TWENTY YEARS OF SPOOF & BLUFF
[Illustration: CARLTON--OFF]
TWENTY YEARS
OF
SPOOF AND BLUFF
BY
“CARLTON”
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
YORK STREET, ST. JAMES’S
LONDON, S.W. 1 MCMXX
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
PREFACE
It has been said that any man of mature age could write at least
one interesting book, if he confined himself to relating his own
experiences.
Well, that is what I have done. This is primarily the story of my life,
interspersed with various anecdotes, “wheezes,” and “gags,” pertaining
to a profession concerning the real inside of which the public is
mostly ignorant.
Like Topsy, the book “growed.” An incident recalled here, a story
remembered there, has been jotted down at haphazard as the mood seized
me.
I may add that the incidents recorded in Chapters XIV. and XV., as also
the human telescope story in Chapter XIII., first saw the light in the
_Strand Magazine_, to the Editor of which periodical I am indebted for
permission to reproduce them here.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
EARLY EXPERIENCES
PAGE
Work as a telegraph messenger boy--First attempts at “public”
entertainment--Small but appreciative audiences--I introduce
the cycle to the post office--Christmas-boxing on my own--
I am rewarded with the “Order of the Sack”--Hard times--A
home-made conjuring outfit--On tramp to Southend--Busking on
the sands--Wrathful “niggers”--“Stage” fright--“Best clear,
kid”--I clear--On the road back to London--Hunger and
thirst--Four shows for fourpence--A “welcome” home--No food
in the house and the brokers in--“Covering the spot”--Jimmy
Jennings--I win watches--Beat a game and gain a friend--“A
quick way of making money”--Learning to be a street patterer
--Tricks of the showman’s trade--Nearly a riot--Jimmy grows
anxious--Good-bye to London once more--A new pitch--And the
beginning of a new life 3
CHAPTER II
I POSE AS A SHOWMAN
Practising conjuring--Why I rarely play cards--The great
Maskelyne and Cooke box trick--I make a trick box of my own--
The “Flying Lady” who flew--away--In partnership with Gypsy
Brown--My life with the show folk--I begin to make money--
The kings of the fair grounds--Caravan life and cookery--The
Romany people and their ways--Gypsy Brown cheats me--How the
“bluers” work--Fights in the Fair Ground--The etiquette of
the showmen--In a boxing booth--Taking on all comers--A
rough life--“Do a slang to get a pitch”--The tricks of the
travelling boxing-booth proprietors--A gypsy duel with cocoanut
balls 17
CHAPTER III
WITH THE GYPSIES
I start a show of my own--Gypsy Brown plays me a dirty trick--
The hunchback in the box--Bank Holiday at Cheriton Fair--I
plan to circumvent Gypsy Brown--And succeed only too well--
The crowd wrecks Brown’s booth--Pandemonium in the fair ground
--The gypsies attack my show--The fate of a peace-maker--
My fight with Gypsy Brown--£10 to £1 on my opponent and no
takers--A knock-out blow--Gypsy Brown vows revenge--My
life in danger--How I outwitted the gypsies--The last of my
experiences as a fair-ground showman 30
CHAPTER IV
THE TRICK THAT FAILED
Back in London--At the Westminster Aquarium--“The Pro.’s Casual
Ward”--Zæo’s Maze--“Oriental beauties from the Far East-End
of London”--“Fake” side-shows--A “fasting lady’s” prodigious
appetite--A lively subject for a coffin--I sell conjuring
tricks to visitors--“Uncle” Ritchie--An audience of one--
Annie Luker, the champion lady high diver--I find myself barred
from the Aquarium--The mysterious voice in the maze--Mr.
Ritchie investigates--And Mr. Wieland scores--Penny-gaffing
in London--Working the shops--Sham hypnotism--How to eat
coal and candles--And drink paraffin oil--The box trick again
--Venice in Newcastle--I offer a £1000 prize--The trick
that failed--My first engagement in a regular “hall”--My
absent-minded partner 41
CHAPTER V
CLIMBING TO FAME AND FORTUNE
I give an impromptu show at the Palace Theatre--“Chuck him out!”
