Professor Pepper, with perfect good humour, said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I must ask for your consideration again. You seem to forget that this is an Arabian mystery. Now, if the lady behind the screen told you correctly the name of the card, there would be no mystery about the matter, for the trick is a very simple one. Anybody can do it. But the 'mystery' is, how is it she is not telling the cards correctly? That's the Arabian mystery, and no mistake."
Owing to the cheery manner of the popular lecturer, and a promise that it should be "all right" the next night, the audience departed to the large theatre, to hear Mr. George Buckland, who was a great favourite at the Polytechnic Institution.
CHAPTER V.
In the Provinces.
"A wandering minstrel I."—The Mikado.
I concluded my first long engagement at the Polytechnic in the summer of 1871, and Mr. and Mrs. Howard Paul engaged me to join them for several weeks on a seaside tour. This was to me a delightful way of combining business with pleasure, and I particularly remember a delightful week at Scarborough.
I returned to the Polytechnic in the autumn, and produced "The Silver Wedding," a short easy version of which I have published. It was in this sketch I introduced "I am so Volatile," which was the first comic song I published. Applications were continually made to me from provincial institutions; but I could only accept those at a short distance from town, as my daily work at Bow Street had to be done as well. It was hard work; but I am used to hard work, and enjoy it.
All prospects of entering for the Bar disappeared, and it was my father's own suggestion that we should try an entertainment together. He was an enormous favourite in the country as a humorous reciter; and he thought my piano and songs would prove more attractive if given with him, as it might otherwise have been thought that I was starting a rival entertainment—a thought which neither of us desired to encourage.
We accordingly worked out a trial programme, and in May, 1873, we gave our joint recitals at the Masonic Hall, Birmingham. The papers of May 12th spoke most highly of the entertainment; and the result was, my father decided that in the autumn we should start together with a tour of the provincial institutions. As I previously stated, I had only visited institutions which I could conveniently reach after my daily work at Bow Street; but as I was married on May 14th, two days after the above trial trip, it became necessary for me to materially increase my income.