramp part in '1492.'"
+
+
+
+
+BIGALOW AND THE BIG SIX
+
+
+Charles Bigalow, the Hairless Comedian, has passed away; and when you
+stop to consider that he put in a whole season in a company with Pete
+Daily, Willie Collier, Lew Field, Joe Webber, John T. Kelley and Edgar
+Smith, you can't wonder that he passed away. I never could see how
+anybody lived through that season. I wouldn't put in a season with that
+sextette for all the money Lee Harrison has got. What one of them
+wouldn't think of another would; and generally they all thought of it at
+once.
+
+One of the scenes that season took place on the deck of a yacht. Daily
+and Collier had a scene where they leaned over the rail of the boat,
+this rail running across the stage right down next to the footlights,
+and while pretending to be looking down into the sea, made fun of the
+leader, the members of the orchestra and the audience.
+
+Daily would point down to a couple of chaps and say to Collier,
+
+"Oh, look! there are a couple of sharks."
+
+"How do you know they are sharks?" Collier would ask.
+
+"I was playing poker with them last night," Daily would reply.
+
+Then Collier would get his eye on a party of girls.
+
+"And look at the school of minnies!" he would say.
+
+"Those are not minnies," Daily would say.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Rebeccas."
+
+Now as this was a scene that didn't start anywhere nor go anywhere,
+there had to be some sort of an interruption occur to get them off the
+stage. So it was arranged that Bigalow should come rushing on calling
+for help; Collier and Daily ask what is the matter. Bigalow says his
+wife has fallen overboard and the three rush off to save her.
+
+This version was played for several weeks; then Daily and Collier began
+to fear that Bigalow was beginning to become mechanical in his work so
+they decided to make a change in the scene; but they did not tell him
+so.
+
+That night the scene went on as usual, up to the time of Bigalow's
+entrance. He came rushing, wild eyed and excited shouting--
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+But instead of turning and asking what the matter was, Collier and Daily
+kept right on with their kidding the audience. Again, and louder,
+Bigalow yelled--
+
+"_Help! Help!_"
+
+Collier discovered a red-headed girl down in front and called Daily's
+attention to the "Red Snapper" over on the right.
+
+"_Help!_ HELP! HELP-HELP!!"
+
+Daily called Collier's attention to the marcel waves beating on a
+fellow's shoulder over in the left-hand box.
+
+Bigalow was getting madder every minute. "Oh, say, for the love of Lee
+Shubert, come and help a feller, will you?"
+
+Collier pointed to a man in the front row and said, "Look at the gold
+fish down there! See his gold teeth?"
+
+By this time Bigalow was so mad he couldn't speak at all; so he just
+stood and glared at the other two. Having accomplished their desires,
+Daily now took Collier by the arm and they started off stage. Just as
+they were about to exit, Collier stopped, held up his hand, listened a
+moment, then said,
+
+"I thought I heard something!"
+
+They both put their hands to their ears and listened. Then Collier
+turned and saw Bigalow, looked at him a moment and said,
+
+"Er--I beg pardon! Did you speak?"
+
+Bigalow just looked at him angrily.
+
+"Something about 'help,' was it not?" continued Collier.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+"Help? Help?" said Daily, briskly; "what help do you want?"
+
+"Oh, my wife fell overboard--an hour ago," said Bigalow in tones of
+disgust.
+
+"Is it possible?" said Daily; and, taking Collier's arm they walked off
+unconcernedly, leaving Bigalow there alone.
+
+For a full minute he stood there, looking off after them, too angry and
+disgusted to speak. And then, at the top of his voice he yelled after
+them--
+
+"Well, say, you know I don't give a damn either."
+
+And walked off.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Upon another occasion several of the Webber & Fields Stars were engaged
+to appear at a function given by some millionaire up on Fifth Avenue.
+They were to meet at the theater, dress there, and go up to the house in
+taxicabs. As usual, Bigalow was late. But as this always happened nobody
+bothered about it. They simply got dressed and went on their way,
+leaving him to come as best he could.
+
+But, in order that he should not feel neglected, they fixed things up
+for him. In rummaging through his trunk Daily had come across a can of
+burnt cork, that he had used in a minstrel show at St. James, L. I., the
+previous summer. So while Collier wrote a note for Bigalow, telling him
+that at the last minute it had been decided that everybody should "black
+up," Daily daubed some of the burnt cork around the wash bowl and on to
+his and Collier's towels. This done they all went up to the house where
+they were to appear.
+
+Can you see the next picture? Daily, Collier, Kelly, and the others all
+in immaculate evening dress, sitting in the host's drawing room,
+chatting with the host and a few friends, when the door burst open and
+Bigalow dashed in--as black as burnt cork would make him!
+
+Poor Charlie. May he rest in peace. And that is more than he would ever
+have done in that company.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There was an English musical act playing over here last summer. The wife
+carried the money. She had to; if she hadn't there wouldn't have been
+any to carry. She had a time lock on the pocketbook and the time did not
+expire until they got back to England. She had been brought up under a
+free trade government and she did not like our protective tariff prices.
+
+Hubby had one hat; a straw one. As Hubby had red hair and the hat was a
+dirty white, he looked like a fried egg in it. For weeks he had been
+trying to get a requisition on the treasury for a new one. But wife had
+vetoed the appropriation every time.
+
+Finally Hubby had a scheme. He went to Joe Apdale, the animal trainer,
+for assistance.
+
+"Now, Joe," he said, "Hi'll tell you wot we'll do; Hi will go down hand
+set on the hedge of the dock there, hover the ocean. Hand you come along
+hand say, ''Ullo, old chap!' and slap me on the back. Hi'll jump, and
+the bloomin' 'at will fall hin the water."
+
+"All right," said Joe; "set your stage."
+
+Hubby went down to the edge of the wharf, leaning over and looking at
+the water below.
+
+Joe sauntered down that way, saw him, started, went over to him, said,
+"Hullo, old chap!" and slapped him on the back.
+
+Hubby started--and lost his glasses into the ocean, while the hat
+remained firmly on his head.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Four Blank Sisters were playing the Columbia at Cincinnati; Mama
+Blank traveled with the act; Mama was about five feet long and four
+wide; and she was built too far front; she was at least fifteen inches
+out over the building line.
+
+On this particular night the German Consul was to be in front to see the
+girls. Coram, the English Ventriloquist, was doing his act in "One." The
+girls came next. Mama spied a peek hole in the curtain; this peek hole
+was about the center of the stage. Mama said, "So; I should see if the
+Consul iss dere already yet."
+
+So she went to the peek hole; it was just about two inches too high; so,
+in order to make it, Mama had to stand on tiptoe; this change in her
+"point of support" threw her center of gravity still further front, so
+that by the time she got her eyes up to within a foot of the peek hole,
+her front piazza was right up against the curtain; but she didn't know
+it; she kept stepping forward to get nearer to the peek hole, and her
+stomach kept shoving it further and further away.
+
+Meanwhile she was crowding poor Coram, out in front, further and further
+into the footlights. Finally, in desperation, he brought his elbow back
+against the curtain with a whack. It struck poor Mama where she was the
+most prominent, and knocked every bit of breath out of her. With a groan
+she collapsed, and it took the four daughters all the rest of the
+evening to get her pumped up again.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Hanging on the walls of the old S. & C. House in Seattle were the
+following rules:
+
+
+If you don't like the Laundry, tell the Property Man, and he will put a
+washtub and clothes line in your room.
+
+
+If you don't like the way the stage is run, join the Union and run it
+yourself.
+
+If you don't like the Manager, tell him, and he will resign.
+
+
+If your act don't go well here it is because you are over their heads.
+
+
+In case of fire all Artists will please gather in the center of the
+stage and wait orders from the Stage Manager.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Good Morning."]
+
+NEVER AGAIN
+
+
+Harry Fox, with his two little pardners, the Millership Sisters, Flora
+and Lillian ("Lillian is the one in yellow"), were playing at the New
+Orleans Orpheum. As it was Mardi Gras week and everything was crowded,
+Harry "doubled up" for the week with a Contortionist by the name of
+Marseilles, and they took a large room with two beds in it.
+
+It was Harry's first visit to New Orleans, and his first meeting with
+the Contortionist. But the Contortionist was well acquainted, and after
+the show Monday night he took Harry out to meet some of his friends.
+Harry says he never met a man who knew so many bartenders in his life.
+The result was that when Harry woke up in the morning he did not
+remember going to bed.
+
+Now all the beds in New Orleans have mosquito nets over them; this was
+also a new wrinkle on Harry. And when he woke up it happened that his
+face was right close up to this mosquito netting as it hung down at the
+side of the bed. He opened his eyes, but he could not see; he winked
+several times and shook his head; but it was no use; everything was
+blurred to him; the fearful thought came to him,
+
+"I am going blind; everything looks misty and blurred to me."
+
+Cold chills began to run up and down his back at the horror of it; he
+seemed paralyzed; he could not move. And then, from somewhere out in
+that blur of misty light a voice said,
+
+"Good morning."
+
+Harry peered closer out through the mist before him, and after a
+moment's search he gave a yell and started upright in the bed with a
+scream of fright. For there, standing in the center of the room was the
+Contortionist, "limbering up." He was standing with his toes pointing
+toward Harry, but he had bent himself over backwards until his head was
+way down between his legs, with his face sticking out through in front,
+looking at Harry with a cheerful grin.
+
+This was at eleven forty-five; at twelve ten Harry was over at the
+office of a justice of the peace, taking the pledge.
+
+
+
+
+THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Some folks are of an artistic nature; some folks are satisfied if things
+are useful, while others like to have them ornamental as well. A lady
+friend of ours, up in New Hampshire, belongs to this latter class. She
+likes to see things about the house look neat and pretty.
+
+One of the things that grated on her artistic sense was the bath tub; it
+held water all right, and it was clean enough; but it was a plain,
+unpainted tin affair and she shuddered every time she looked at it.