--I seek out Mr. Wieland again--At the Crystal Palace--
I adopt my present make-up--“The Human Hairpin”--Charlie
Coborn and “Two Lovely Black Eyes”--I do a trial turn at the
Bedford Music-hall--Billed as a star turn at the Alhambra and
Palace Theatres--And at the “Flea Pit,” Hoxton--My reception
there--I work the Alhambra, Palace, Middlesex, Metropolitan,
and Cambridge together--A record for those days--A Press
“spoof”--Continental engagements--Paris, Milan--An overdose
of Chianti--And its results--The night life of Milan--
A blood-curdling adventure--Murder most foul--Callous
passers-by 54
CHAPTER VI
PLAYING IN HUNLAND
Vienna and the Viennese--Churls by nature and instinct--How I
made “There’s a Girl in Havana” go down there--Chorus men and
waiters--Some innocent tricks of the music-hall trade--In
Berlin--Death of my giant--Official boorishness--German
sharp practice--I engage a Hun giant--Uncomfortable railway
travelling--At Buda-Pesth--More sharp practice--I throw up
my engagement and return to England in disgust--Litigation and
worry--My case is taken up by the Variety Artistes’ Federation
--A new “Battle of Prague”--Which I lose--A story of a
“misspelled” railway station--Back in Old England--A day’s
rabbit shooting--The two “Arthur Carltons” 72
CHAPTER VII
AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCES
Eastward bound on the _Ortona_--Dinners and diners--Spoofing a
chief steward--A brush with the master-at-arms--“Queering” a
poker game--Trouble in the smoke-room--We plan revenge--And
execute it--Potatoes as ammunition--The cold water cure--
The Captain sends for me--I decline to go--Trouble brewing--
I run my head into the lion’s mouth--And am frog-marched before
the captain--A stormy interview--I am threatened to be put in
irons--All’s well that ends well--A benefit performance at
sea--Arrival in Melbourne--A tale of two champions--Rabbit
shooting extraordinary--I bag a laughing jackass--And am
hauled before the “beak”--Fined ten shillings and costs--I am
glad at having “got the bird”--The “interfering parrot” 90
CHAPTER VIII
MELBOURNE TO LONDON
The “Under the Earth” bar in Melbourne--A swimming challenge
spoof--The Australian Vaudeville Association--My connection
therewith--They present me with an Address--At Adelaide--
A cheery send-off--I bring to London with me Charlie Griffin,
the feather-weight Australian champion--Fix up a match at
the London National Sporting Club--I train him myself during
a pantomime engagement--He is beaten by Jim Driscoll--But
afterwards defeats Joe Bowker--My fight at the National
Sporting Club with “Apollo”--All the “pro.’s” present--A
great night--I am beaten by “Apollo”--Congratulations all
round--Only Mrs. “Carlton” does not approve--Other boxing and
sporting yarns 107
CHAPTER IX
SOME AMERICAN EXPERIENCES
To New York on the _Mauretania_--Gambling on ocean liners--A
“dear” old gentleman--Phenomenal luck--My suspicions are
aroused--I play the part of a private detective--A puzzling
proposition--The light that shone by night--My suspicions
are confirmed--An artful dodge--A new use for smoke-coloured
glasses--Doctored cards--The most beautiful American city--
Los Angeles--Tuna fishing at Santa Catalina--Monsters of 400
lb. weight--The Tuna Club--A record catch--Fishing with
kites--Wild goat stalking--Outwitting a gambler--Diamond
cut diamond--A ride on an ostrich--American police methods--
An unpleasant experience 121
CHAPTER X
MORE AMERICAN EXPERIENCES
Through the Great American Desert--A land of desolation--An
adventure at Santa Fé--“Hands up!”--Railway strike methods
in the wild and woolly West--At Kansas City--The Magicians’
Club--“Welcome to our city”--A disappointing show--In
the land of the Mormons--Salt Lake City--Brigham Young’s
seraglio--The Mormon Temple and Tabernacle--Something like
an angel--Brigham Young’s statue--My worst Press notice--A
journalistic tragedy--In New York--I am served a scurvy trick
--Hammerstein’s--A row with the management--Sharp Yankee
practice--I perform in the New York Synagogue in the presence
of the Chief Rabbi--A unique honour--Rubber-neck cars--The
almighty dollar--The Statue of Liberty--A suggestive pose--
New York hotels--A tip as to boots 136
CHAPTER XI
PANTOMIME SPOOFS AND JOKES
Harry Tate and I--Together we found the order of “The Beautiful
Swells”--The Birmingham spoof supper--A mouthwatering menu
--The “Beautiful Swells” anthem--Cockroach soup--Property
viands--A mysterious waiter--Ernie Lotinga’s little joke
--The spoofers spoofed--A pigeon pie that flew--A surplus
of farthings--Rehearsing for pantomime--My first rehearsal
--I am “fired” out of the theatre--Pantomime in Hoxton--
The gallery boy’s irony--A cutting retort--I get married--
Courting under difficulties--The married chorus-girl and the
lovesick manager--Supper for two in a private room--Hoaxing
the police--A sham tragedy and its sequel--The fat policeman
