I don’t think I ever felt so small in my life. But of course I very quickly explained to my namesake how the mistake had happened, and a cheque to my landlady sufficed to appease that (justly) irate dame.
All the same, I reflected, it was a scurvy trick for Fate to play me.
Shortly after this I was at the Alhambra, Brighton, now a picture palace. Sam Mayo, the “immobile comedian,” was also there, and it happened to be the first anniversary of his wedding; so he invited me, and three or four other “pros,” to a house he was staying at on the front, with a view to celebrating the occasion. Amongst the company was Malcolm Scott, the well-known female impersonator, and brother of Admiral Sir Percy Scott.
There was champagne galore, and we were all very merry, when at about 2 a.m. I suggested, apparently on the spur of the moment, that we should all go for a bathe in the sea to sober us up. The suggestion was received with acclamation by all present, barring Malcolm; the fact being that it was a put-up job between the rest of us to play a trick on him, though of this he had no suspicion.
The weather was bitterly cold, it being mid-winter; nevertheless, we all proceeded to the sea-front, including Malcolm, who naturally did not care to be the only one to hang back. Then we started to undress, but as none of us had the slightest intention of going into the water, we naturally didn’t hurry over the operation. I especially, although I removed my coat, and made great play with my boots, the laces of which refused to come untied. I saw to that.
As a result Malcolm was the first and only one to make the plunge. Immediately, I gathered up his clothes, and ran back into the house with them; while Ernest Lepard, the manager of the Alhambra, who was of the party, went and fetched a policeman whom he knew, and got him to pretend to arrest Malcolm on a charge of infringing the local by-laws by bathing nude on the front.
By this time our victim had come out of the water, and was standing shivering and blue with the cold on the promenade. Likewise, despite the unearthly hour, quite a small crowd had gathered, attracted by the unusual spectacle.
I, for one, beginning to think that the joke had gone far enough, fetched his clothes and asked him to dress himself. Not so, however, Malcolm. Addressing the policeman, he said: “All right, constable, do your duty. You’ve arrested me like this. Now take me to the station like this.”
His insistence naturally put the policeman in a bit of a quandary; and, probably fearing trouble with his superiors, and noting out of the corner of his eye the gathering crowd, he quietly slipped away. Whereupon, to our consternation, Malcolm announced his intention of staying where he was until another policeman came along.
Eventually we had to carry him forcibly back into the house, where he promptly collapsed. He came round after we had poured about half a bottle of neat whisky down his throat, and piled a dozen blankets on top of him before a roaring fire; but I have come to the conclusion since that it was rather a silly joke to play. It might easily have caused the death of our victim.