+Every time she took a bath she shuddered twice.
+
+One evening while reading _The Ladies' Home Journal_, she came across
+the heading--"How to Enamel a Tin Bath Tub." "Ah ha! At last!" She read
+the article; then she read it again; it was simple enough; she could do
+it; she knew she could. And she also knew that if it was done, she would
+_have_ to do it; for Hubbie didn't have the Artistic Temperament worth a
+cent. He wouldn't have cared if the bath tub was made of old rubber
+boots; he didn't use it much anyway.
+
+So the next morning she took the clipping from the paper down to the
+paint store, bought a can of enamel, a bottle of varnish and a paint
+brush, and after dinner went after that bath tub. First she scrubbed it
+thoroughly; then she dried it; and then she put on the white enamel; a
+good job too. But as she stood back and looked at it, it did not quite
+fill the bill; it was rather thin; the tin showed through in spots.
+Well, if one coat was good, two coats ought to be better; so she went
+back and put on another coat. It was a great improvement; wonderful, in
+fact; a third coat would make it look like the finest marble; so on went
+a third coat.
+
+The next thing, according to the printed directions, was the coat of
+varnish. Now the man that wrote those directions probably took it for
+granted that any one using them would know enough to let one coat dry
+before putting on another; so he did not mention that fact in his
+directions. And so now, according to directions, our lady friend, not
+content with putting on three coats of enamel, all at one sitting,
+proceeded to put on the coat of varnish.
+
+The directions then were to fill the bath tub with cold water and let it
+set for twenty-four hours.
+
+As this was on a Wednesday, and of course there could be no use for the
+tub before Saturday, she let the water set until that time, in order to
+let the paint get "set" good and firm.
+
+Saturday night she went in and let the water out and after admiring the
+white and gleaming tub for awhile she proceeded to take her bath.
+Usually, on account of her hatred for the old tin tub, she made this
+ceremony as short as possible; but to-night, sitting there in this
+beautiful white tub, she lingered; she could almost close her eyes and
+imagine herself Cleopatra reclining in her alabaster bath, waited on by
+slaves; she reached up and got a bottle of perfume from a shelf over her
+head and perfumed the waters. And she decided that in addition to the
+regular Saturday night performance she should hereafter play a Wednesday
+matinee.
+
+But all good things come to an end; and finally she decided to arise;
+with a sigh she placed her hands on the side of the tub and lifted; with
+a scream she took her hands off the side of the tub and settled back,
+and felt. She discovered that this "good thing" had "come to an end" in
+more ways than one; and that as far as she was able to discover "the
+end" and "the good thing" were liable to remain together indefinitely;
+for she had settled into that mess of paint, enamel and varnish, until
+she and that bath tub had formed an attachment that nothing short of a
+doctor or a plumber could separate.
+
+For purely personal reasons she did not want to call for either the
+doctor or the plumber. And much less did she want to explain her
+predicament to her husband. She always had been in the habit of facing
+her troubles bravely; but here was a situation where this rule was hard
+to follow. Another rule she had always tried to follow was to put her
+troubles behind her; but, although she was now following this rule,
+somehow it brought no relief.
+
+Meanwhile, while she sat there thinking all these things over, the paint
+was setting harder than ever; ditto the lady. Something must be done;
+and she had got to do it herself. So she began a sort of rocking
+movement; back and forth, side to side, she twisted and writhed. She
+realized, more than ever, how much she had become attached to that old
+tin bath tub; she realized how it was going to pain her to break away
+from it; sometimes she doubted as to whether she _could_ go away and
+leave it; she wondered if she would have to go through life wearing that
+darned old tin bath tub.
+
+But she kept weaving back and forth and from side to side and little by
+little, inch by inch, she could feel _something_ giving way; she was not
+sure, yet, whether it was the tub, the paint or herself; but something
+was giving way. And at last, with one agonizing jerk, she broke away and
+arose to her feet. And then she turned and looked down into the tub to
+see what had happened; and what she saw there brought a sigh of relief
+to her lips; for she discovered that she was still intact; and the tub
+was all there; what had given way was the paint; and gleaming up at her
+from the bottom of the bath tub, like a full moon through the clouds,
+was a bright and shining circle of the tin, free from all encumbrance in
+the shape of paint or varnish.
+
+As I say, she gave a sigh of relief; but almost instantly this sigh of
+relief was followed by a gasp of dismay. _If the paint was gone from the
+tub, where was it?_
+
+Again she discovered that, although her troubles were all behind her,
+they were still with her. Frantically grasping soap, scrubbing brush and
+towel she tried to erase the foul stain from her character. But after
+five minutes' frantic labor she discovered that her trouble was too deep
+seated for soap and water.
+
+She tried toilet water; witch hazel; bay rum; listerine; any and
+everything in reach; and the villain still pursued her. Every moment was
+getting precious now; Hubbie was about due to come home, and if Hubbie
+ever found out about this--well--life would be one grand sweet laugh to
+him "from thence henceonward forever." Hastily wrapping her bathrobe
+about her she went to the telephone and called up the paint store, and
+in frantic tones asked the paint man what she could use to remove paint
+from anything. The paint man asked what the paint was on. She said it
+was on her fingers; and it was--some of it. The man told her to use
+spirits of turpentine. And she did.
+
+When the lady recovered consciousness--but what's the use; this was told
+to me in confidence anyway, and I promised not to say a word about it.
+So I won't.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were calling on some German friends of ours in Minneapolis. Their
+daughter's husband had just purchased an automobile and the old folks
+were all fussed up over it. It was all they could think or talk about.
+Finally Mother asked me which I considered the best make of car.
+
+"Well," I said, "it is rather a peculiar thing, but our best American
+cars all seem to have names beginning with the letter P. There is the
+Pierce Arrow, the Peerless and the Packard--"
+
+"Ja," said Mother eagerly, "and the Puick."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ _Oh You Pinkie!_
+
+"Miss Pink Bump, of Hickory Grove, is visiting at the home of George
+Flemming."--_Milledgville (Ill.) Free Press._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The "Bobbie" Richardsons had just moved from Kansas City to Kalamazoo.
+They had brought their old colored cook with them, but had had to secure
+a "local talent" nurse-maid for the two little girls. On the afternoon
+of their second day in their new home two ladies dropped in to pay their
+respects to their new neighbors. Mrs. Bobbie hurriedly sent the new
+nurse-maid upstairs to prepare little Alice and Mary for inspection and
+went in to receive her visitors.
+
+Everything was progressing finely, when all at once a clear, shrill
+little voice came floating down the stairway--
+
+"I don't care! company or no company, I will _not_ be washed in spit."
+
+(Wanted: A Nurse-maid. Baptist preferred.)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Tom McRae is the leading lawyer of Prescott, Ark. Before the War the
+McRaes were large slaveowners; and to this day if one of the colored
+people gets into any trouble he immediately comes to "Mars' Tom" to help
+him out. One day last summer the village barber, a big, sporty kind of a
+young colored chap, came in to Tom's office and said,
+
+"Mars' Tom, I reckons as how I'll have to have you get me a devose frum
+dat wife of mine."
+
+"A divorce? What are you talking about? If you ever get a divorce from
+Caroline you will starve to death. You have got one of the best wives in
+this town."
+
+"No, suh, no, suh, Mars' Tom. Youall don't know dat woman. Dat woman is
+de mos' 'stravigant woman in the whole State of Arkansas. Mo'nin', noon
+an' night dat woman is pesterin' me fo' money. Dollar hyar--fo' bits
+dere--two bits fo' dis and a dime fo' that. I don' dare go home no mo'.
+No, suh, de only thing that is goin' do me no good is a devose."
+
+"Well, I am astonished," said Tom. "I never dreamed Caroline was that
+kind of a woman. What does she do with all this money?"
+
+"God knows, Mars' Tom. I hain't never give her none yet."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were playing in New York. Preceding us on the bill were the Martin
+Brothers, playing for twenty-two minutes on Xylophones. After the show a
+friend of ours from Hartford, Conn., joined us at lunch. We were
+discussing the show and finally he said,
+
+"Will, do you know I could live a long time, and be perfectly happy, if
+I never heard one of those picket-fence soloists again."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+My wife was drinking a glass of iced tea; he kept glancing at it and
+finally he said,
+
+"Do you know, I can understand anybody drinking that stuff _at home_;
+or if somebody had given it to you. But the idea of anybody _buying_ it!
+and _paying_ for it."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ Solomon and David were merry kings of old,
+ About whose pleasant fancies full many a tale is told.
+ But when old age o'ertook them, with its many, many qualms,
+ King Solomon wrote the Proverbs and King David wrote the Psalms.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In a restaurant window on Thirteenth Street, St. Louis:
+
+"Small Steak, 20 cents. Extra Small Steak, 25 cents."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In a bakery window in Omaha:
+
+"Homemade pize fifteen cents."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Married: At East Walpole, Mass., Jan. 27th, 1912, Robert P. Bass,
+Governor of New Hampshire, and Miss Edith Harlan Bird."
+
+(The members of the New Hampshire Fish and Game League will now arise
+and sing: "What Shall the Harvest Be.")
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The hardest luck story I have run across lately was a fellow playing a
+moving picture house in Salt Lake City who had a check come to him by
+mail. The check was for twenty-five dollars; and the only man in town
+who could identify him was a man he owed thirty dollars.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I see there is an act playing in Vaudeville this year by the name of
+Doolittle & Steel. Make your own jokes.
+
+
+
+
+HOW MIKE DONLIN SHRUNK
+
+
+The management of the Majestic Theater in Chicago always have a small
+sign at the side of the stage announcing the headline act for the
+following week. Upon this particular occasion this sign announced the
+coming of Mabel Hite and Mike Donlin.
+
+There was a chap sitting down in front with his girl, who wanted her to
+think that he knew everybody and everything in Vaudeville. You know, one
+of those people who call all actors and actresses by their first names,
+and can tell you (incorrectly) all about their private affairs.