and the big lobster--Sold again 149
CHAPTER XII
AFRICA AND THE ORIENT
Bound for Cape Town--A pleasant voyage--Ships’ games--A
contrast in voyages--“Cock-fighting” at sea--“Chalking the
Pig’s Eye”--“Swinging the Monkey”--Marine cricket--A new
kind of golf--Cycling at sea--Sweepstakes on the vessel’s run
--Races on the ocean wave--Mock breach-of-promise trials--
By bullock waggon to Kimberley--I perform before Cecil Rhodes
--Get shot in a street row--Contrast on my second visit--
The great strike riots in Johannesburg--Fire and dynamite--
A night of horror--A gay but expensive city--Dear drinks--
Performing in the back veldt--Eggs for throwing--At Pretoria
--Kruger’s house--Where Winston Churchill swam the river--
A disappointing stream--My prize giant--A Jo’burg sensation
--Buying a forty-shilling suit to measure--A disgusted tailor
--Special railway travelling--My giant proves his agility--
In Colombo--Indian fakirs--Their conjuring skill overrated
--The boy and rope trick--Two versions of a similar story--
The whole thing a fake--The evidence of H.H. the Maharajah of
Jodhpur--I offer £100 to any native who can do it--No takers
--The mango seed trick--Outwitting a fakir--“Let me plant
the seed”--The camera in action--The Tree of Life--Cobra
and mongoose fight 166
CHAPTER XIII
WHEEZES AND GAGS
The social side of music-hall life--The Vaudeville Club--A
telephone wheeze--The swanking “pro.” and his mythical salary
--About “tops” and “bottoms”--Ring up “625 Chiswick”--“Big
Fred” and Fred Lindrum--A queer billiard match--An unexpected
_dénouement_--Roberts and the Australian billiard marker--I
make of myself a human telescope--Growing to order--Willard
the original “man who grew”--Puzzling a Scotland Yard “’tec”
--My most wonderful fall--I make a “hit” in a double sense
--A Wigan wheeze--The performer who got too much “bird”--A
blood-thirsty barber--My worst insult 183
CHAPTER XIV
THE BIGGEST NEWSPAPER SPOOF ON RECORD
How the great spoof first came into my mind--Hoaxing
the newspaper Press of two continents--Telepathy and
thought-transference--The incredulous reporter--I propose
a drastic test--A representative of the _Bristol Times and
Mirror_ hides a stylograph pen in an unknown quarter of the city
--I am blindfolded and find it--Amazement and enthusiasm of
the people--A column report in the newspaper--An insoluble
problem--Various theories as to how it was done--An
indoors test imposed by the Editor of the _Bath Chronicle_--
Blindfolded through the streets of Bath--Vast crowds--I am
again successful--Press and public alike bewildered--Hoaxing
the Yankees--The Oakland, California, _Tribune’s_ test--
Two hundred and fifty dollars in gold hidden--The Secretary
of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce is chosen to secrete the
treasure--Again I am successful--My best free Press “ad.”--
Congratulations all round 203
CHAPTER XV
HOW THE BIG SPOOF WAS WORKED
Muscle training on novel lines--How not to be blindfolded--
Artificially developed frontal muscles--The advantage of
possessing a prominent proboscis--Following one’s nose--I
study boots--A Sherlock Holmes of footwear--Acting blind
--Not so easy as it sounds--Queer happenings at Halifax--
A mishap at Leeds--Police stop the performance--A curious
mischance at Bath--Ingenious explanations to account for the
feat--Invisible wires--Guided by bugle calls--Following the
scent 213
CHAPTER XVI
TELEPATHIC AND MESMERIC SPOOFS
Real spiritualism and sham mesmerism--Spoof séances--I ring one
off on my landlady--The self-playing piano--The spirit that
walked upside-down--Some simple explanations--Manufacturing
a telepathist to order--Thought-reading extraordinary--The
colour test--Telepathy by wire--A brief dream of wealth--
A sleepy wife and a hidden match-box--The dead-head who was
spoofed--A disconcerting reception--Story of Houdini, the
“Handcuff King”--More telepathy--Over the telephone this time
--A puzzling link--And the explanation 226
CHAPTER XVII
SHARPS AND FLATS
Spoofing a mesmerist--The spoofer spoofed--Spoof card tricks--
Racecourse sharps--The “dud” diamond wheeze--I am beautifully
“had”--Three-card trick sharps--A Newcastle adventure--
Bunny’s spoof--Spoofing a “new chum”--The performing elephant
and the dude--Wheezes and gags 242
CHAPTER XVIII
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
Sharing terms--Some tricks of the trade--Spoof telegrams--A
Bradford dispute--I engage to fight “The Terror of the Meat
Market”--A packed house--I enter a lion’s den--And am
glad to get out again--A trick the police foiled--Tricks of
trick swimmers--I learn a secret or two--Pigeon shooting
extraordinary--“Satan’s Dream”--Royalty at a side-show--My
mother hears me over the electrophone--At Wentworth Woodhouse
--A kind reception--My embarrassing mistake--An angler’s
paradise 263
CHAPTER XIX
IN EGYPT IN WAR-TIME
My trip to the land of the Pharaohs--Giants and dwarfs on a P.
