Mr. Wieland stared at me in amazement; too flabbergasted at my audacity for a few moments to speak. When he found his voice, it was to rate me soundly for my impertinence. Did I realise, he asked, that they wanted a star turn?
“Well, I am a star turn,” I replied, “or, at any rate, I’ve been one. Topped the bill at the Palace, you know!”
“Palace?” snorted Wieland.
“Crystal Palace!” I corrected.
“Oh!” snorted the great man again, and wilted me with a look.
But now Mr. Altree joined in the conversation.
“Give the lad a chance,” he said. “You haven’t seen his show. I have. I know. Give him a chance, I say. He’ll paralyse ’em.”
Well, there was a lot more argument; but the upshot of it was that I went on that evening at the Alhambra, and was a big success, exactly as Mr. Altree had predicted. Three or four times I was called before the curtain at the conclusion of my performance, and all the while I was giving my show the whole house was, I could see, pleased and amused. When I quitted the theatre that night I knew that, barring accidents, my future in the profession was assured.
Nor was I unduly optimistic. That Wednesday they were a turn short at the Palace, and the assistant manager there, who had been to the Alhambra and seen my show, asked me to come over there and deputise. So here was I, a new and comparatively unknown performer, appearing at two of the principal West End halls at one and the same time, and that moreover at two establishments then running in opposition to one another. My remuneration for the first week was £4 a week from each, but I got a second week’s engagement to follow on, at £8 a week from each. It was dirt cheap, of course, from their point of view. But at that time I did not know my own value, and, anyway, it seemed to me then a quite munificent salary.
While performing at these two halls, too, I was offered an engagement at the Variety, Pitfield Street, Hoxton, then irreverently known as the “Flea Pit,” at £4 a week. This came to me through Macdermott’s Agency. It was a two-houses-a-night engagement, and I was at the bottom of the bill; a position I was, of course, quite proud of. The contrast with the Alhambra was most striking. There I had a comfortable dressing-room and a refined and cultured audience to play to. At the Variety I had to go down a spiral staircase to my dressing-room, which was a sort of disused coal-hole, or something of the kind, and which moreover I had to share with a troupe of performing dogs, and about a dozen other artistes. As for the audience, it simply beggared description. Probably there was no rougher one anywhere in London at the time.