+
+Finally it came time for Melville & Higgins to appear; and in order for
+you to appreciate this incident, I will mention that Mr. Higgins is
+built on the same general principle as a string bean; he has been known
+to conceal himself behind an umbrella.
+
+Now when it is time for this act to come on, all the lights in the house
+are thrown out, and a spot light is thrown on the stage over near the
+entrance from which they are to come on. It so happened on this occasion
+that the light just covered the sign announcing "_Mabel Hite & Mike
+Donlin_" but did not light up the words "Next Week."
+
+The Bureau of Mis-information down in front, with his lady-love, had
+just started to look at his program when the lights went out, so that he
+had been unable to make out who came next. Now he looked up and saw that
+sign for the first time--"Mabel Hite & Mike Donlin."
+
+"Why, I thought they were here next week," he said. "Now you will see
+something good."
+
+Just then Melville & Higgins walked out on the stage. The chap down in
+front started to applaud, then his jaw dropped, and he gasped out,
+
+"_My God, how Mike has fallen away._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The manager of a small Moving Picture and Vaudeville Theater in Lincoln,
+Nebraska, was watching the opening show of the week. A Horizontal Bar
+came on, two men, one a straight acrobat, the other a clown. As soon as
+the act was over the manager went back and fired the clown.
+
+"Fired?" said the clown in amazement; "what for?"
+
+"Because you can't do nothin'; you missed every trick you went after;
+t'other feller is all right; he can work."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Joe Keaton, "the Man With the Table, a Wife and Three Kids," was in
+three hotel fires inside of fourteen months. But he always managed to
+get his little family out safe. In addition to doing that, he always
+managed to save something; and that something was the same every time.
+When they had all got down the fire escapes, and had reached a place of
+safety, Joe would find clutched tightly in his hand--_a cake of soap_.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One night Ezra Kendal left his wife at the elevator in the Union Hotel
+in Chicago, saying that he would be right up in a few minutes. Two hours
+later he came up to the room.
+
+"Where have you been all this time, Ezra?" asked his wife.
+
+"I met a couple of Interlocutors downstairs, and I have been doing End
+Man to them," said Ezra.
+
+[Illustration: It Isn't the Coat that makes the Man.]
+
+Fred Niblo and his wife (Josephine Cohan) were playing at Proctor's 23d
+Street Theater in New York. Fred always wore a Prince Albert coat in his
+act. On this day he had considerable trouble in getting his necktie to
+suit him. Finally he got arranged, slipped on the Prince Albert,
+buttoned it, took one final look into the glass, and started for the
+door.
+
+"Where are you going, dear?" asked Mrs. N. in that wifely tone that
+always makes a man shrink.
+
+"Why, I am going out to do my act," said Fred. "Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Mrs. N., "only I thought perhaps you would want to
+put some trousers on."
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHT IN BOHEMIA
+
+
+When George W. Day got married he took awful chances. Well, of course,
+we all do, for that matter; but George took more than usual, for he
+married into a Scotch Presbyterian family, and anybody knows that Actors
+and Scotch Presbyterians were not originally created for Affinities. But
+George, in addition to being an Actor, is a Musician, an Artist and a
+Corking Good Fellow, and the wife's folks, after taking him on probation
+for ten or fifteen years, finally decided that they would accept him
+into the family.
+
+Up to two or three years ago, Mother-in-law was the only one of the
+family who had visited Mr. and Mrs. George in their New York home; the
+rest of the family had continued to reside in Peaceful Valley, or
+wherever it was, and hope for the best for that poor erring daughter who
+had fallen victim to the wiles of "a Actor." But finally Mr. and Mrs.
+George and Mother-in-law had persuaded Mother-in-law's two sisters and
+one of the sister's husbands to come down to New York and visit the
+Days.
+
+Uncle Abinidab was a tall, ministerial appearing man, "ninety years of
+age, and whiskers down to here"; he dressed in a black pair of trousers,
+a black Prince Albert coat, black tie, and a black slouch hat.
+
+The two aunts wore the black silk dresses that their father had brought
+from India sixty years ago. Mother-in-law was also dressed in black.
+
+George worked in as many "neutral tints" on his own wardrobe as he
+could, trying to "tone down" to fit the occasion. The ice box was used
+for the sole purpose of storing food; George's cigars, pipes and tobacco
+were locked up in an old trunk in the storeroom. The family Bible was
+hunted up, dusted, and placed in a conspicuous position on the
+centertable in the front room. George carefully censored his drawings
+which were stuck up on the walls all over the house; and any lady who
+did not have on a Buffalo overcoat and rubber boots was placed out in
+the trunk with the pipes.
+
+The week that followed was "one round of gayety" for the folks. George
+walked off over five pounds showing them the Brooklyn bridge, Central
+Park, Grant's tomb, Fifth Avenue, Fleischman's bread line, Macy's store,
+the post-office, Tammany Hall, and every church in the city.
+
+It took them the first five days to play this route. And then on Friday
+night Mother-in-law horrified George by informing the others that on the
+next day she and George would show them Coney Island. By going out early
+in the morning, and in the evenings, and rehearsing his day's route in
+advance, George had managed so far to conduct his little Company around
+the city without running them into any "High Life." But he knew that if
+that crowd ever struck Coney Island on a good busy afternoon, his hopes
+of becoming a favorite son-in-law were gone.
+
+But Mother insisted, so the next morning he took Deacon Abinidab and the
+three "sisters in black" and started for Coney Island. Although I have
+examined him closely on this point, he does not seem to have any very
+clear idea yet as to where they went that day, or what they did. All he
+can say is that "it was awful." They insisted on Hot Dogs, Pop Corn,
+Peanut Brittle, Dreamland, Luna Park, and all the rest; they went
+through the Old Mill, and they made George come down the "Bump the
+Bumps," "Shoot the Shoots" and such other exhilarating devices as they
+did not dare to tackle themselves.
+
+They had supper in Henderson's, watching the Vaudeville show on the
+stage as they ate. They watched the fireworks, and it was ten o'clock
+before George could get them started toward home. When he got them on
+the train, homeward bound, he heaved a sigh of mighty relief, but
+afterwards regretted wasting a sigh of that sort in that way.
+
+Arriving in New York, they were wending their way up Broadway, near
+Twenty-ninth Street; Uncle Abinidab had been sort of hanging back for a
+block or two, looking here and there in a searching kind of way, and
+finally he took George's arm and said confidentially: "George, laddie,
+do ye ken a place where we can get a wee nippie?" George didn't know
+whether the inquiry was on the level, or whether it was a sort of
+"feeler" to find out how he stood on the temperance question. But he
+decided to "play safety" so he stated promptly that he did not know of
+such a place in New York City.
+
+But Mother! Ah ha! That mother-in-law, that since Creation's dawn has
+been abused and vilified, that mother-in-law, that through all those
+years George had feared and dreaded; that mother-in-law, at whose
+approach he had hidden his pipe and tobacco; that mother-in-law that he
+had never approached without a clove and a stage fright. Now, it was she
+who spoke up like Horatio at the Bridge and said:
+
+"_I know a place._"
+
+George was stunned; speechless; if the statue of Horace Greeley just
+passed, had spoken those words, he couldn't have been more surprised. He
+looked at her in amazement and asked her what "place" she knew. "Right
+down this street here," she said; "come on."
+
+And if you guessed a thousand years, you never would guess where that
+blessed old lady steered those innocent Presbyterians. Into "_Bohemia_,"
+one of the swiftest, all-night restaurants and dance halls in New York
+City. Neither Mr. or Mrs. George has ever had the courage to this day to
+ask how on earth Mother came to even know of the existence of such a
+place, much less of its locality.
+
+Down Twenty-ninth Street they marched; Mother in the lead, the two
+sisters next, then Uncle Abinidab "with whiskers down to here," and
+last, and making himself the "least," he could, with his two hundred and
+seventy pounds, came George, wondering what the finish would be. The
+Orchestra, one of those Austrian Table-Dote-with-Red-Wine Affairs,
+consisting of half a dozen crazy fiddlers and a girl beating one of
+those woven wire mattress pianos with a couple of sticks, was whooping
+it up for all they were worth; the loud shrill voices of the women and
+the hoarse voices of the men, the shouts of the waiters and the clatter
+of dishes made a very babel of sound.
+
+_And then the Presbyterian convention walked in._
+
+The crowd gave one look--and every sound stopped. The Orchestra died
+away in a discordant wail; the guests stopped, with glasses raised half
+way to their lips; the waiters stood as if petrified. Old Bohemia had
+seen many strange sights in its career; but no stranger cavalcade had
+ever marched in through its portals than this "Peaceful Valley
+Quartette." The three aged women, dressed in all the simplicity of their
+village home; Uncle Abinidab, tall, austere and with the snow-white
+whiskers, and behind them, a big, smooth-faced, broad-shouldered young
+chap that looked like a Plain Clothes Man in charge.
+
+Four pale, anemic, shifty-eyed young fellows who were seated at a table
+near the door, took one look at George, reached under their chairs for
+their hats, and faded away through the door into the night. Mother, with
+a happy smile, piloted her little brood over to an empty table, and with
+a graceful gesture, motioned them to be seated. Then, with expectant
+faces, they all looked at George. Every eye in the place was still
+focussed on them. The silence and air of expectation which pervaded the
+room was so tense that everybody jumped when George mustered up courage
+at last to stammer,
+
+"Er-er-what'll you have?"
+
+The silence grew still more tense as everybody leaned forward to hear
+the answer. Uncle Abinidab glanced at the sisters nervously, then
+cleared his throat and said:
+
+"Er-er-hem; I think I'll take a wee drop of whiskey."
+
+There was a deep sigh of relief went up from the whole room, a sigh
+which swelled to an almost articulate cry of joy as Mother-in-law chimed
+in, "I think I will too."
+
+The two sisters voted with the majority and George made it unanimous.