& O. liner--We are ordered into Plymouth--Submarines--An
exciting experience--Destroyers to the rescue--The dwarfs
and the lifebelts--Sports at sea--My contortionist is taken
ill--Anxious days--Kindness of the Maharajah of Jodhpur--
Arrival at Port Said--Cairo--I engage another contortionist
--Pelted with money--Pigs at Port Said--Captured Turkish
pontoons at Cairo--Turkish prisoners playing tennis--Interned
enemy ships at Alexandria--Wounded soldiers--At the Pyramids
--Ammunition from India--On the way home--Across France
in war-time--The Channel passage--Elaborate precautions--
Submarine nets--Paris in war-time--Madrid in war-time 280
ILLUSTRATIONS
CARLTON--OFF _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
CARLTON--ON 20
CARLTON AND ONE OF HIS SATELLITES AT THE THEATRICAL GARDEN PARTY,
LONDON, 1919 50
CARLTON MESMERISING BOBBY DUNLOP 74
BOBBY DUNLOP, CARLTON’S AMERICAN “FAT MAN,” WHO DROPPED DEAD IN
BERLIN 78
CARLTON AND HIS TRAINER, DAI DOLLINGS, THE FAMOUS WELSH ATHLETE,
STRIPPED READY FOR HIS FIGHT WITH APOLLO 114
CARLTON AND JIMMY WILDE AT THE NATIONAL SPORTING CLUB 116
OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF A RECORD CATCH OF YELLOW FIN TUNA CAUGHT
BY CARLTON AND ANOTHER FISHERMAN JOINTLY AT SANTA CATALINA 130
THE “BEAUTIFUL SWELLS” SPOOF SUPPER--A PAGE OF CARICATURES BY TOM
WEBSTER 152
ARRIVAL IN JOHANNESBURG OF CARLTON, HIS GIANT, AND HIS DWARF 174
CARLTON AS A “HUMAN TELESCOPE” 192
PORTION OF FRONT PAGE OF THE “OAKLAND TRIBUNE” WITH REPORT OF
CARLTON’S TREASURE HUNT IN THAT CITY 206
CROWD IN BRADFORD WATCHING CARLTON’S SEARCH FOR THE HIDDEN
“TELEGRAPH” BADGE 222
CROWD AT OAKLAND (CALIFORNIA) WATCHING CARLTON’S SEARCH FOR
HIDDEN TREASURE 222
CARLTON AND BILLY GRANT, THE OPEN CHAMPION PIGEON SHOT OF
SCOTLAND
272
TWENTY YEARS OF SPOOF & BLUFF
CHAPTER I
EARLY EXPERIENCES
Work as a telegraph messenger boy--First attempts at “public”
entertainment--Small but appreciative audiences--I introduce
the cycle to the Post Office--Christmas-boxing on my own--I am
rewarded with the “Order of the Sack”--Hard times--A home-made
conjuring outfit--On tramp to Southend--Busking on the sands
--Wrathful “niggers”--“Stage” fright--“Best clear, kid”--I
clear--On the road back to London--Hunger and thirst--Four
shows for fourpence--A “welcome” home--No food in the house
and the brokers in--“Covering the spot”--Jimmy Jennings--I
win watches--Beat a game and gain a friend--“A quick way of
making money”--Learning to be a street patterer--Tricks of the
showman’s trade--Nearly a riot--Jimmy grows anxious--Good-bye
to London once more--A new pitch--And the beginning of a new
life.
My first experience as a public conjuror and card manipulator dates
back somewhere about five-and-twenty years. Sheer necessity drove me to
it. A slim, shy youth of sixteen, or thereabouts, I was out of a job at
the time, with no prospect, so far as I could see, of getting into one.
This was awkward, because I was practically the sole support of my
widowed mother, who was a cripple, and four young sisters. So, as a
last resort, I determined to tramp down to some seaside town, and try
and earn a little money busking on the sands.
As a boy I had worked for a while as a telegraph messenger, one of
those blind-alley occupations that lead nowhere, and I had frequently
watched peripatetic conjurors giving their shows at street corners and
elsewhere. These exhibitions had always had a great fascination for me,
and I presently started to try and copy their tricks.
It was difficult at first, for I had no one to teach or advise me, but
I persevered, and was able in time to do quite a variety of simple
stock tricks with cards, coins, etc. My audiences were small but
appreciative, consisting as they did of my fellow telegraph messengers
attached to the old Buckingham Gate Post Office in the Buckingham
Palace Road--long since done away with--where I was then stationed.
Afterwards I was sent to the Castelnau Post Office, Barnes, which was
situated at a chemist’s shop.
Here I had plenty of spare time on my hands, telegrams being
comparatively few and far between. The distances I had to travel to
deliver them, however, were often considerable, and this gave me an
idea. I was at the time the proud possessor of an ancient solid-tyred
bicycle. This I requisitioned in order to cover the ground more
quickly, a complete novelty in those days, when cycles for post-office
work were not even thought of.
My “boss,” the sub-postmaster, was particularly struck with the
innovation, and he wrote to the Postmaster-General about it, with the
unexpected, and to me very gratifying result, that I received from the
Department an extra allowance of three shillings and sixpence a week
for the upkeep, etc., of my machine. Afterwards the practice received
general official sanction, and in time became well-nigh universal. But
I can, I believe, truthfully lay claim to having been its originator,
and I was certainly the first telegraph messenger-boy to ride a cycle
for the Post Office in an official capacity.
From Barnes I was sent to Battersea, where our family had also gone
to live, and it was here that my too-enterprising spirit led to the
severance of my connection with the Post Office Service. It came about
in this way. When Christmas came round I was given a temporary job as
auxiliary postman. We boys used to hear the regular postmen talk a lot
about their Christmas-boxes and the fine harvest of tips they expected
to reap, and I did not see why, as I was doing my share of the work, I
should not share in the pickings.
So, very early on Boxing Day morning, before the regular postman
had started out to “box his walk,” I went round and collected the
gratuities, or at all events a considerable portion of them. I didn’t
say I was the postman, but simply knocked and asked for a Christmas
box, and being a tall youth the money was mostly handed over to me
without demur. Later on, of course, when the regular postman called
round, there was an awful row, and I was called upon to resign; a
polite way of investing me with the “order of the sack.” In this
dilemma, as narrated above, I purposed turning to account my knowledge
of conjuring in order to earn a livelihood, or try to.
As a preliminary I went and begged the lid of a cheese-box from a
near-by shop. This I covered with a bit of old cloth my mother gave
me, and trimmed it round with a yard or so of penny-threefarthing
ball fringe. Next I set my transmogrified cheese-box lid on top of
three thin bamboo canes, arranged tripod-wise, and behold I was in
possession of quite a pretty little table, such as street conjurors
affect.
Next I procured a rabbit--all conjurors had to have a rabbit in those
days--and some balls and tins for what is called the cup-and-ball
trick, together with a pack of cards, and a few other simple
paraphernalia, not forgetting half-a-dozen pennies--in conjuring
parlance “a pile of megs”--for palming and working disappearing coin
tricks. Thus equipped, I set out. I had been told that Southend was the
best place to go to, and as I had no money to pay my fare I had to walk
there, carrying my poor little “props” with me.
It was weary work. The long dusty road seemed endless. Several times
I was tempted to go into a public-house and try and do a show. But
directly I set up my little table, my nerve forsook me, and out I came
again. When night fell I chopped some wood for a farmer’s wife, who
gave me in return a glass of milk and a crust of bread and cheese and
permission to sleep in the barn.
Eventually I reached Southend, hungry, thirsty, and footsore. Also I
was penniless, having been forced to part with my six coppers in order
to keep myself in food on the road, thereby spoiling my best tricks.
All day long I prowled about, watching the buskers at work on the
beach, but never being able to pluck up sufficient courage to make a
start myself.
