idiots of anything but their own profession. But list to a tale of an
American lady and an English clergyman who was an Oxford graduate and a
great reader. He was also of charming manner and conversed brilliantly.
The lady was the first American he had ever met, and he confessed to
her that he was startled by her complexion, for he had supposed that
all inhabitants of this country were copper-colored! When she spoke of
driving near her own home the clergyman said:
“Er—may I ask if you drive the native animals?”
“‘The native animals?’” the mystified lady echoed.
“Yes;—the elk, and moose, and buffalo, you know.”
A notable “character” of the Wild West organization was Major Burke.
He was so witty and genial that every one liked him at first sight.
The Indians almost worshiped him and his authority over them was
unquestioned. He had been made a member of one tribe by the “blood
brotherhood” ceremony, but it had not needed this to make him regarded
as “big medicine” by all the others. He had been associated with Buffalo
Bill ever since “The Prairie Waif” days, and, though his nominal
position with the Wild West was that of press-agent, he was an all-round
and indispensable part of the management. His quick wits have served on
many occasions to put an end to difficulties which less able men would
have endured. For instance, on one occasion a number of women were
standing on the front benches and obstructing the view of a hundred or
more people behind them. Burke shouted,—though his voice was smooth and
exquisitely modulated,—
“Will the beautiful young lady in front please sit down?” And
twenty-eight women dropped as one.
Long before he went on the stage Colonel Cody had earned several
desirable reputations in the West. One was as a stage-driver, in which
capacity he was so much talked of that several Englishmen who went West
insisted on riding in his coach. They made so much fuss about it, even in
anticipation, that Bill resolved to give them a ride they would remember
as long as they lived. His only special preparation was to fill his
pockets with pebbles. The four mules started at a good pace, at which the
passengers expressed delight. At the first down-grade, the driver pelted
the mules furiously with the pebbles; their rough hides would have been
insensible to the whip. Soon the pace became terrific, for the shower of
pebbles continued; Cody looked back, saw the Englishmen huddled on the
front seat, and shouted:
“Sit on the back seat!”
“It’s no use, old chap,” one of the frightened tourists replied. “We’ve
just left there.”
When Cody is not acting or riding or fighting Indians or ranching or
asleep he is likely to be telling stories, and he has so many that it
is hard for him to tell any story twice, unless by special request. One
that has been frequently called for is of an Eastern man who was employed
by Colonel Cody out West. The man had not been out long enough to know
the illusive tricks of the clear atmosphere of the plains and hills.
A picturesque mountain, that seemed only a mile away, interested him
so greatly that he started early one morning to visit it and return by
breakfast time. He didn’t return for three days. A few days later the
colonel saw him beside an irrigating ditch, and asked him what he was
going to do, for the man was taking off his clothes.
“I’m goin’ to swim across this river,” was the reply.
“Swim? Why don’t you jump it? It’s only three feet wide.”
“Ye-es; I know it looks that way, but I ain’t goin’ to be fooled again.”
One evening, at the Hoffman House, he told this story to two or three
friends with whom he was spending the evenings while he was General
Sheridan’s chief of scouts. There was “a little affair” in camp at which
every one present got drunk but Cody; he had determined to keep sober,
and succeeded. Toward morning he went to the cottage where he lived,
rapped on the window, and made himself known, and his wife, who refused
to open the door, said:
“Go away, whoever you are. Colonel Cody isn’t home yet.” At this point of
the story Cody laughed and continued:
“Boys, I’d gone home sober, and my wife didn’t know me! I went back to
the camp, got as full as any one else, returned to my house, approached
the door unsteadily, fumbled the latch, and my wife’s voice greeted me,
saying:
“‘Is that you, Willie?’”
When this story ended, we started from the Hoffman House for the Lambs’
Club, which was then in Twenty-sixth Street. With Cody and me were Steele
Mackaye and Judge Gildersleeve, both of whom were tall, strong men. As we
neared the club we met a crowd of very tough-looking men, and stood aside
to let them pass, which they did, to my great relief. Then my companions
got the laugh on me, for I remarked with earnest confidence:
“I’d like to see any four men get away with _us_!”
