“Joy! joy! isn't it nice
To eat Cook's Flaked Rice,”
is apt to gag. After about six breakfast foods, her epiglottis and thorax will shut up shop and begin to turn wrong side out with a sickly gurgle. The whole company struck. They very sensibly remarked that if the troup had to keep up that sort of thing and eat every new breakfast food that came out, the things needed were not men and women, but a herd of cows. They gave me notice that they one and all intended to leave at the end of the week, and that they positively refused to eat anything whatever on the stage.
I went to Perkins and told him the game was up—that it was good while it lasted, but that it was all over now. I said that the best thing we could do was to sell our lease on the theatre and cancel our ad. contracts.
But not for a moment did my illustrious partner hesitate. The moment I had finished, he slapped me on the shoulder and smiled.
“Great!” he cried, “why not thought of sooner?”
And, in truth, the solution of our difficulty was a master triumph of a master mind. It was simplicity itself. It made our theatre so popular that there were riots every night, so eager were the crowds to get in.
People long to meet celebrities. If they meet an actor, they are happy for days after. And after the theatre people crave something to eat. Perkins merely combined the two. We cut out the eating during the play, and after every performance our actors held a reception on the stage; and the entire audience was invited to step up and be introduced to Bedelia O'Dale and the others, and partake of free refreshments, in the form of sugar-cured ham, beef extract, fifty-seven varieties of pickles, and thirteen kinds of breakfast foods, and other choice viands.