I had managed to get a room by promising to pay at the end of the
week, but after the first morning, when I ate a breakfast that I am
afraid astonished and frightened my landlady, I was denied further
board unless I paid something on account, which, of course, I was
unable to do. For three days I prowled around, living as best I could,
watching with hungry eyes the picnic parties on the beach, and greedily
devouring the scraps they left after they took their departure. I never
felt so famished in all my life before.
On the morning of the fourth day, a Bank Holiday, a letter came from
my mother. She wrote that she had got the brokers in, that my little
sisters were crying for bread, and would I please send her some money?
That did it. I felt that it was now or never. And, marching down to
the beach, I set up my little table, and soon had quite a respectable
audience--respectable in point of size that is to say--gathered round
me.
Then again the fatal shyness came over me; stage fright in its first,
worst, and most terrible form--only there was no stage. My legs shook
under me, my knees knocked together, my tongue felt as if glued to the
roof of my mouth. I almost think I would have made a bolt for it once
more, but for the fact that the crowd hemmed me in on every side.
Ten minutes passed by. My audience began to show unmistakable signs
of impatience. “Get a move on, kid!” they cried; “start your bloomin’
show.” Thus adjured I began. But just as I was in the middle of my
first trick, there was a commotion on the outskirts of the crowd,
people jostling and shoving, pushing and being pushed, and a moment
or two later four burly nigger minstrels burst through to where I
was. I got a punch on the back of my neck that sent me sprawling, and
when I scrambled to my feet I was just in time to see my poor little
cheese-box table go flying seaward, propelled by a vigorous kick from
the biggest and burliest of the niggers.
I was too weak from hunger to even try to retaliate, too flabbergasted
at the unexpected, and as it seemed to me unprovoked and unwarrantable,
attack to attempt to expostulate even. I just stood stock-still,
open-mouthed and trembling, while the leader of the buskers asked me,
in language the reverse of polite, what in thunder I meant by taking
their pitch, for which they paid, and which nobody else therefore had
the right to occupy?
There was some further talk, and then I learnt for the first time that
the sands at Southend belonged to the corporation, and that buskers
were not allowed to perform there without permission, and without
paying for the privilege. Naturally I was terribly downhearted at this,
and I suppose I showed it, for after the niggers had given their show
they clubbed round amongst themselves, and handed me two shillings.
“Best clear out, youngster,” they told me, not unkindly. “You can’t do
anything here without capital.”
Their advice seemed good advice. So that very day I started to tramp
back to London. I had retrieved my table, and although I had been
compelled to sell my rabbit in order to buy food during my stay in
Southend, I still had with me my pack of cards, and one or two other
trifles. With these, on the way back, I gave four shows at as many
separate “pubs.” One of these shows netted me fourpence, the other
three yielded nothing. I reached home after a week’s absence, weak,
weary, and ill, to find a welcome of words waiting for me, and that
was all. There was not a morsel of food in the house, not even the
proverbial crust, and the broker’s man had cleared out most of the
furniture.
For these reasons I am not likely ever to forget my first “provincial
tour.” That night I cried myself to sleep, the hunger gnawed at my
vitals, and I don’t believe there was an unhappier lad in England than
I was just then.
Next morning I felt a little better; but not much. However, it was, I
reflected, no good sitting down and repining, and I started out to look
for work. After a while I got a job as potman and under-barman at seven
shillings a week in a public-house in the Battersea Park Road.
One day a travelling conjuror came into the saloon bar, and did a few
tricks with coins. The proprietor was greatly interested in the show,
and the next day, when he and I were having dinner together in a little
recess behind the bar, he remarked:
“Clever chap that conjuror who was here yesterday. Those coin tricks of
his were wonderful.”
“Oh!” I replied, “I didn’t think very much of them. Why I could do
better than that myself. Look here!” And I took a penny from my pocket,
and palming it from one hand to the other I made it disappear before
his eyes.
To my unbounded surprise my employer promptly jumped up, his face
crimson with rage. “You young rascal!” he cried. “That’s quite enough
for me. I’ve been missing money from the till for quite a long while
now. Out you go!” And, suiting the action to his words, he seized me by
the scruff of the neck and the seat of my trousers, and threw me out of
the house on to the pavement.
When I got home and told my story, my mother was naturally very much
upset, and she went round and expostulated with the landlord; but all
to no purpose. He insisted that money had been missed, and that I must
be the thief, as there was nobody else who could have taken it except
the head barman, and he had been with them a long while and was quite
above suspicion.
