Needless to say I promptly closed with the offer. It was my first regular engagement at a proper hall, and to me at the time the terms seemed sufficiently liberal; as indeed, under the circumstances, they were.
For seven weeks I performed there, and was lucky enough to amuse and please my audience. What became of my absent-minded partner I haven’t the remotest idea. I never saw him again.
CHAPTER V
CLIMBING TO FAME AND FORTUNE
I give an impromptu show at the Palace Theatre—“Chuck him out!”—I seek out Mr. Wieland again—At the Crystal Palace—I adopt my present make-up—“The Human Hairpin”—Charlie Coborn and “Two Lovely Black Eyes”—I do a trial turn at the Bedford Music-hall—Billed as a star turn at the Alhambra and Palace Theatres—And at the “Flea Pit,” Hoxton—My reception there—I work the Alhambra, Palace, Middlesex, Metropolitan, and Cambridge together—A record for those days—A Press “spoof”—Continental engagements—Paris, Milan—An overdose of Chianti—And its results—The night life of Milan—A blood-curdling adventure—Murder most foul—Callous passers-by.
On my return to Town from Newcastle, and remembering how well my show went there, I really did begin to think that I was “some conjuror,” as our American friends have it, and I started to look round for a regular London engagement.
Meanwhile I used to visit the galleries of the music-halls where conjurors were performing, in order to observe their ways and methods, and collect such information as I could. On these occasions I used invariably to carry a pack of cards with me, and one day while I was seated in the gallery at the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, a conjuror and card manipulator came on and did a number of tricks, with every one of which I was perfectly familiar.
Acting on the impulse of the moment, directly he had finished his turn, I rose from my seat—I was in the front row of the gallery—and facing about, and drawing my pack of cards from my pocket, I exclaimed: “I can do those tricks; just watch me.”
Instantly there was a big commotion. Some of the people resented the interruption, and there were loud cries of “Sit down!” “Shut up!” “Chuck him out!” etc. Others among the audience, however, rather welcomed my action, and took my part, applauding and laughing. Meanwhile the next turn was spoilt, and Mr. Charles Morton, the manager, sent an attendant to request me to leave, which of course I did. But I had achieved what I set out to do, by giving what I suppose was the only unauthorised show ever performed in public at the Palace. Little did I dream as I took my departure, and still less, I suppose, did Mr. Morton dream, that I was afterwards to fill at this same Palace Theatre no fewer than forty-seven different engagements, ranging in length from one to eight weeks, and thereby establishing a record, so far as this particular house is concerned.