This patter raised quite a big laugh from the small audience that was there. They, in fact, thoroughly appreciated the joke. Not so the management. Mr. Kessler, the manager, was furious.
“Cut that out,” he cried in a stage whisper. “Don’t pull that gol-durned stuff here.”
What I said in reply wouldn’t look well in print. In fact it nearly ended in my breaking my contract, and chucking the engagement there and then. And indeed I think I should have done so but for my wife, who strongly advised me not to do anything of the kind.
“After all,” she said, “what does it matter? You’ve got two years’ bookings in England to go back to. Don’t throw good money away.”
This, after all, was sound common sense, and I took her advice. But all the same I have no very pleasant recollections of Hammerstein’s, more especially as because I declined to give a touting advertisement canvasser an order for a page “ad.” in his paper—price one hundred dollars—his editor slated me badly, saying that I was a bad copy of half the variety artistes in the United States—performers whom for the most part I had never seen.
At the other halls in New York where I appeared, nevertheless, things went very well indeed. I was given a good “turn,” and made a big hit; so much so that Mr. Martin Beck, the proprietor, asked me to give my show in the New York Synagogue before Chief Rabbi Wise. This is an honour that up till then had never been accorded to any music-hall artiste, and I was, moreover, heartily congratulated by Mr. Wise at the conclusion of my show.
So I quitted New York with pleasant recollections after all, but before going, as a sly dig at Hammerstein’s, I inserted the following “ad.” in Variety, a trade paper answering over there to our Performer:
“Sorry cannot come to terms with American managers. Boat sails Wednesday next. Carlton.”
A great feature in New York, and in fact in most of the big American cities, is what is known as “rubber-neck cars.” These are really observation motor-cars, holding twenty or more people, in which visitors are taken round to see the sights. A man with a megaphone sits in front with the driver, and roars out information at express speed regarding the various buildings, etc., as the conveyance is driven by them, and the term “rubber-neck” is used because you have to twist and turn and bend that portion of your anatomy at all sorts of different and uncomfortable angles, in order to properly view the skyscrapers, etc., he points out to you.
Most of these conductors call out their information in terms of dollars. “Over there,” he will say, “is the brown stone palace of old Jacob Astor—cost five million dollars. That white marble mansion to your right was built by one of the Vanderbilts—cost six million dollars. City hall—cost eight million dollars. Post Office—cost seven million dollars. This is the residence of Silas K. Jenkins, the dry-goods king, came to this country without a cent in his pocket—cost four million dollars”; and so on, and so on. All the while I was entering the amounts in my pocket-book, and when I came to add them up afterwards the total came to about 4,000,000,000,000,000 dollars—more or less.