This individual, who slept in the same room as myself, was, I may add,
a very great pet of the landlady, who was firmly convinced that he
could do nothing wrong.
Yet he was the thief all the while, as it turned out; for some little
time afterwards, and while I was away in the country, he was convicted
and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, the stolen money having
been found in his box. My mother sent me a copy of the local paper with
the account of the police-court proceedings.
Some few years later I had succeeded in making a name for myself. I was
at the Palace Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, and my name was blazoned
in letters a foot long on the buses, and on all the hoardings in
London. It was a hot day, and I felt thirsty. I turned into a little
“pub” in Wellington Street, Strand. There behind the bar was my old
“boss.”
I had grown a lot in the intervening years, and he didn’t know me; but
I knew him directly.
Over a whisky-and-soda we got into conversation, and presently he asked
me who I was.
“My name is Carlton,” I said, “I’m at the Palace Theatre this week.”
“Oh yes,” he replied, “of course. I saw you the other evening.
Wonderful good show, yours.”
“Glad you like it,” I said. “But say--do you remember the day when you
took me by the scruff of my neck and threw me out of your old place in
the Battersea Park Road, after accusing me of stealing money from the
till; money that your wife’s favourite boy afterwards got three months
for stealing? Do you remember that--eh?”
The landlord looked surprised. So did his wife, who was behind the bar
with him at the time. But they would neither of them admit that they
remembered anything about the affair.
Of course they did, though; only they would not acknowledge it.
Possibly they thought I might bring an action against them, even after
the lapse of all that time, for wrongful dismissal and defamation of
character.
But to resume the thread of my story. At the time I was thrown out of
the “pub,” and out of work at the same time, we used to live in the
neighbourhood of Clapham Junction, in a turning off the Falcon Road.
There was a man at a pitch near here who earned his living at a game
called “covering the spot.” On a table covered with white oil-cloth he
had painted several round red spots, each about as big as a plate. The
player was given five tin discs, for which he paid a penny, and his aim
was to drop these on one of the spots so as to completely cover it,
leaving not even a peep of the red showing. If he succeeded in doing
this he got a watch, which the proprietor of the game, if the winner so
willed it, would buy back again for three shillings and sixpence.
It was rather a fascinating game to watch, and having nothing else in
particular to do I stood and watched it for a long while. He was a
splendid patterer, was the proprietor, and he was simply raking in the
pennies like dirt all the while. The game was new then.
“Money for nothing!” was one of his stock phrases he kept shouting out.
So it was “money for nothing,” but he was the man who got the money,
I noticed. “If you don’t speculate, you can’t accumulate,” was another
of his gags. “This, gentlemen, is a scientific game of skill. Span your
tins and drop them on. Try it! Try it! Try it! Cover the red, and carry
off a watch. Hide the red you win; show the red you lose. Come along,
gents! Come along! Come along! Faint heart never won fair lady!” And
so on, and so on. And in between his patter, at intervals, he would
himself “cover the red” with the five discs to demonstrate how easily
it could be done.
I kept watching him closely, and I saw there was a knack in it. A man
who had tried twenty or thirty times, but without success, was turning
away. On the impulse of the moment I spoke to him. “I can do it,” I
said. “Lend me a penny and let me try; we’ll go halves if I win.”
The man looked at me rather dubiously. “Why don’t you risk your own
money?” he asked. “Because I haven’t got any,” I replied. “Oh well, in
that case here you are,” he said; and he handed me a penny.
I dropped the discs one by one, carefully, methodically, slowly, and--I
covered the red. A great shout went up from the crowd. Everybody
was delighted, including the proprietor. He wanted somebody to win
occasionally, but not too often, and he made a tremendous fuss.
“Hi! Hi! Hi!” he cried. “The boy’s won a watch. Come along, you sports,
now. Come and do likewise. Don’t let a lad like this beat you.”
He handed me the watch, and I gave it back to him, receiving in return
three-and-sixpence. This, he explained, was because the law would not
allow him to give a money prize direct. It was my first experience of
how simple a thing it is to get round an inconvenient legal enactment,
though not my last one by any means.
After sharing the cash with the “capitalist” who had financed my
venture, I still had of course one shilling and ninepence left, and I
invested a penny of this on my own account in another five discs.
Again I won. Things were getting lively. The crowd cheered louder than
ever. I was more than cheerful. The proprietor tried his best to look
cheerful also, but there was a glint of anxiety in his eyes.
