So good was this trick, and so great an interest did it arouse, that I used almost invariably to get a return date. On my second visit, however, I could not of course work the same advertising stunt, so I evolved another one, as follows:
I used to announce from the stage that I would give £5 for the best letter written by any member of the audience, after seeing the trick, explaining how it was done. These letters, when received, I used to read out from the stage at subsequent performances, thereby stimulating the public’s curiosity and interest. Some of the explanations were very ingenious, but none of the writers ever came anywhere near to guessing the secret of the trick. If no real letters were forthcoming that were sufficiently amusing I used to compose fake ones myself.
However, so as not to leave behind me the impression that I was trying to shirk my obligations to the public, I always used to arrange with somebody to appear on the stage as the winner, and claim and receive the £5. Afterwards my manager would wait for him in the wings and get back £4 of the money, leaving the recipient £1 as the reward of his trouble.
But, alas! one day my man was called away to the telephone at the critical moment, and forgot all about the business of retrieving my fiver. He did his best to find the recipient, hunting high and low, but it was not until late on the following day that he was discovered in a local “pub,” surrounded and being complimented by his pals, whom he had been treating—with my money—in the most lordly way conceivable. All he had left of the £5 was a few—a very few—shillings.
I may add that it is difficult for me to explain in print, unless with the aid of elaborate diagrams, precisely how this trick is worked.
CHAPTER VII
AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCES
Eastward bound on the Ortona—Dinners and diners—Spoofing a chief steward—A brush with the master-of-Arms—“Queering” a poker game—Trouble in the smoke-room—We plan revenge—And execute it—Potatoes as ammunition—The cold water cure—The Captain sends for me—I decline to go—Trouble brewing—I run my head into the lion’s mouth—And am frog-marched before the captain—A stormy interview—I am threatened to be put in irons—All’s well that ends well—A benefit performance at sea—Arrival in Melbourne—A tale of two champions—Rabbit-shooting extraordinary—I bag a laughing jackass—And am hauled before the “beak”—Fined ten shillings and costs—I am glad at having “got the bird”—The “interfering parrot.”
Of all my professional engagements outside the United Kingdom I look back upon the days I spent amongst our Australian kinsmen with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.