Twenty Years of Spoof and Bluff

by Carlton

This gem of journalism appeared in the Salt Lake Evening Telegram. I made inquiries and found that it was written by a lady who was consumed by a furious hatred of everything and everybody English, and that she invariably “slated,” to the best, or worst, of her ability, any “pro.’s,” whether male or female, hailing from our country. The affair did not bother me in the least, more especially as I got excellent notices in the other Salt Lake papers; but some of the English people there resented it, and went up to the office of the Evening Telegram and had a row with the editor about it. Soon afterwards, and before I quitted the city, the lady journalist who had penned the notice went off and drowned herself in the Great Salt Lake. A verdict of “suicide while insane” was brought in; and it is therefore, I take it, a fair assumption that she was mad when she wrote it. In any case I am proud of it and I have had it framed and hung up in my house. An artiste, even a poor artiste, can always get plenty of flattering Press notices. He can even buy them. But he cannot buy one like the above.

In New York I was served what I considered to be rather a dirty trick. I had been on what is known over there as the Orpheum Circuit, a twenty-two weeks’ tour through the principal Western American cities, finishing at Milwaukee, when I received a wire from a New York agent to say that he had booked me for four halls in that city, the Alhambra and Palace; the Orpheum, Brooklyn; and one other. In between, a week intervened, and I also received an offer from another New York agent to put in this period at Hammerstein’s Music-hall, provided terms could be arranged.

Now I was naturally rather anxious to achieve a reputation for myself in New York, because a name made there counts. What I mean is that just as in England a London success means far more to an artiste than a provincial one does, so it is as regards New York and the rest of the United States of America. So in consideration of their “featuring me,” as we say in the “profession,” I agreed to a big reduction of my usual salary at Hammerstein’s. I also got an assurance from the agent that my name was to “top the bill”—what they call out there a “head liner”—and that I was to come on not earlier than the seventh turn. My reason for making this latter stipulation was that Hammerstein’s is something like what the old Westminster Aquarium used to be in this one respect, it is practically an all-day show, and there is, in the ordinary way, hardly anybody there at the commencement. Consequently any “dud” turn does to lead off with.

I badly wanted to see Niagara Falls on the way from Milwaukee to New York, but found that the train arrangements did not fit in, so I had to forgo the experience. Meanwhile a rather curious thing happened. My contortionist overslept himself on the morning he should have started, and as there was no other train, and as I could not afford to miss the one I had arranged to travel by, I left his ticket at the booking office and came on without him, heartily cursing him in my own mind for his dilatoriness.

I, of course, imagined that I should have to open in New York without him, and was very much upset and worried in consequence. As a matter of fact, however, he turned up there at about the same time as I did; he having had the luck to catch a special train which ran on that one day only. And not only that, but his train came via Niagara Falls, and stopped over there for a couple of hours, so that he was able to “do” them thoroughly, a pleasure denied to me and my wife, and to the rest of my company who had been punctual. The moral, in this case at all events, would seem to be: “Take things easy, and they’ll come all right in the end.”

On arriving in New York I naturally looked for my name on the top of the bill at Hammerstein’s as arranged. To my surprise it was not there, and I had to search diligently through a couple of yards or so of print before discovering it in very small type, and right at the bottom, sharing a line with the moving pictures. Naturally I was very much annoyed, and I told the agent who had engaged me so in language that left nothing to be desired in point of plainness.

He was apologetic. Said it was due to a printer’s error, and that anyway it would be all right as regards my turn. But it wasn’t all right. On the contrary, it was all wrong. When I arrived at Hammerstein’s on my opening day, I was shown into a long bare dressing-room, where were about twenty other performers, all strangers to me. I set about getting ready in leisurely fashion, and was only half made up when I was astounded at hearing the call-boy cry out: “Your turn next, sir!”

Thinking that I had miscalculated the time I made a rush for it, but when I got on the stage I was surprised to see that there was hardly anybody in the building. Looking round I saw “No. 2” up, and it was then that I realised for the first time that I had been done once again by the slick Yanks.

They had played me a scurvy trick twice over. Not only had they not put me at the top of the bill, but they had given me the worst turn, and—I was to get only about half my usual salary.

Well, there was no help for it then, of course, but I made up my mind that I was going to get a bit of my own back. And I did. When I went on the stage there was practically nobody in the house, and I led off by congratulating the management at having brought me all the way from Europe at a big salary, and then putting me on when there was nobody there to listen to me.