+
+Every person in the room, guests, musicians and waiters, as if they
+could not really believe it yet, watched the drinks brought, and
+disposed of. Then Mother arose and majestically and calmly led her
+little flock to the door and out on to the street again. As the parade
+turned on to Broadway, George looked back, and every doorway and window
+in Bohemia was crowded with faces. And as the cavalcade passed from
+sight the Orchestra struck up their wild discordant clamor, the voices
+and the laughter broke out again, and Bohemia became herself again.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ One day in June three sweet country Maids
+ Decided at home no more they'd reside.
+ So all three together sat out on a tramp
+ And the tramp died.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I asked the old Gate Tender at a park in Columbus, Ohio, what time the
+electric cars left for the city.
+
+"Quarter past--half past--quarter of and 'at,'" he replied.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Vengeance Is Mine."]
+
+Gene Ellsworth (Ellsworth & Burt) was playing the part of Dunston Kirk
+in the play of _Hazel Kirk_. At the end of the last act Dunston, who is
+supposed to be blind, strikes down the villain with his cane. On this
+occasion, just as 'Gene had his cane raised to strike him, a horseshoe
+fell from the flies above, struck the villain square on the top of the
+head, and knocked him cold. 'Gene saw the climax of his scene going, but
+quick as a flash raised his hand on high and said solemnly,
+
+"Struck down by the hand of an outraged Providence."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: One Sure (?) Fire Revolver.]
+
+James J. Corbett was indulging in one of his semi-annual attacks of
+acting, and it came along to a place where the villain was to say--
+
+"Then die, you dog," and shoot Jim, who fell, wounded, to the floor.
+
+Upon this occasion the villain spoke the line, pulled the trigger, and
+Jim fell. _But the gun did not go off._ Instantly Jim raised himself on
+his elbow and said in agonized tones--
+
+"My God; shot with an air gun."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mrs. Filson (Filson & Errol) had lost a ring in the Pullman car; after
+quite a search the porter found it and brought it to her.
+
+"My Goodness, Lady," he said, "but you certainly is mighty lucky; there
+was some acters in this cyar las' night, an' ef one of _them_ had found
+it--_good-by ring_."
+
+
+
+
+BREAKS
+
+
+Marshall P. Wilder had just come off the stage at Shea's in Buffalo. His
+act had not gone at all to suit him, and he stood shaking his head and
+wondering what was the matter. A big, fat acrobat who was closing the
+show noticed him and said,
+
+"What's the trouble, Kid?"
+
+"I don't know," said Wilder, "but I can't seem to make them laugh."
+
+"Augh, don't you worry about that; you ain't supposed to; you draw 'em
+in; _we'll_ make 'em laugh."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A girl who was opening the show at Keith's Providence house stood in the
+wings watching the Four Fords in their wonderful dancing act. At the end
+they came off, panting and gasping from their violent exercise. The girl
+watched them a moment pityingly, then said,
+
+"Tough work, ain't it? I used to do all that stuff; but I found there
+wasn't any money in it, and I cut it out."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Give 'Em the Gravy."]
+
+Robert Hilliard came off the stage at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New
+York; the house was small and he had not gone very well. A big, rough,
+knockabout comedian stood waiting his own turn to go on, and seeing
+Hilliard looked worried, said to him,
+
+"What's the matter, Bo?"
+
+"They did not seem to care much for my offering," said Hilliard.
+
+"Why sure they don't; you don't hand it to 'em right. Give 'em the
+Gravy, Cull, give 'em the Gravy. _I do._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+William Hawtry had made his debut in Vaudeville and his friends at the
+Lambs' Club were asking him how he liked it.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Hawtry, "I must say I found the audience very
+responsive; and the theater employes were very kind; but I met some of
+the strangest people, among the Artists, that I ever saw."
+
+Upon being asked wherein they were strange, he replied,
+
+"Why, there is a fellow dressing with me who has the largest diamonds
+and the dirtiest underwear I ever saw."
+
+
+
+
+THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND CANANDAIGUA
+
+
+We were touring in our auto from New Hampshire out to Buffalo. For
+several days everything had gone well. And then, within ninety miles of
+Buffalo, everything went wrong at once. I had had two blow-outs the
+previous day, and had bought two casings. Then, just as we were coming
+into Canandaigua my whole transmission went. This was ten or twelve
+years ago, and the nearest thing Canandaigua had to a garage was a tin
+shop. I got the car pulled in under a wagon shed and put in eighteen
+hours building a new transmission out of an old copper pump and a
+rainspout.
+
+Buying the two casings had "broke" me, and now I had a two-days' hotel
+bill for four people, and nothing to pay it with. Fine! But with my most
+winning way I went up to the desk and said to the old landlord,
+
+"Mr. Landlord, I am in rather an embarrassing fix. I owe you a bill and
+I have no money."
+
+The landlord was a quaint, silent old fellow, with thick glasses and a
+very disconcerting stare. He now used this stare hard and said nothing.
+So I hastened to add--
+
+"Of course I have got money, but I haven't got it with me; and I shall
+have to give you a check."
+
+He just gave a little sniff and turned his head and glanced up at a
+framed card above the desk which read--
+
+ +-----------------+
+ |NO CHECKS CASHED.|
+ +-----------------+
+
+"But," I hastened to add, "I'll tell you what I would like to have you
+do. You telegraph, at my expense of course, to Mr. Murphy, of the
+Genesee Hotel, or Mr. Shea, at Shea's Theater, and I think they will
+assure you that Will Cressy's check is good."
+
+He sniffed again and looked at me through those big glasses, and I began
+to get rattled in earnest. There must be some way; I must have
+something that will convince this man I am not a crook. I have it! My
+Identification Card from my insurance company. Hastily getting out my
+pocketbook I showed him this card.
+
+"I can show you all right that I am Will Cressy. See? Here is my
+picture; and how heavy I am; and how tall; and the color of my eyes; and
+hair; and my signature."
+
+Anxiously I looked up at him again. And I hadn't touched him. I began to
+get desperate. Frantically I searched through my pocketbook for
+_something_ that would show my identity. I dragged out my different Club
+Cards.
+
+"See!" I said, "I belong to the Lambs' Club, in New York; and the
+Friars; and the Green Room Club; and the Touring Club of America; and
+the Vaudeville Comedy Club."
+
+I stopped; almost tearfully I looked at him. I could do no more. He
+sniffed again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said,
+
+"You're a hell of a feller when you're home, ain't ye?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As I was going to the theater in Indianapolis I passed two ladies who
+were busily discussing a third.
+
+"You know she can't hear very well," said one.
+
+"No, I see she can't," said the other.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Bobbie" Richardson was not feeling very well, and for the past four
+nights had been taking a couple of pills each night. The fifth night
+Mrs. Bobbie happened to glance over toward him just as he was about to
+take his two pills.
+
+"Bobbie," she said with a gasp, "what are you doing?"
+
+"I am taking a couple of my pills," replied Bobbie.
+
+"My Goodness," said Mrs. Bobbie, "those are not pills; that is a bottle
+I gave Alice to keep her beads in."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Julius Tannen and his wife were--er--talking it over. That is, _she_
+was; Julius was playing he was the audience. Finally Julius got an
+opening and said,
+
+"Say, what would you think if you and I ever thought the same about
+something?"
+
+Quick as a flash Mrs. Julius answered,
+
+"I should know I was wrong."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Band of Hope.]
+
+LET US HOPE
+
+
+"The Normal School Band uniforms will consist of a coat and cap at
+first, with the probable addition of trousers at a later
+date."--_Kalamazoo Gazette._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the Seelback Hotel in Louisville, Ky., I asked the colored waiter if
+they served a table d'hote meal in the morning. He hesitated for a
+moment, then picked up the bill of fare, studied on it for a moment,
+then said,
+
+"Er--no, suh; we haven't got table doe meal, but we have got oat meal."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I saw a wedding announcement in a Kansas City paper the other day and I
+didn't blame the girl a bit. Her name was Leafy Gose.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Al Fields' (Fields & Lewis) mother and father came from Berlin. Father
+teaches stuttering people not to stutter. One day he was busily beating
+time for a pupil to talk to, when the bell rang; he went to the door and
+a boy handed in a bundle, saying,
+
+"Frank Brothers."
+
+A couple of days afterwards Mother said to him,
+
+"Papa, haf you seen a pair of slippers come by der house for Mama?"
+
+No, Papa had seen no slippers.
+
+"It iss funny iss," said Mama. "Two days ago yet I buy me a pair of
+slippers from Frank Brothers; unt they say they vill sent them by a boy
+to the house."
+
+"From who iss it?" asked Papa anxiously.
+
+"From Frank Brothers."
+
+"Gott in Himmel; I thought the boy said 'Frankfurters'; they are the ice
+box in."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Al and his father were sitting at the breakfast table.
+
+"Where iss it that you go next veek?" asked Papa.
+
+"Birmingham," said Al shortly.
+
+At this moment Mama came in from the kitchen, and overheard.
+
+"No, Allie," she said quickly, "it iss not the ham vat iss burning; it
+iss the eggs."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In the "George Washington, Jr.," Company there was a young lady who laid
+great stress on the refined atmosphere in which she had been brought up.
+Everything in her home had been just a little more refined than any one
+else had ever enjoyed. One day at the table the subject of
+coffee-drinking came up; some thought it harmful, others did not;
+finally Carter De Haven asked this young lady what she thought about it.
+
+"Well," she said, in her precise way, "I don't think it hurts anybody. I
+know Papa always drank five and six saucersful every morning, and it
+never hurt him."
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD SHIP OF ZION
+
+
+Old Dennie O'Brion had looked upon the wine when it was red in the cup
+so long that he was about down and out; no one would hire him any more,
+even in the most menial capacity. His poor, hard-working wife had at
+last taken the pledge not to support him any longer in idleness, so it
+was up to Dennie to do something desperate. The most desperate thing he
+could think of was to swear off. So before the priest he took a solemn
+vow not to touch a drop of liquor for one year.
+
+And he managed to retain his seat on the wagon splendidly--for
+thirty-six hours.
+
+On the evening of the second day Mrs. O'Brion, in appreciation of his
+desperate efforts to conquer the demon rum, took Dennie and their
+twelve-year-old-son Mickie to the theater. It was a rollicking,
+up-to-date, musical comedy. The boys and the girls of the chorus at the
+rise of the curtain gayly quaffed huge quantities of imaginary wine
+from near-golden goblets. The Comedian was a jolly, jovial souse who
+never, during the first two acts, got sober but once, and then got into
+trouble by it.
+
+The first act took place in a Parisian cafe, where the chorus men were
+all American millionaires buying wine for the Chorus Ladies.
+
+The second act took place in a brewery, where the Comedian fell into a
+beer vat and was only saved by the number of champaign corks he had in
+his pockets, which acted as life preservers.
+
+'Twas a fine play to take a man to who was only thirty-six hours on the
+water wagon.
+
+At the end of the second act, when the Comedian had just been rescued
+from the beer vat, Dennie scrambled to his feet and began climbing for
+the aisle.
+
+"Where are ye's goin', Dinnie?" asked Mrs. O'Brion anxiously.
+
+"Let go me tail," says Dennie. "Me foot's asleep; I must get out." And
+tearing his coat-tail away he hurried up the aisle.
+
+"Mickie, darlin'," said Mrs. O'Brion to her young hopeful, "follow your
+father! Don't let him get into a saloon! And if he does, stick to him!
+Bring him home! Hurry, now."
+
+Mickie hurried out and caught the old man just as he was making the
+swinging doors.
+
+"Here, Father, Father, come out av that!" he cried, catching Dennie by
+that muchly pulled coat-tail.
+
+"Oh, to h---- wit you!" says Dennie. "Go back to your mother!"
+
+"But, Father, you promised the priest! You took a solemn vow not to
+touch liquor for a whole year."
+
+"What av it?" says Dennie.
+
+"Well, the year is not up," says Mickie.
+
+"G'an!" says Dennie. "Go back to school! read your program! Look," and
+Dennie pointed to the program which he still clasped in his hand; "read
+that! '_Two years elapses between the second and third acts._'"
+
+Leaving the dumbfounded Mickie there on the sidewalk, Dennie hurried
+into the saloon; but he did not hurry out. Meanwhile Mrs. O'Brion went
+home and Mickie waited at the door.
+
+An hour later Dennie came out--endways. With a number nine boot just
+behind him. Mickie tenderly assisted his father to his feet and started
+him homeward. Dennie had now reached the crying stage; nobody loved
+him; he thought he should commit suicide; in the morning.
+
+Now it so happened that on this night the Salvation Army were conducting
+an all-night session at their barracks. Dennie and Mickie had to pass
+these barracks on their way home. The lights and the music caught
+Dennie's wandering attention, and he insisted on going in. Mickie tried
+to tell him that it was no place for him, a good Catholic, but Dennie
+shook off his detaining hands and staggered into the hall, down the
+center aisle, tripped over an umbrella handle, and fell flat on his face
+right up against the platform. Mickie meanwhile stood back near the door
+horror-stricken.
+
+The old, white-haired officer who was speaking as Dennie made his
+unexpected appearance at his feet, was quick to seize the opportunity
+and he delivered a beautiful and touching oration on the Heavenly hand
+that had guided the feet of this poor erring brother here to the Throne
+of Grace, and he finished up by saying,
+
+"And now, brothers and sisters, let us all rise and sing that beautiful
+hymn, 'The Old Ship of Zion.'"
+
+Three minutes afterwards little Mickie burst into his own home and threw
+himself into his mother's arms, sobbing as if his heart was breaking.
+
+"What is it, me darlin'; what is the matter? Where is your father?"
+
+"He's dead; he's dead," sobbed Mickie. "He wint into the Salvation Army,
+and he fell onto the flure, and they all stood up and begun to
+sing--'The Ould Mick Is Dyin'!'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a letter published in _The Player_:
+
+"The theater is a dump, owing to the unsanitary condition of the house
+and management."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ Little Miss Muffet
+ Sat down on a tuffet
+ In Churchill's new Cafe.
+ A Pittsburger spied 'er
+ And sat down beside 'er
+ And they couldn't drive Miss Muffet away.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Special attention is called to the fact that this is the only collection
+of stories about actor folks ever published, that does not have the one
+about the man in the spiked shoes stepping on the actor's meal ticket.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From an English Theatrical paper I clip the following names:
+
+ Price & Revost; Bumps the Bumps.
+ Niagara & Falls; French Acrobats.
+ Boston & Philadelphia.
+ Merry & Glad.
+ Willie Stoppit.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Nat Haines was playing poker; Laloo was one of the players. Laloo was a
+freak that came to this country some years ago, and at one time
+commanded a salary of a thousand dollars a week. He was a very handsome
+young fellow, but had growing out from his breast the body of a small
+female. He had no muscular control of this secondary body, but could
+take hold of its hands and arms and work them all about.
+
+After they had been playing a while Nat discovered that Laloo was
+cheating; he said nothing at the time, simply throwing his hand down and
+passing out. But when the hand was over and some one else was dealing,
+Nat leaned over to Laloo and said,
+
+"Say, Kid; you do that again and I'll give your sister a kick in the
+neck."
+
+
+
+
+FIREMAN, SAVE MY CHILD
+
+
+A comic opera company was playing Moose Jaw, Canada. I don't have to say
+what kind of a company it was. The fact that they were playing Moose Jaw
+is enough.
+
+(And by the way, who knows how that town got its name? And a
+bright little boy at the foot of the class held up his hand and
+said--"I know!" And the teacher said, "All right, Willie,
+you may tell us how Moose Jaw got its name." And Willie
+said--"It is derived from an Indian expression which means,
+'The-Place-Where-the-Man-Fixed-the-Wagon-With-a-Moose's-Jaw-Bone.'")
+
+There was no regular theater there, so the company appeared in the fire
+station. The engines were run out in the street and the show was given
+there. There were big corridors on the second and third floors where the
+firemen slept; there was a brass rod running down from the upper to the
+lower floor for the firemen to slide down in case of a fire. The firemen
+all slept up on the third floor this night, giving the second floor up
+to the ladies for a dressing room.
+
+It was at the end of the first act. The girls were changing for the
+second act. The change was complete; tights and all. And an alarm was
+rung in. B-r-r-r-r!! went the big gong downstairs. And swish! swish!
+went the red-shirted firemen down the pole. The girls thought the
+firehouse itself was afire and ran shrieking around the room begging to
+be saved.
+
+There were eighteen firemen upstairs that night and only two of them got
+to the fire.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the stage of the Orpheum Theater in Montreal hangs this sign:
+
+ +-------------------------------+
+ |WHERE THERE'S SMOKE THERE'S |
+ |FIRE. YOU DO THE SMOKING AND |
+ |I'LL DO THE FIREING. MANAGER. |
+ +-------------------------------+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I came near leaving the stage while playing in Montreal and going into
+the portering business; said change being suggested by the following
+advertisement in the _Montreal Star_:
+
+"Wanted: A porter to drive bus and a dining room girl."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+GOT ANY EXPERIENCED BABIES?
+
+Wanted: Nursing; experienced babies. 10X Globe Office.--(_Toronto
+Globe._)
+
+
+
+
+PLAYING THE ENGLISH MUSIC HALLS
+
+
+An American talking act going over to England to play has got a big job
+on hand. The trouble is going to come from a totally unexpected source
+too. It is because we do not speak the language. We say that we speak
+English; but we don't; that is, mighty little of it. We speak mostly
+plain, unadulterated, United States language, which is very different
+from English. So when we go over there, in addition to talking about
+things that they do not understand, we are also using a language that
+they don't know.
+
+For instance: We opened up in Manchester with a play called _The Wyoming
+Whoop_. Now out of that title they understood just one word--"The." They
+did not know whether "Wyoming" was a battleship or some patent skin
+food. And "Whoop" was still worse.
+
+During the progress of the play one of the characters speaks of having
+left the day's ice on the steps all the forenoon; I say--
+
+"Has that piece of ice been out in that Wyoming sun all the forenoon?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, you take a sponge and go out and get it."
+
+After two or three shows the manager came to me and asked me what that
+line about the ice meant; was it supposed to be funny? I told him it was
+in America. He wanted to know why.
+
+"Well," I said, "you know Wyoming is the hottest place in America, don't
+you?"
+
+"No; is it?"
+
+"Well then, you know that if you left a piece of ice out in the sun all
+the forenoon it would melt, don't you?"
+
+"No; would it?"
+
+Upon investigation I found that there was probably not one person in ten
+thousand in those manufacturing towns of England who ever saw a piece of
+ice. They didn't know but that you could bake it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It took me only three days to discover that I was in wrong with _The
+Wyoming Whoop_. So the next week in Liverpool I switched to _Bill
+Biffin's Baby_. Now we were on the right track. We had a subject,
+Babies, that they understood and liked. But on the second show I began
+writing it over--into the English language. I found that in twenty-four
+minutes I was using thirty-two words that they either knew nothing of,
+or else meant something entirely different from what I intended they
+should.
+
+For instance: Take the words Trolley Car. An American player spoke of
+having seen a lady riding on a trolley, and the audience went into fits.
+The player was astounded; he hadn't told his "gag" at all yet--(and, by
+the way, it isn't a "gag" there; it is a "wheeze")--and the audience was
+laughing. And then when he finally told his "gag" not a soul laughed.
+Upon investigation he found that over there what he meant by a trolley
+car was "_a tram_." And what they called a "trolley" was the baggage
+truck down at the railway station that they hauled trunks around on.
+
+Another of their "gags" was--
+
+"I saw you coming out of a saloon this morning."
+
+"Well, I couldn't stay in there all day, could I?"
