“Miss Vaughn has been billed to follow you, but she doesn’t wish to. She would like to precede you.”
“All right,” I replied, “I’m perfectly willing.”
She went out and made a great hit. Then my turn came, and I had just got a recitation under way when a woman in the audience began to have a fit, at the most critical part of my number. I had to stop as it was not a duet, and go off of the stage. Mr. Snyder asked:
“What’s the matter, Marsh?”
“There’s a woman out there having a fit.”
“Oh, go back and do the best you can,” he replied.
“This is not where I fit,” I answered. But I went back and told my pianist to play number seven of my repertoire, which was called “Poor Thing!”
The audience saw the joke, and helped me out, but I wish my readers could have been in my position if they do not believe that fit was an affliction—one which Miss Vaughn was fortunate enough to escape.
A great many men have told me they greatly wanted to hear me recite, and I am convinced that one in particular meant what he said. I refer to Bingham the ventriloquist. He chanced to be in a town where I was to appear before the Young Men’s Christian Association. He went to the hall to reserve a good seat, but was told that no tickets would be sold; the entertainment would be for members only.