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.
Then my American spirit rose to boiling point. I called my cab and was
bowling down the street when a panting servant overtook me and gasped:
[Illustration: “My cab was bowling down the Street.”]
“Lady Blank would like to see you a moment, sir.”
“Oh, would she?” I replied. When I returned I found the fair American
in great distress. She wanted to know why I had deserted her at the
critical moment, and when I told her bluntly that I was not in the habit
of going to houses where I was not welcomed as a guest, she assured
me her rudeness was unintentional, it was due to her ignorance of the
custom, etc., etc., and she begged me not to leave her in the lurch. Of
course, I pretended to be pacified, but the story got around London and
did me much good, which is more than it did for her ladyship.
A peculiar thing about the English sense of humor is that although it is
there and of full size, one must sometimes search hard to find it. Some
types of American joking are utterly wasted on the Englishman.
The English greatly prefer burlesques on American characteristics to
those on their own ways. I can’t call this a peculiarity, although
Americans specially like to see themselves and their own people “hit
off,” even if some one is hit hard. I am glad to say that although I am
given to personalities, and exaggeration, I try never to cast ridicule
on the people of whom I talk and I have never knowingly hurt any one’s
feelings by my character sketches.
In London the theatres are almost countless and are steadily increasing
in number, and comedy, burlesque and farce are the rule—all because of
the demand for fun. The English enjoy eating and sleeping more than any
other people on earth, but English chops and sleep without some fun
between, are as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, for dyspepsia will
knock out the chops and insomnia will knock out sleep. But fun takes
dyspepsia on one knee and insomnia on the other and bounces both into
forgetfulness.
Since the days when Ward McAllister came into style, there has been a
marked change in the work of the American jester. Time was, when here, as
in England, any old thing would do for parlor entertainments, no matter
how often it had been heard before. It did not even have to be funny,
either; who can exaggerate the number of times he heard “Curfew Shall Not
Ring To-night,” in those good old times? Now, however, the entertainer
must continually supply something new, or he will fall by the wayside.
It must be something funny too; people used to crowd lecture rooms, and
enjoy serious talks by great men—the greatest in the land, but whoever
hears a lecture-course now? Fun—fun—fun, is the demand everywhere, so
every entertainer is a joker.
In fact, to speak with my customary modesty, this demand for amusement
places Mr. Depew and me on the same footing. Often I get letters from
people who say they expect my friend the Senator, but, if he cannot come,
will want me to fill the gap. Not long ago Mr. Depew cheated me out of
a famous dinner at Delmonico’s, so I grumbled a bit when I met him. He
got off the big, hearty laugh, on which he has a life patent, with no
possible infringement in sight, and replied,
“Why, Marsh, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known it, I wouldn’t have
gone.”
[Illustration: “Enjoying serious talks by great men.”]
Ha, ha, pretty good, wasn’t it?
Where do I get the material for my own sketches? From the originals every
time. I pick it up in the streets, in the cars and restaurants, get it
from the newsboys, from men of all sorts on the curb-stone, from almost
everywhere, but never from books or newspapers, for the world is full of
fun if one only has the ear to hear it.
When I get hold of a new thing that seems to be good, I always “try it on
the dog”—that is, on my friends. I take it down to the Lambs’ Club and
work it off on some of the good fellows there. If I escape alive with it,
I inveigle a couple of newsboys into a dark corner and have them sample
it. If it “goes” with them, I am pretty sure it is good, so I add it to
my repertoire; but if it fails there, I never disagree with my critics;
it is damned—absolutely, no matter who may think it might be made to work.