+
+Received with more chunks of silence.
+
+He meant a place where they sold liquor. He should have said "_a Pub_."
+
+A "saloon" there is a barber shop.
+
+The ticket office is the booking office.
+
+The ticket agent is the booking clerk (pronounced "clark").
+
+A depot is the railway station.
+
+You don't buy your ticket; you "book your ticket."
+
+A policeman is a "Bobbie."
+
+You drive to the left and walk to the right.
+
+An automobile is a motor car.
+
+The carburetor is the mixer.
+
+The storage battery is the accumulator.
+
+Gasolene is petrol.
+
+Ask your way and instead of saying "second street to the left" they will
+say "second opening to the left."
+
+If they bump into you instead of saying "excuse me" or "pardon me" they
+say "sorry."
+
+Your trunks are "boxes," and your baggage checks are "brasses."
+
+Your hand baggage is "luggage."
+
+I found English audiences just as quick, just as appreciative and even
+more enthusiastic than our American audiences--_if you talked about
+things they understood and in words they understood_.
+
+But the average American talking act is talking what might just as well
+be Greek to them. I never realized until I played in England what an
+enormous lot of slang and coined words we Americans use.
+
+Another thing that we Americans are shy on, both in speaking and
+singing, is articulation. I always had an idea that I enunciated
+uncommonly clearly--until I went over there, when I learned more about
+speaking plainly in three days than I had in a lifetime here.
+
+You will notice you can always understand every word and syllable
+uttered by an English singer.
+
+One of the funniest things I saw over there were English actors trying
+to play "Yankee" characters. The only "Yankee" they had to it was to
+spit and say "By Gosh."
+
+Upon the occasion of our first show in England, at Manchester, I said to
+my wife,
+
+"Now we are closing the show, so let's get made up early and watch the
+other acts, and in that way we can get sort of a line on the particular
+style of humor that appeals strongest."
+
+So when the show started we were right there in the wings, watching and
+listening.
+
+The first act was a typical English "Comic Singer" of the poorest type,
+although we did not know that then. He had a pair of trousers six inches
+too short, white hose, an old Prince Albert coat, buttoned up wrong, a
+battered silk hat (called a "topper," by the way) and a violently red
+nose. His first song was about his recent wedding; he had evidently
+married an old maid of rather sad appearance. The first verse told of
+the wedding and the wedding dinner; and how they then went upstairs to
+their room, and, as soon as they got into the room she wanted him to
+kiss her. But he looked at her and said--
+
+(Chorus)
+
+ "Not to-night, Josephine; not to-night;
+ Not to-night; not to-night.
+ For I've had such a lot of pork and beans;
+ Gorgonzola cheese and then sardines.
+ And now you ask for a kiss
+ On a face like yours, old kite.
+ Well, I wouldn't like to spoil the lovely
+ Flavor of the beans,
+ So not to-night, Josephine, not to-night."
+
+Wife and I looked sadly into each other's eyes, clasped hands, and
+walked sadly to the dressing room. We knew we didn't have anything
+strong enough to compete with that.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+After three weeks "in the Provinces," as they call everything outside of
+London, we went into the Palace Theater, London. We had had time to
+learn the language and sort of get acclimated so we did very well there.
+
+But we kept bumping up against new quirks in the language. For instance,
+somebody asked me if we didn't "play two houses a night in Portsmouth?"
+and I said No. But I then discovered that "two houses a night" did not
+mean playing two different theaters a night, but playing two different
+shows in the same house each night.
+
+I also discovered that several words which had a perfectly innocent
+meaning in America had entirely different meanings in London. I nearly
+got licked twice for using improper language.
+
+I discovered that what we would call a Tramp over here was a Moocher
+over there. I could see a lady _in_ the street but I mustn't see her
+_on_ the street. I could go up the street two squares but I mustn't go
+up two blocks. I did not get my salary; I got my treasury. You did not
+"kid" anybody; you "schwanked" them (spelling not guaranteed) or perhaps
+you were "spoofing" them.
+
+The big Artists are all "Toppers" or "Bottomers." A "Topper" is one who
+is always billed at the top of the list of players. A "Bottomer" is the
+act that is considered next in importance to the "Topper," and is billed
+in big type at the bottom of the billing.
+
+One thing that makes it hard to please an English Music Hall audience is
+its widely different classes. Admission to the gallery is from four to
+six cents while the orchestra seats are two dollars and a half.
+
+While you can see a first-class Vaudeville show for four cents, it costs
+you twenty-four cents to sit in the gallery of most any Moving Picture
+show; and sixty-two cents downstairs.
+
+The Palace Theater in London is probably the highest class Vaudeville
+theater in the world. This is very nice, but it has its drawbacks. The
+audience applauds by gently tapping two fingers together and nodding
+heads approvingly.
+
+Oscar Hammerstein asked Mrs. Cressy how she liked the London audiences.
+
+"First-rate," replied Mrs. C., "only you have to look at them to see
+whether they are applauding or not."
+
+"Look at them?" said Mr. H. "_You have to ask them._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+George Whiting had just had his hat cleaned.
+
+"How does it look?" he asked of his partner, Aubrey Pringle.
+
+"Looks all right enough," said Pringle, "but it smells like a monkey
+wedding."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was Tuesday afternoon in St. Paul; the show was going very badly; the
+first three acts had gone on and come off, without a laugh; then Frank
+Moran went on. After he had come off, and was on his way to his room,
+one of the ladies who had been on before him called from her dressing
+room,
+
+"Did you succeed in waking them up, Mr. Moran?"
+
+"Um--yes--I woke up a couple of them," said Frank.
+
+"What did they do?" asked the girl.
+
+"Went out," said Frank.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We had received a letter from a European Booking Office requesting us to
+play an engagement at Glasgow, Scotland.
+
+"I would like to know what they think we could do in Scotland," I said;
+"those chaps never could understand me."
+
+"Well, my goodness," said my wife, "if they can understand each other
+they shouldn't have any trouble understanding us."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Probably the line that has been jumbled up and spoken wrong more times
+on the stage than any other is
+
+"I am still fancy free and heart whole."
+
+Try it; and see how many ways there are to go wrong on it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At Keith's Theater in Boston one week the program announced that two of
+the acts to be seen that week were--
+
+"Cressy & Dayne; The latest importation in trained animal acts."
+
+and--
+
+"Barron's Dogs, in Mr. Cressy's one act play, _Bill Biffin's Baby_."
+
+
+
+
+"WOODIE"
+
+
+"Woodie," of the old musical act, "Wood & Shepard," has grown quite
+deaf, and he tells many funny stories at his own expense. Upon one
+occasion he came into the Orpheum Theater at San Francisco and met Jim
+McIntire, of McIntire & Heath.
+
+"Hello, Jim," said Woodie.
+
+"Hello, Woodie," said Jim; "how are you feeling?"
+
+"Half past ten last night," said Woodie.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Woodie was playing at Pastor's Theater in New York. He was living on
+Thirty-eighth Street. One night about two o'clock in the morning he got
+on to a Third Avenue elevated train to go home. The only other passenger
+in the car was a drunk, asleep in the corner. At Twenty-third Street
+Charlie Seamon, "the Narrow Feller," got on.
+
+"Where are you living?" asked Seamon.
+
+"Thirty-eighth Street," said Woodie; "where are you living?"
+
+"Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street," said Seamon.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"_Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street_," said Seamon, louder.
+
+"Can't hear you," said Woodie.
+
+"_One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street_," howled Seamon.
+
+"Gee Whiz," yelled the drunk, as he scrambled to his feet, and made for
+the door, "I've gone by my station," and off he got at Twenty-eighth
+Street.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Woodie was practicing on his cornet in the San Francisco Orpheum. The
+management sent back word that they could hear him way out in front;
+Woodie laid down the cornet, thought a moment, sighed, and said,
+
+"Well, perhaps I can't play very good any more, but I must play loud."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Cressys in Ireland.]
+
+A CORK MAN
+
+
+We were going out to visit Blarney Castle. Not that I felt any
+particular need of kissing the Blarney Stone myself, for I had managed
+to talk my way through life so far without so doing, and saw no reason
+to doubt my ability to do so in the future, providing the United Booking
+Offices would continue to book us. But of course when you go all the way
+from New Hampshire to Ireland you just sort of have to see all these
+things. And then, of course, it would sound kind of cute to say, "Oh,
+yes; I kissed the Blarney Stone." And I still think it would sound
+cute; only I am not saying it. For when I took one look at that dinky
+little piece of rock stuck in the side of a wall one hundred and twenty
+feet above terra firma, and looked at the hole I was supposed to hang
+down through to get at it, I said to myself--"_Not guilty._" So any
+Lady-Manager or Booking Agent can still converse with me with perfect
+safety. I have _not_ kissed the Blarney Stone.
+
+But that is not what I started in to tell. Of course I could have gone
+out there in our automobile; but that would be a fine way to visit
+Blarney Castle, wouldn't it? Yes, it wouldn't. When you are in Ireland
+do as the Romans do. So we put the auto in a garage (and over there that
+word does not have any of the French curlicues we put on it, with the
+last syllable accented. It is pronounced to rhyme with the word
+carriage) and embarked in a jaunting (or jolting) car.
+
+Our driver was a regular lad; several years ago I wrote a monologue for
+Marshall P. Wilder, and during this trip this driver told me the whole
+monologue. And then he had some other encore stuff too.
+
+We were passing an insane asylum and he said that the previous summer he
+had driven a doctor from Philadelphia out to this asylum; and while
+there a very funny thing had happened. As the doctor was passing along
+through one of the wards--Now the driver of an Irish jaunting car sits
+way up in front, right over the horse's tail, and the passengers sit
+back of him, facing off sideways; so the driver has to turn his head to
+talk to the passengers. Up to this point of his story this driver had
+been turned toward me, telling his story to me; but now he happened to
+think that it would be more polite to tell it to the ladies; so he
+turned around back to me and told the rest of it to them. I did not hear
+a word of it; but when the finish came, and the ladies laughed, I
+laughed, just to be polite.
