“Gang awa, hame, mon, and come agen on Friday nicht.”
Another time I was touring the provinces with a cinematograph show depicting the destruction of Pompeii. In between I would give exhibitions of conjuring, card-manipulation, and so on.
These latter, however, were more in the nature of fill-ups. The moving pictures was supposed to be the real attraction. It had cost a lot of money to film, and in those days it was thought to be a wonderful production.
It is the custom of showmen running these sort of mixed entertainments in small provincial towns to stand at the entrance to the hall at the conclusion of the show and be introduced by the manager to the people he knows as they are leaving the building.
One evening I was introduced after this fashion to a typical old Yorkshire farmer.
“Good evening, sir,” I said, using the accepted formula for such occasions, “I hope you enjoyed the show.”
“Well,” he replied dubiously, “I don’t know about that. The conjuring was all reet. But that there moving picture wur a fraud.”
I explained to him that it represented the very last word in cinematography, and had cost a small fortune to produce, as indeed it had.
“Garn!” retorted the old chap, “tha can’t kid me. They never ’ad cinematographs in them days.”
In 1912 I was appearing at the Palace Theatre, Lincoln. I was running the show with my own company on sharing terms, so that it was to my interest to draw as full houses as possible.