However, I did well at Buda-Pesth, and from there I went on to Prague, where I opened on a Sunday. I gave my first performance in the afternoon, everything went with a bang and a flourish from start to finish, and I came off feeling very pleased with myself. A few minutes afterwards a messenger came up to me as I was standing in the wings, and said that the manager wanted to see me in his private office.
Naturally I thought that he wanted to congratulate me. Nothing of the sort. When I arrived there I found all the directors sitting in solemn conclave round a big table, and before I could utter a word a choleric-looking individual, whom I took to be the chairman, burst forth as follows: “Mr. Carlton, your show is rotten. In fact it is not at all the show we bargained for. Where is your other giant?”
“He’s dead,” I explained. “He died in Berlin, as you very well know, for full accounts of the affair have been published in the papers. But the giant I have now is an even greater draw here than was the original one, for he speaks German, and can therefore make himself easily understood by your audiences, which the other, being an American, could not do.”
There was a lot more talk, the upshot of the business being that they wanted to insist on my accepting half the salary I had contracted for. I, however, was in no mood to repeat my Berlin experiences, nor did I intend to. I pointed out to them that my contract said nothing about giants, or, for the matter of that, about dwarfs either. These adjuncts to my show were introduced by myself for my own purposes, and I had a perfect right to dispense with them altogether, if I saw fit to do so.
BOBBY DUNLOP, CARLTON’S AMERICAN “FAT MAN,” WHO DROPPED DEAD IN BERLIN
I therefore declined to go on again unless they paid me my money as agreed, and as they refused to do this I packed up my traps, and returned to London. On my arrival I reported the matter to the Variety Artistes’ Federation. This is, in effect, our trade union, and amongst other benefits we derive, in return for our subscriptions, is that of free legal advice.
Well, the V.A.F. decided to fight the Prague case through the International Artistes’ Lodge, an association which before the war used to protect and look after the interests of our artistes in Germany and Austria, we, in our turn, doing the same by theirs over here. The legal battle was waged long and fiercely in the Austrian courts, but after nine months of litigation their judges decided against us, the result being that I was done out of the sum that I ought by right to have received for my Prague engagement, and the V.A.F. was called upon to pay several hundred pounds in costs. Following these experiences I decided to accept no more engagements in Germany or Austria, nor have I.
I should have mentioned that when I first went to Vienna my wife did not accompany me, but followed me later on; she wiring me the date and hour of her arrival, and asking me to be sure and meet her at the station, which of course I did. Much to my dismay and perplexity, however, when the train drew up at the platform she was nowhere to be seen.
I looked everywhere for her, in the refreshment buffet, in the ladies’ waiting-rooms, etc., thinking she might have slipped past me in the crowd. But all in vain. At length, and at the very last moment, it occurred to me to search the train itself; and there sure enough I found her, contentedly playing with our eldest child, then quite a baby.