For the third time I tried my luck, but this time I just failed. Or so,
at least, the proprietor asserted. Producing a pin, he inserted the
point between two of the discs without moving either of them, thereby
proving to his satisfaction, if not quite to mine, that the red was not
completely covered. Here was a new trick of the trade, I reflected;
no smallest patch of red was visible, but the pin’s point showed
apparently that it existed, therefore I had lost.
“Try! Try! Try again!” shouted the showman. “Faint heart never won fair
lady.”
I took his advice, and this time I succeeded once more. This made three
wins in four tries. “Clever lad!” cried the crowd. But the proprietor
looked glum. He leaned over the table and implored me in a stage
whisper to go away.
I went, taking with me my eight shillings and sixpence winnings. That
night the family sat down to a real, slap-up hot supper of tripe and
onions, the first square meal that any of us had eaten for many a long
day.
As for me, I was in high glee. I had, I considered, hit on a quick
and easy way of making money. Next evening I sauntered down to where
the showman had his pitch, and directly he had got his table set up I
marched in, and soon won another watch.
This was too much for the proprietor. He called me on one side.
“Look here,” he said, “you’re too hot for me. Come and have a drink.”
We adjourned to the “Queen Victoria” public-house, and he called for a
large rum for himself. I had a “small lemon.”
Over our drinks we discussed business, or rather he did. His name, he
informed me, was Jimmy Jennings.
“I have been in the business for years,” he went on, “but I’ve never
run up against a smarter lad than you are at the game. You’re hot
stuff, and no mistake. Tell you what now. There’s room for a couple of
stalls at my pitch. Will you work for me if I put another one up for
you to take charge of? I’ll pay you five shillings a night, and ten per
cent. on the takings. What do you say?”
Naturally, I was quite agreeable, and the following day, true to his
promise, Jimmy had a table fixed up all ready for me to start. Being
pretty well known in the neighbourhood I soon had plenty of customers,
and raked in a good lot of money. Here, too, I first learnt to do
the showman’s patter, for Jimmy, as I have already intimated, was a
splendid patterer, and I, being all the time at the next stall to him,
naturally picked up the art from him, almost without effort on my part.
Also I learnt many tricks of the showman’s trade, more especially
as regards the particular stunt we were working. I was shown, for
instance, that although the five red spots on the tables looked to
be all exactly of one size, they were not so in reality. As regards
four of them, although they could just be covered by the discs, the
task was so exceedingly difficult a one as to be almost impossible of
achievement. The fifth spot, however, was slightly smaller than the
others, and the feat of covering it, therefore, was comparatively easy.
But as it was impossible to detect the smaller spot without actually
measuring it, the chances were five to one against any player, picking
his spot at haphazard, as of course he invariably did, choosing the
easiest one. When either of us performed the feat for the benefit of
the onlookers, however, we naturally always used the small spot. It was
due to my sharpness in detecting this fact--though not until after long
watching--coupled with a natural dexterity and quickness of hand, that
had enabled me to win the watches in the first instance.
I might also mention that the flares which we used to illuminate our
stalls--we did not usually start performing until after dark--were
so arranged as to throw the light slantwise to our side of the table
where the smaller spot was. This enabled us, if we performed the trick
quickly--and this we invariably did--to leave a little bit of red
showing without the audience being able to detect the fact. This was
both handy and necessary, for even when working on the smaller spot,
and notwithstanding all our acquired dexterity, we were neither of us
so clever at it as to be able to bring off the trick with certainty
every time.
And one had to be very careful, and exercise plenty of tact. The main
thing was to keep the crowd in a good humour. That is where the art of
the patterer comes in. We should have stood but a poor chance without
it. Even as it was there were rows. One of the worst was on my account.
A man in the audience asserted that I was standing on a box, and that
that was why I was able to perform the trick. “Let me come round your
side of the table and mount your box,” he cried, “and I’ll do it as
easily as you can.”
In vain I assured him that I was not standing on a box, that it was
only my unusual height--6 ft. 2½ ins.--that made it appear to him as if
I were. He protested, began to get obstreperous, tried to force his way
round. The crowd took sides, for and against: mostly against. There was
something approaching a free fight, and we were afraid the stalls would
be mobbed and wrecked. However, a policeman appeared on the scene, and
things quieted down after a bit.
But Jimmy looked thoughtful that night after we had closed down.
“Look here, laddie,” he said presently, “this pitch is getting a bit
too hot. Tonbridge Fair opens next week. We’ll pack up and open there.”
Which we did.
So closed one chapter of my life. The next one was to open amongst far
different surroundings.