XIV
THE ART OF ENTERTAINING
Not as Easy as it Would Seem.—Scarcity of Good Stories for the Purpose.—Drawing-room Audiences are Fastidious.—Noted London Entertainers.—They are Guests of the People Who Engage Them.—London Methods and Fees.—Blunders of a Newly-wed Hostess from America.—Humor Displaces Sentiment in the Drawing-room.—My Own Material and Its Sources.
An entertainer always leaves a pleasant impression on other men; otherwise he is not an entertainer. Sometimes his gestures and manner are more effective than his words. Yet he is not necessarily an actor. He is a sort of half-brother of the man on the stage, for, like the actor, he must endeavor to please his entire audience. The humorous paper or book, if it is not to the reader’s taste, may be dropped in an instant, but in a crowded hall or drawing-room one must listen, unless he is deaf.
So the entertainer must be very careful in selecting his material. Hundreds of jokes that are good in themselves and decent enough to tell to one’s wife and children are called vulgar by some people who aren’t noted for refinement in other ways. Other stories that are all right to try on your minister when you invite him to dinner, are shockingly irreverent to some folks who never go to church. Every man knows of honest hearty jokes that he wouldn’t venture when ladies are present, but entertainers know of some stories told by good women that would make all the men in a drawing-room face toward the wall. Selecting stories for society is almost as dangerous as umpiring a baseball game.
John Parry was the original entertainer in England, a country so loyal to whoever amuses it that it honors its favorites, even after they have lost the power of pleasing. He wrote many sketches for use in drawing-rooms and became very popular and successful. The entertainers most in vogue in England, until recently, were Corney Grain, a six-footer, who died about three years ago and George Grossmith, whom many Americans remember and who was quite prominent in connection with D’Oyley Carte productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. These gentlemen, both of fine appearance and manner, had their fill of engagements throughout the London season, going from one drawing-room to another and always hailed with delight. Their monologues never wearied, no matter how oft-repeated, for it is an amiable characteristic of the Englishman, that he can never get too much of a good thing. The American goes so far to the other extreme that he will stand something awfully bad if it is only new.
In England, the jester’s arrangements are made with great ease and simplicity. There are no annoying business details. His terms of fifteen or twenty pounds an evening are already known, so money is not mentioned by him or his host and there is no attempt at “beating down,” such as sometimes occurs in bargaining America. He goes to the house and the table as a guest and is treated as an equal by the hostess and her company, when he is making his adieus, which he does soon after completing his monologue, a sealed envelope is handed him, or the money reaches him at his hotel in the morning, and let me say right here for this custom, that in my own hundreds of English engagements I never lost a penny through bad pay.
Some of the more wealthy people do not limit themselves to the customary prices. For instance, Baron de Rothschild often pays sixty pounds for an entertainment not lasting more than ten minutes—a little matter of thirty dollars a minute, and by a strange coincidence, he never fails to get the entertainer he wants; some hosts do.
Most of my own London engagements are in May and June, up to July when the Goodwood races end the season. They are made some time in advance, the only preliminary on my part being a batch of letters I send off when my steamer reaches Queenstown. The fast mail reaches London before me, so by the time I reach my hotel, some replies are awaiting me. The receptions usually begin at ten in the evening. The hostess does not announce me formally, as if she owned me, body, soul and breeches, but asks graciously if Mr. Wilder will not kindly favor the company with some of his interesting experiences or reflections. Then I mount the piano, or a chair, if the affair is a dinner party, and the other guests listen politely, instead of all beginning to talk on their own account.
Entertainers almost never are subjected to snubs or other rudeness; when such unpleasantnesses occur they are promptly resented. An American woman who had “married into the nobility” invited me to come to her house at half past nine in the evening. I naturally assumed that this meant dinner. When I arrived, the flunkey took me into the parlor and left me there, saying Lady So-and-so and her guests were at dinner. I waited some moments, but as no one came to relieve me of my embarrassment, I rang the bell, requested the flunkey to take my card to his mistress and say I had been invited at that hour and had arrived. Word came back that “my lady” would be up in a few minutes. Then the ladies came into the drawing-room, leaving the gentlemen to their wine and cigars; those who knew me, the Princess Mary of Teck was one of them, greeted me kindly, but my hostess and countrywoman did not seem to think me worthy of notice.