“How do you do, Mr. Wilder?”
“How do you do, Mr. President?”
A profound silence followed; it seemed to me to be several minutes long; then I said:
“Good-day, Mr. President.”
“Good-day, Mr. Wilder.”
After leaving the room I turned to Mr. Halford, raised my coat-tails and asked:
“Won’t you please kick me?”
Of course I had to refer to the incident in my monologue that season, for it isn’t every day that a professional entertainer is invited to call at the White House. But I did not care to tell exactly what occurred, so I adopted an old minstrel joke and said:
“I called on the president the other day. I walked in, in a familiar way, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘Sir, I cannot place you.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘that’s what I’m here for.’”