+
+And when the laughter had died down I said,
+
+"That puts me in mind of a story I heard over in America. A man was
+passing an insane asylum and he noticed a clock up on one of the towers;
+but there was some half hour's difference between his watch and the
+clock; and while he was standing there trying to figure out which was
+right, one of the patients stuck his head out of a window right beside
+the clock. The man below saw him and called up to him,
+
+"'Hey, there: is that clock right?'"
+
+"And the patient replied,
+
+'No; if it was it wouldn't be in here.'"
+
+Honest, if I hadn't known I was in Cork, Ireland, I should have thought
+I was playing Toronto, Canada; there wasn't a ripple; the driver gave me
+one disgusted look, hit the horse a cut with the whip and drove on in
+silence. My wife looked at me angrily and shook her head.
+
+"All right," I said to myself. "You are a Mutt audience and I shall
+relate no more episodes of a comic nature." And I didn't.
+
+When we had reached our rooms that night my wife turned on me and said
+sharply,
+
+"What did you do that for?"
+
+"What did I do what for?"
+
+"What did you tell him that story for?"
+
+"Well, why in thunder shouldn't I tell it to him? What's the matter with
+that story anyway?"
+
+She looked at me curiously for a moment, then said,
+
+"Don't you know what you did?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why that was the same story he had just told you."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+E. J. Connelly has got a summer home at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. He
+also owns several building lots around there. As building lots without
+buildings on them do not bring in much cash, Edward was seriously
+contemplating building some cottages on the lots, furnishing and renting
+them. I met him one evening this fall and asked him how the cottages
+were coming on.
+
+"It's all off," he said; "nothing doing in the cottage line for me."
+
+I asked him what had happened to change his mind so suddenly.
+
+"Well, Bill," he said, "you know I am not a chap who goes hunting for
+trouble; I'm nervous; I don't like to be troubled with other people's
+troubles. This afternoon I was over to Bob Eaton's, and you know he has
+got some cottages up at the other end of the lake that he rents,
+furnished."
+
+"Yes, I knew that."
+
+"Well," continued Connelly, "while I was over to Bob's this afternoon a
+man who has rented one of these cottages came down there. He had left
+his cottage and driven twelve miles down to Bob's house to make a kick;
+and what do you suppose the kick was?"
+
+"Haven't the least idea."
+
+"There wasn't any nutmeg grater in the cottage. Twelve miles to make a
+five-cent kick. And my cottages would be only two hundred feet away. No
+landlord business for your Uncle Edward. No, sir."
+
+
+
+
+THE TROUBLES OF THE LAUGH GETTERS
+
+
+It is a solemn business, this getting laughs for a living. Supposing the
+people don't laugh. Then how are you going to live? Take an act that you
+have been doing for weeks. Every afternoon and every night the audience
+laughs at exactly the same lines; this goes on night after night, week
+after week and city after city. Then you go into some city like Toronto
+or St. Paul and Hamlet's soliloquy would get as many laughs as you do.
+Now what are you going to do? Other players on the bill are getting
+laughs right along and you, in the language of the stage, are "dying
+standing up."
+
+I have had the same experiences off the stage. I once tried to tell an
+old German gentleman in St. Louis a story that had been highly
+recommended to me as being funny. It was about a man going up to a St.
+Louis policeman and asking him the quickest way to get to the Mt. Olive
+hospital. The policeman told him to go over to Grogan's saloon and call
+the bartender an A. P. A.
+
+Then I waited for the laugh. And immediately I knew I had a Toronto
+audience. The old man studied a moment, then said,
+
+"Why did he not tell him to take an Olive Street car?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+An old lady from Brooklyn was visiting us. I told her one of Lew
+Dockstader's stories. How he had a girl over in Brooklyn. Her father was
+an undertaker. And Lew could always tell how business was with the old
+man by the looks of the table. If he had had a good job lately there
+would be flowers on the table, and ice on the butter.
+
+I waited for the laugh. "But the giggle that he longed for never came."
+The old lady looked up with a look of interest and said,
+
+"Did he say what their name was? Perhaps we knew them."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I met a banker in Toronto. I tried to tell him a story referring to the
+banking business, hoping against hope that I might get one laugh in that
+city. I told him about a colored man who went into a colored bank down
+South and wanted to draw out his deposit of twenty dollars that had been
+in there for eight years. And the colored cashier told him he did not
+have any money in there. That the interest had eaten it up long ago.
+
+"Yes," said the banking gentleman, with a pitying smile, "very clever.
+But he was wrong, you know; interest adds to your principal, not
+detracts."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: Playing Hoboken.]
+
+William Cahill was playing Hoboken. Hoboken is entirely Dutch. William
+is entirely Irish. Result, William, on his opening show, did not get a
+laugh or a hand. After his act was over he stood around, dazed, for a
+few minutes; then he made his way over to the "peek hole," looked out
+and sized up the audience carefully, then turned away, muttering to
+himself,
+
+"This is a h---- of a place for an Irishman."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: Carrying "The Old Man" With Her.]
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Harry Foy carried a nurse-maid for their little girl. When
+I came in to the theater I would always go in and speak to the
+nurse-maid and the baby. Then after I was made up I would come in again
+and visit them. But the maid never knew that I was the same fellow; and
+along the last of the week she began to wonder what ever became of that
+old chap she saw around the stage during the show, but never afterwards.
+So she went over to Miss Dayne and said,
+
+"Say, do you carry that old man with you or do you get a new one in
+every town?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Well," said Clarence Drown, manager of the Los Angeles Orpheum, "she is
+one of those women you are always glad to learn is the wife of some man
+you don't like."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Freddie Niblo, Jr., sat on the floor in their New York home one day,
+thinking it over. Finally he looked up at his mother (Josephine Cohan)
+and said,
+
+"Say, Mama, wouldn't it be nice if you had a regular husband instead of
+an actor husband? Then perhaps he would be at home sometimes."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A well known Booking Agency had just transferred one of the
+stenographers from the New York office to the Chicago office. On her
+first morning in the new office she came over to the manager and said,
+
+"I suppose you start the day the same here as they do in the New York
+office?"
+
+"Why--er--yes--I suppose so," said the manager.
+
+"Well, kiss me then, and let me get to work."
+
+
+
+
+ASLEEP WITH HER SWITCH
+
+
+A certain young lady (and Abe Jacobs says he knows she was a lady
+because she told him so, adding the information that any one who said
+she wasn't was a ---- ---- liar) was appearing at the Majestic Theater
+in Chicago not so very long ago. Owing to conditions over which she,
+apparently, had no control, the exact hours of her appearance were a
+little uncertain. Her first entrance was rather a dramatic affair. One
+of the other characters, hearing a noise behind a certain door, would
+draw a revolver, aim it at the door, and say--
+
+"Come out! Come out, or I will shoot!"
+
+Upon this occasion everything ran smoothly--up to this point; the
+gentleman had drawn his revolver and ordered her to appear.
+
+"Come out!" he said; "come out or I will shoot!"
+
+But there was nothing doing; so he repeated,
+
+"Come out or I will shoot!"
+
+And still nothing doing; so for a third time he called,
+
+"If you don't come out I will shoot!"
+
+There was a pause, then, as the curtain started to descend, a disgusted
+voice came from the stage manager's box,
+
+"Go on and shoot; she's down in her dressing room asleep."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A crowd was sitting around the Vaudeville Comedy Club, and the
+conversation had drifted around to a discussion of the old-time
+Vaudeville and that of the present day.
+
+"Well, I can tell you one thing," said James Dolan, of Dolan & Lenhar,
+"there didn't use to be all these divorces and separations among the
+old-timers. We didn't use to think that we had to have a new wife every
+year or two; we stuck to the old ones; the ones that had helped us get
+our starts. Look at Mr. and Mrs. Mark Murphy; Mr. and Mrs. Tom Nawn;
+Ryan & Richfield; Cressy and Dayne; Dolan & Lenhar; Filson & Errol. I
+tell you, boys, we _stuck_ in those days."
+
+"Yes, but here; wait a minute," spoke up Horace Wright; "give us
+youngsters a chance. I haven't been married but three years, but I am
+sticking as fast as I can. Give me time, and I'll get into your
+class--sometime."
+
+
+
+
+I JOIN THE SUFFRAGETTES
+
+
+I am now a suffragette. I don't exactly understand what it is all about
+yet, but when I was up in New Hampshire a few weeks ago I met a very
+enthusiastic lady who started in to convert me to "the cause." Finally,
+after she had talked fourteen minutes without breathing once, I got a
+chance to speak.
+
+"But wait a minute," I said; "you are wasting time. As I understand this
+thing, what you want is equal rights--for the sexes; is that correct?"
+
+She said that was it exactly.
+
+"All right then," I said, "I am with you, heart and soul; and, although
+I haven't known it, I have been with you for a long time. I am willing
+to fight shoulder to shoulder with you for this glorious cause, for if
+there is anything that will get a man equal rights with a woman I am for
+it."
+
+"But," she said, "you _vote_, don't you?"
+
+"_No_," I said, "_I can't! Martin Beck won't let me off to go home._"
+
+"But," she continued, "you can sit on juries, and we can't."
+
+"Well, good Lord," I exclaimed, "you don't want to sit on juries, do
+you?"
+
+"We want to do everything that men do."
+
+"Well, I don't know," I replied; "it doesn't look good to me; women on a
+jury."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, supposing there should be some big case on, and there were six
+women and six men on the jury, and the jury should be locked up in the
+jury room all night. You know darn well the verdict would be 'Guilty.'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+If I had an automobile that was in the last stages of decomposition and
+I couldn't sell it to anybody else I think I should try to sell it to
+the chap that painted that automobile on the drop curtain in the Garrick
+Theater in Chicago.