Few Americans are busier than the successful entertainer. His hands
are full of the work of brightening up the heavy parts of the social
affairs that crowd the long winter afternoon and evenings, so with
hurrying between New York, Boston and Chicago, with occasional moves to
Philadelphia and Baltimore, he is kept “on the jump.” Yet the public
hears little of his work, for it is not advertised. Why, not long ago I
went to a large party at a house only three blocks from my apartments,
and I am sure thirty or forty of the guests had never heard my name
before.
Such is fame.
XV
IN THE SUNSHINE WITH GREAT PREACHERS
I am Nicknamed “The Theological Comedian.”—My Friend, Henry
Ward Beecher.—Our Trip Through Scotland and Ireland.—His
Quickness of Repartee.—He and Ingersoll Exchange
Words.—Ingersoll’s Own Sunshine.—De Witt Talmage on the
Point of View.—He Could Even Laugh at Caricatures of His Own
Face.—Dr. Parkhurst on Strict Denominationalism.
Nat Goodwin once nicknamed me “The Theological Comedian,” because many of
my entertainments were given in churches. On such occasions a minister
would generally preface the proceedings with prayer—whether that I, or
the people, might be strengthened for the ordeal I never was able to
discover. But the ministers always laughed at every joke I cracked, so
there is a very warm spot in my heart for them.
One of the first of the profession I ever met was Henry Ward Beecher.
I became well acquainted with him and—of far more consequence, he was
always friendly, fatherly and merry when I met him. I had the pleasure
of traveling through Scotland and Ireland with him, and no man could
have been better company. Yet he was not traveling merely for pleasure.
Wherever he went and was known the people welcomed him effusively,
insisted on hearing from him, so whenever he spoke in a church or
Sunday-school he had a crowded house.
[Illustration: “Getting Properly Dismal for Sunday.”]
We spent one Sunday together in Glasgow, and the depression of that city
on the holy day cannot be imagined. I have heard that some Scotchmen
get full of bad whiskey on Saturday night for the sole purpose of being
properly dismal on Sunday, but perhaps that is not true. But the street
cars do not run; there is no sign of animation; the very houses look as
dull as if they were untenanted; to a person accustomed to the cheer and
bright faces of Americans on Sunday the town seemed enveloped in the
gloom of death.
In the morning I awoke very early; I veritably believe that the appalling
silence disturbed my slumbers. I felt so lonely and dismal that I
instinctively went over to Mr. Beecher’s room; better a drowsy American
than a whole city full of wide-awake Scotchmen—on a Scotch Sunday. Mr.
Beecher was also awake, though in bed, and in spite of the morning being
quite chilly he lay with one toe uncovered. I said:
“Mr. Beecher, aren’t you afraid of catching cold?”
“Oh, no,” he replied, “I always sleep that way.” I was greatly mystified
at this, and asked him the reason. He laughed—and what a laugh he had! It
was as big and solid and enduring as the Berkshire hills amid which he
was born. Then he replied:
“Marshall, that toe is the key to the situation.”
In Ireland we went about a good deal together in jaunting cars and
extracted a lot of high-grade Hibernian wit from the drivers. Although
Mr. Beecher was one of the sensible souls who could discern the
difference between poverty and misery, he had an American’s innate soft
spot in his heart for a man in rags, so he overpaid our drivers so
enormously that Mrs. Beecher, who was with us, begged that she might be
allowed to do the disbursing.
One day we were driven to our hotel in Belfast through a drizzling rain.
When I paid the driver I said:
“Are you wet, Pat?” With a merry twinkle of his eye he replied:
“Sure, your honor, if I was as wet outside as I am inside, I’d be as dry
as a bone.”
Mr. Beecher’s quickness at repartee, of which Americans knew well, was
entirely equal to Irish demands upon it. One day in Ireland, after he had
made an address to a Sunday-school, a bewitching young colleen came up to
where we stood chatting and said:
“Mr. Beecher, you have won my heart.”
“Well,” replied the great man quickly, with a sunburst of a smile, “you
can’t get along without a heart, so suppose you take mine?”
