Every entertainer knows what terrible up-hill work it is to stand before a cold audience. Cold that affects the body is bliss in comparison with the awful atmosphere that creeps chillingly into one’s soul and the very marrow of his bones. How an audience can get into such a condition and become so appalling an influence passes comprehension, for not all the men and women present can have become dyspeptic on the same day, or had their consciences awakened at the same hour, or simultaneously “gone broke” or seen themselves as others saw them. Sometimes I’ve thought it came of the actual atmosphere of the house, for there are theatres, halls, churches and parlors that are never properly aired unless hailstorms or hoodlums chance to break the windows.
But all such speculation is getting away from the audience, whereas that is the one thing the entertainer daren’t do, much though he may wish to. He is “stuck” for a given period, and he is reminded of trying to climb slippery mountains of ice in the fairy tales of childhood’s sunny hour, and the parallel continues, for the chill—the reserve, is more often melted by some happy impromptu than by conscientious work.
I recall a time in Pittsburg when I struck the afore-mentioned Polar current through no fault of my own or of the audience. It was the custom of the house to begin the evening with a play and follow with a vaudeville performance. The play on the occasion referred to was “Captain Swift,” in which the hero was a charming rascal who always took an audience by the heart, even when he ended the play by killing himself. It was my misfortune to follow the play and find the audience in a very low state of mind which, in turn, threw a wet blanket upon me and my work. After laboring a few minutes I said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve often followed a prayer, and sometimes followed a hearse, but this is the first time I ever followed a suicide.” This touch just tipped the balance—lifted the cloud, squeezed the water out of the blanket, made the audience mine and kept it so while I held the stage.
At the Orpheum in San Francisco I was received so kindly that my stay was extended to three weeks. San Francisco audiences are very responsive, except on Sunday evenings; then, for some Frisco reason undiscoverable by the eastern man, they are usually cold and the entertainer has to cut ice. On my last Sunday evening there a section of Greenland’s Icy Mountains seemed to have come in collision with a cold-storage warehouse just before I appeared, for the audience was as unresponsive as a cart load of frozen clams. I worked over them a few moments as earnestly as a life-saver over a person rescued from drowning, but to no avail, so I stopped and said:
“Now I’ve got you nice and quiet, just have a good long sleep while I go out and leave a call for you.” Then I tiptoed off of the stage so as not to rouse the sleepers. This started a current of warm good nature; they called me back and for the rest of the performance there was perfect understanding and sympathy between them and me.
VIII
EXPERIENCES IN LONDON
Customs and Climate Very Unlike Our Own.—No Laughter in Restaurants.—Clever Cabbies.—Oddities in Fire-fighting.—The “Rogues’ Gallery” in Scotland Yard.—“Petticoat Lane.”—A Cemetery for Pet Dogs.—Dogs Who are Characters.—The Professional Toast-master.—Solemn After-dinner Speakers.—An Autograph Table-cloth.—American Brides of English Husbands.