+
+On this drop curtain there is painted an electric runabout. The chap
+that painted it knew a good deal more about painting than he did about
+automobiles. There isn't the slightest symptom of any steering gear on
+it; the front axle is a straight iron rod without a sign of any joint in
+it.
+
+One of the passengers is either sitting exactly on the top of the
+steering bar, or else there isn't any; and with all four wheels set
+rigidly so it can't turn, the car is just leaving the roadway and
+plunging into a flower bed.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There is one theater in Chicago that is going to have an awful time
+enforcing that "no tipping allowed" rule. The Illinois Theater has a
+stage manager by the name of Frank Tipping.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+My wife says that all the Mormons are not in Utah: only their wives are
+not on.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Jim Morton says Duluth is a nice little "Street in One."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Fred Wyckoff says the two worst weeks in show business are Holy Week and
+Milwaukee.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Tommie" Ryan has got the right idea. He has had himself appointed as a
+special police officer over at his home in Hohokus, N. J. (Think of any
+one's having a bright idea in a town with a name like that.) Now when he
+gets lonesome he runs his automobile up Main Street at full speed (13
+miles an hour), arrests himself for overspeeding, collects two dollars
+for making the arrest, then fails to appear against himself and the case
+is dismissed.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There is no disputing the fact that education is a great help to a young
+man starting out in the world. Said bright thought being prompted by the
+following ad, clipped from a Buffalo, N. Y., paper:
+
+"Help Wanted: Automobile washer, $18.00. Stenographer and book keeper,
+$12.00."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I attended a newspaper men's banquet in Rochester, N. Y. One of the
+speakers, a quaint, funny appearing little old chap, was introduced as a
+man who lived in a town of six thousand population, but had a
+circulation of thirty thousand for his paper.
+
+"And," said the toastmaster, as he introduced him, "I would like to have
+him tell us where those thirty thousand papers go to."
+
+The little old chap arose, scratched his bushy head and said,
+
+"Well--it goes all over. Of course most of 'em go 'round through New
+York state. But some of 'em go down to Massachusetts, Maine and New
+Hampshire. Then a few go down South. I have a few subscribers out
+through California and Oregon and Washington. Some go to Honolulu; the
+Philippines and two or three go as far as Australia.
+
+"And," he continued, with a sigh, "along in the earlier days I used to
+have considerable trouble to keep it from going to Hell."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "Bring her Hither."]
+
+A young fellow up in New Hampshire has written a Vaudeville playlet and
+sent it on for my approval. If he could have kept up the gait he struck
+on the first page I should have bought it:
+
+_Maid_: A lady waits without.
+
+_Master_: Without what?
+
+_Maid_: Without food or raiment.
+
+_Master_: Give her food and bring her hither.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The cost of high living has evidently not struck Philadelphia yet; for
+in the window of a little store on North Ninth Street there is a
+sign--"A glass bowl--a goldfish--a tadpole and one seaweed--all for 8
+cents."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There must have been a crook around New York this winter, for hanging up
+over the workmen's lockers in the garage where I keep my car is a sign
+saying--
+
+"_Keep Out. We Mourn Our Loss._"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE PERILS OF A GREAT CITY
+
+
+At the corner of 44th Street and Broadway, New York, the street car
+tracks, in making the turn, swing in quite near to the curb; in fact,
+there is just room enough for a single vehicle to drive between them.
+
+One night as my wife and I were driving down in our automobile we
+reached this corner just as an uptown car and a downtown car were
+meeting there. The uptown car stopped to let off a passenger. The
+downtown car slowed down, so as not to run down anyone coming around
+the back of the uptown car. And, not to be outdone in caution, we slowed
+down also.
+
+An old Irish lady got off the uptown car. She had an armful of bundles,
+and had on a sailor hat, with no hat pins in it; so that she had to keep
+tossing her head to keep it balanced and straight. She walked around the
+back of the uptown car--just in season to walk in front of the downtown
+car. The motorman sounded his bell, "_Bang! Bang!_" The old lady gave a
+yell and a jump--and landed right in front of our car. I sounded the
+horn, "_Squawk! Squawk!_" and she gave another yell and another jump,
+off to the side, and the sailor hat fell off, right in front of our car.
+
+The old lady started to go back for the hat; I slammed on the brakes and
+threw out the clutch. When I threw out the clutch the engine raced for a
+moment--"_W-h-i-r-r-r-r!_" Again the old lady yelled and jumped back.
+And standing in the gutter, she shook her fist at me and screamed--
+
+"_---- ---- you, don't you boomp me!_"
+
+"Go on and get your hat," I said, "I won't bump you."
+
+Cautiously she stooped over and reached for the hat. And at that moment
+a messenger boy on a bicycle came tearing around the corner out of 44th
+Street, and struck the old lady where she was, at that moment, the most
+prominent. In an instant boy--old lady--bicycle--bundles and sailor hat
+were all mussed up together in the gutter. She had dodged two trolley
+cars and an automobile, only to be run down by a boy on a bicycle.
+
+As I drove on, I gave one glance back; and the bundles, hat and bicycle
+lay in the gutter, while the boy was on the dead run up Broadway with
+the old lady after him.
+
+
+
+
+DO YOU BELIEVE IN SIGNS?
+
+
+(These are all actual signs that I have come across in my travels.)
+
+ Paterson, N. J. "Henry Worms. Vegetables."
+
+ Chicago. "I. D. Kay. Fresh Vegetables."
+
+ Brooklyn, N. Y. "Kick, the Printer."
+
+ Pittsburg, Pa. "Daub, the Painter."
+
+ Dalton, Ga. "Tapp, the Jeweler."
+
+ Washington, D. C. "Shake, the Grocer."
+
+ Oakland, Cal. "Fake, Jeweler."
+
+ Philadelphia. "Dr. Aker, Dentist."
+
+ Oakland, Cal. "Dr. Muchmore, Dentist."
+
+ New York, N. Y. "Mr. Champoo, Dentist."
+
+ Chicago. "Artificial Eyes. Open all Night."
+
+ Seattle, Wash. "Artificial Limbs. Walk In."
+
+ Buffalo, N. Y. "English & Irish. Furniture."
+
+ Denver, Colo. "Painless Dyeing."
+
+ Salt Lake City. "Come In: The Soda Water's Fine."
+
+ Oakland, Cal. "Letts-Love, Florists."
+
+ Seattle, Wash. "Dr. Fixott, Dentist."
+
+ Boston. "B. Stiller, Photographer."
+
+ Boston. "Dr. Capwell, Dentist."
+
+ Hartford, Conn. "Best & Smart, Dry Goods."
+
+ Boston. "Neal & Pray, Religious Publications."
+
+ Newark, N. J. A millinery store announces--"We Trim Free of Charge."
+
+ San Francisco. "Coats, Pants & Vests, one half off."
+
+ Denver. "The Rothchild Cigar. Ten cents or two for a quarter."
+
+ Paterson, N. J. "Coffins made and repaired."
+
+ Portland, Ore. "Neer & Farr, Coal Dealers."
+
+ Paris, Ky. "Ice Cream & Washing Done Here."
+
+ Spokane, Wash. "Bed Bath & Booze 15c. All Nations welcome but
+ Carrie."
+
+ Louisville, Ky. "Beds 15cts. Hot cat fish all night."
+
+ Atlantic City. "Shoes Shined Inside. Also Ladies."
+
+ Spokane, Wash. "Ole Johnson Him Harness Maker."
+
+ Brownsville, Ark. "H. Robinson, Tacks Collector."
+
+ Chicago. "Precious Stones Setted."
+
+ Milwaukee. "Sweet Pickles and N. Y. Sunday papers for sale here."
+
+ Denver, Colo. "Hot Roast Chicken served from 11-30 until gone."
+
+ Buffalo, N. Y. "Shoes Repaired; neat; Quick & Well."
+
+ Chicago (in the Ionia Cafe). "No meals exchanged."
+
+ Philadelphia (in a Japanese cafe). "No suiciding Allowed Here."
+
+ Chicago. "Broken lenses duplicated."
+
+ Platte Canyon, Neb. "Private Grounds. You must not shoot or pick the
+ flowers without permission."
+
+
+
+
+CLOSING NUMBER
+
+
+As I don't know whether this effort is going to get applause enough to
+take a bow, I am going to finish with a story that has got two bows in
+it.
+
+There was an old English actor who had struggled all his life for
+recognition; and never got it. He had never been in a decent
+company--never had a decent part in his life. And for years he had been
+reading of the wonderful success many of the English players were
+meeting with in America, so at last he sailed for that Land of Promise.
+
+But it was the same sad story it had been at home. And dollar by dollar,
+and penny by penny his money went until at last he was penniless. And
+then came that longing for HOME that cannot be resisted. And one dark
+night he went down and stowed away on a steamer bound for Liverpool.
+
+The next morning he was discovered, and put to work helping in the
+kitchen. This was the last straw; there he sat, in his fur lined
+overcoat and silk hat, peeling potatoes. That night he decided to end it
+all. So at midnight he said "Farewell vain world" and went over the
+rail.
+
+"Man overboard!" cried the Lookout.
+
+The life belts were thrown over. The powerful electric search lights
+were thrown upon the waters. These life belts as soon as they strike the
+water begin to burn a bright red light.
+
+The poor old actor came up for the last time--and just between the two
+life belts with their red fires burning. At the same moment the dazzling
+stream of light from the search light fell full upon him. The old man
+opened his eyes; and a look of ineffable joy came over his face. For the
+first time in his life he was in the spot light.
+
+So he took two bows--and went down--forever.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ CURTAIN
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+The following changes have been made to the text:
+
+Page 37: "is the old family burying" changed to "in the old family
+burying".
+
+Page 37: "V. M. Waetherholtz" changed to "V. M. Weatherholtz".
+
+Page 166: "Doland" changed to "Dolan".
+
+Page 174: "the down car slowed down" changed to "the downtown car slowed
+down".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continuous Vaudeville, by Will M. Cressy
+
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