Which reminds me of the day when he and Col. “Bob” Ingersoll were on the
platform together at a public meeting and Beecher went over and shook
hands heartily with the great agnostic, though he knew that the act would
bring a storm of criticism from people with narrow-gauge souls. Then
Ingersoll brought up one of his daughters and introduced her, saying:
“Mr. Beecher, here is a girl who never read the Bible.” Bob delighted in
shocking ministers, but he missed his fun that time, for Beecher quickly
replied:
“If all heathen were so charming I am sure we should all become
missionaries.”
Ingersoll himself was as quick as the quickest at repartee. One day a
malignant believer in an awful time for the wicked after death asked him:
“Are you trying to abolish hell?”
[Illustration: “If all Heathen were as Charming.”]
“Yes,” said Ingersoll.
“Well, you can’t do it.”
“You’ll be sorry if I don’t,” the Colonel replied.
Agnostic though he was, Ingersoll is frequently quoted by preachers,
for in one respect he was very like the best of them; he never wearied
of urging men to right living, not through fear of eternal punishment,
but because goodness is its own excuse for being. No pastor was ever
more severe than he in condemnation of everything mean and wicked in
human life, so he was worthy of place among the great teachers of
ethics. Personally he was as kind, sympathetic and helpful as some
ministers are not; whatever he thought of systematic theology, he was
practically a teacher of the brotherhood of man as defined by the founder
of Christianity. In his lighter moments he was one of the merriest
companions that any one could meet; no matter what he had to say, he
would always illustrate it with a story. One day he was talking of people
who have a knack of saying the right thing at the wrong time, and told
the following, as a sample:
A well-to-do merchant out west lived in a town not remarkable for much
but malaria and funerals. His wives had a way of dying, and whenever he
lost one he went into another county and married again. A loquacious lady
in the healthy county kindly assisted him in finding young women who were
willing to marry him and take the chances. About six months after burying
his fourth wife he appeared again in the healthy county, called on his
friend and was greeted with:
“How’s your wife, Mr. Thompson?”
“She’s dead,” he replied sadly.
“What? Dead again?” the woman cried.
Ingersoll was full of stories hinging on the place he believed did not
exist. Here is one of them:
[Illustration: “His Wives had a Way of Dying.”]
A man who wanted to visit hell was advised to buy an excursion ticket. He
did so, and when the train stopped at a place full of beautiful trees,
warbling birds and bright sunshine he did not get off. The conductor said:
“I thought you wanted hell?”
“Is this hell?” the passenger asked; “I didn’t think it looked like
this.” Then he walked about and met a man to whom he said:
“I am surprised to find hell such a beautiful place.”
“Well,” the man replied, “you must remember that there have been a
great many clever people here for many years, so the place has greatly
improved. You ought to have seen it when I came here.”
“Indeed? And who are you?”
“I am Voltaire.”
“I am very glad to meet you, Voltaire, and I wish you would do me a
favor.”
“With pleasure. What is it?”
“Get some one to buy my return ticket, please.”
Colonel Ingersoll arrived late one evening at a Clover Club dinner
in Philadelphia, to which he had been invited, and while looking for
his seat he regarded the decorations so admiringly that Governor Bunn
exclaimed:
“You’ve found heaven at last, Colonel, and a place waiting for you.”
At a Lambs’ Club dinner in New York, of which the late Steele MacKaye was
chairman, Ingersoll was formally introduced and made a speech, in the
course of which he made so unfortunate a remark about Deity that he sat
down amid silence so profound as to be painful. MacKaye arose and with
admirable tact brought the Club and the speaker en rapport by saying:
“Gentlemen, we all know that Colonel Ingersoll dare not believe in God,
but those of us who know Colonel Ingersoll and do believe in God know
that _God_ believes in _him_.”
The late T. DeWitt Talmage never lost a chance to emphasize a point with
a good story. As I knew him to be a good man and a first-rate fellow, I
used to be indignant at newspaper abuse of him, and particularly with
some caricatures that were made of his expressive features. I took
occasion to tell him of this, but he replied: