The Duke evidently thought that it was all part of the programme arranged for him, for he walked right in, and Princess Beatrice and her children followed as a matter of course. Naturally the directors could do nothing but follow on also; but they looked at me very sternly, I noticed, as they trooped in. “A fine show,” said the old Duke to me quite genially, when he passed out. Five minutes afterwards I had a big board up: “Patronised by Royalty.”
The following year, encouraged by my success, I put a really big show on, with ten or twelve tip-top illusions. But, alas! this was a failure. I was in a bad position, right behind the Big Wheel. I wanted to close down, but the directors wouldn’t release me, and I had to go on showing to the end, losing money all the while. It was a heart-breaking experience.
Speaking of Earl’s Court reminds me that it was while my poor old mother was there on a visit one day that she heard me perform on a regular stage for the first and last time in her life. They had an electrophone there, a novelty at the time, and by arrangement with the man who was running it, I got him to allow my mother to be at the receiver just before I was due to appear at the Palace, in Shaftesbury Avenue.
As everybody knows who has ever listened to a performance over the electrophone, not only is every word uttered on the stage by the performer clearly audible to the listener at the other end of the wire, but one hears the applause of the audience as well, assuming that there is any. As it happened I went very well that night, and the old lady was both surprised and delighted.
In the middle, between two of my gags, I called out: “Are you there, mother? Can you hear me?” Whereupon, so I was told afterwards, the poor old lady broke down and cried like a child. She was very infirm at the time, and a cripple, and she died very soon afterwards. But it pleased me, nevertheless, to think that she had at least heard me perform, although she had never seen me on the stage.
Reverting to my story of how I entertained the Duke of Cambridge and Princess Beatrice and children at my little Earl’s Court side-show, I may remark that although this was my first appearance before royalty, it was by no means my last. And this leads up naturally to the subject of private entertainments before more or less eminent personages; a side of an entertainer’s life which is pleasant or the reverse, according to the people with whom he has to deal.
Speaking generally, it has been my experience that the bigger the people are socially, the less “side” they put on, and the more courteous and considerate they almost invariably show themselves towards the performer or performers they summon to their houses. It is the newly rich, and the hangers-on to the fringe of society, who relegate, or try to relegate, the artiste to the servants’ hall for his refreshments, etc., and otherwise show him by every means in their power how deep is the social gulf they imagine exists between the mere performer for money and themselves.
As an example of the other kind of treatment, meted out to me by people of the highest social standing, the following plain, unvarnished account of a professional visit I paid in the autumn of 1915 to Wentworth Woodhouse will serve. This magnificent mansion, the Yorkshire seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, is one of the most beautiful and stately ancestral homes in England; and to give some idea of its vast size I may state that in the front of the house alone there are more windows than there are days in the year.
The occasion of my visit was a garden-party and entertainment given by Lady Fitzwilliam in aid of one of the war funds. Half-a-guinea was charged for going over the house, and from this source alone over £1,000 accrued to the fund, so the number of guests present may be imagined.
Soon after my arrival I was taken in hand by a pleasant affable lady, who conducted me all over the mansion, and who showed me, amongst other things, the royal suite of rooms, and the bed the King slept in when he visited the house, and wound up by ushering me into the magnificent marble hall on the ground floor where the performance was to take place.