necessary to cancel a long list of bookings. The stars returned to their
homes, and settlements with disappointed committees and local managers
absorbed all the profits. Pacific Coast correspondents still clamored
for Nye, even if Riley were not available; so it was arranged to give
Mr. Nye a musical support instead of a poet, and resume the unfinished
tour. Nye was well received everywhere, and wrote back cheerful accounts
of the Bill Nye troupe from “ocean to ocean.” But it had been the
Nye-Riley combination that the people wanted and expected, and in every
city where they had appeared together the season before they were
wanted again. So we tried it once more, and in the season 1889-90 did a
tremendous business in Washington and in the South. The combination was
a more profitable attraction than any opera or theatrical company.
This tour ended my business relations with Bill Nye, but it did not end
our love each other.
James Whitcomb Riley and Nye were a peculiar pair. They were
everlastingly playing practical jokes.
I remember when we were riding together, in the smoking compartment,
between Columbus and Cincinnati. Mr. Nye was a great smoker and Mr.
Riley did not dislike tobacco. An old farmer came over to Mr. Nye and
said:
“Are you Mr. Riley? I heard you was on the train.”
“No, I am not Mr. Riley. He is over there.”
“I knew his father, and I would like to speak with him.”
“Oh, speak with him, yes. But he is deaf, and you want to speak loud.”
So the farmer went over to him and said in a loud voice:
“Is this Mr. Riley?”
“Er, what?”
“Is this Mr. Riley?”
“What did you say?”
“Is this Mr. Riley?”
“Riley, oh! yes.”
“I knew your father.”
“No bother.”
“I knew your father.”
“What?”
“I knew your father!”
“Oh, so did I.”
And in a few moments the farmer heard Nye and Riley talking in ordinary
tones of voice. Imagine his chagrin!
In an article published in the Sunday newspapers, Nye paid his gentle
respects to James Whitcomb Riley as his “old comrade and partner in the
show business.” Remarking that some admirer gave Riley “the place left
vacant by Doctor Holmes,” he suggested that “we must pause to think how
different the two men were.” While the Hoosier poet could “compare with
Holmes in the size of audiences, the doctor’s humor was of a more
strictly Massachusetts character. He would be content with a pun or
conundrum, while Riley enjoyed _practical_ humor.” He proceeded to give
an example by narrating how, upon one occasion, the manager warned the
hotel man that nothing “but clean shirts and farinaceous food” was to be
sent up to “No. 182.” The poet, with “his keen sense of humor,” as Nye
termed it, found that the room communicated with No. 180, and that the
man who was domiciled there had gone out for the evening. He stepped in
and “at odd times used the bell of No. 180 with great skill, thereby
irritating his manager so much that he returned to New York on the
following day. “Holmes,” continued Nye, “had none of this dry, crisp
humor, but cared more for a subtle and delicate play upon words than for
a play upon a lecture manager or a hotel proprietor.”
The letters which follow bring to me laughter, with the memory, also, of
suffering which echoes behind the mirth. Nye caught the motes as they
danced in the sunlight and held them up before us for common amusement.
Their antics made him laugh, and he wished others to laugh also; but he
kept the sunshine. Within its rays might be seen the dust and the rain;
but the glow was always there. No human mote was ever hurt by impalement
on his pen. Always humorous, he never failed in human kindliness. He
made men laugh out of sheer sense of fun, never by a single shaft of
malice. His “heart-easing mirth” was wrung quite often from personal
suffering. Writing each week for a public that broadened with the
enjoyment he gave, there was but little room for permanence in Nye’s
works, though his books still continue to sell. He always gave a great
deal of credit to Mrs. Nye for the successful management of his business
affairs. Some investments caused reverses, but the result was perhaps
unavoidable under general business conditions at the time. Mrs. Nye was
once taken in by a real estate operator who secured confidence by
assuming a religious character. Nye never ceased to joke about it. The
lots were found to be under water, and the humorist suggested the use of
a diving bell in locating them.
In one of the earliest of Nye’s letters he wrote: “I feel so kinky this
spring that I believe that I am warranted in authorizing you to make a
limited number of dates not too far from New York for my new illustrated
lecture on the New South, and other things. I will accompany the lecture
with my voice, and you can say with safety that it will be gently
facetious and mildly instructive.--Bill Nye.”
From St. Joseph, Mo., when nearing the close of a severe but successful
tour, Nye wrote that Western managers all wished to arrange business for
him. “But,” he added, “I am quite doubtful whether I will make a show of
myself any more. It may be gratifying to some, and surely if it be
pleasant to be fêted, and fed, and wined, and dined, and fined, from one
end of the country to the other, I ought to be happy. But I do not pant
for that kind of joy.”
He closed as usual with merry quip and kindly humor, by requesting that
his kindest regards and deepest sympathies be given to Miss Glass (my
secretary). “What a noble, self-sacrificing girl she is! to sit there
day after day surrounded by such unpleasant associations, and printing
stuff that ought to go into the waste-basket, yet never murmuring nor
repining.”
From Iowa City, early in the following year, he wrote:
“I wish a good many times that I had you along to jump on various people
with your ponderous weight and make them tired. More especially the
fresh young man and the autograph fiend. The other night at Mankato we
had the house stuffed full and the stage crowded with people. Then I had
to hold an autograph recital after the show. It was a great success.
Here I am slowly freezing to death as I write these lines. I am in room
No. 6⅝. The stove is a boy’s size holding a pint of soft coal. The
bed has no sheets or pillow slips, but the chambermaid who comes in
every spring--into the room, I mean--says they expect some sheets some
time to-day, and tells me that no expense will be spared to make the
hotel a success.
“It is a great pleasure to get your letters when I land at a lonesome
hotel which smells like the Dead Past and--cabbage.”
In a letter written from _The World_ office to me, in California, in
June, 1888, Mr. Nye says that “it is funny that a little cuss like you
should make such a cavity in New York when away from it.” Telling of his
remarkable success on _The World_ and the increased payment given for
the funny weekly paper he furnished, he added that “J. Pulitzer pressed
me to go to Europe on Saturday with him, and said we would practically
own the steamer, which is true, as he draws $2,000 a day from _The
World_ and is really out of the reach of want, but I was afraid he would
not like me as a travelling companion, and so remained at home.... More
money here just now.... Saturday, the Authors’ Club and self go up to
Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, to ‘Miss’ E. P. Roe, who writes pieces for the
papers.”
In a letter from Staten Island, where he was residing, he rather
plaintively tells how the house was struck by lightning. From
Minneapolis he merrily tells of umpiring a baseball match.
Under date of September 28, 1888, he writes a letter headed “In
Hospital,” closing thus: “Yours with a heart full of gratitude and a
system full of drugs, paints, oil, turpentine, glass, putty, and
everything usually kept in a first-class drug store.
“BILL NYE
“P.S.--Open all night.”
* * * * *
From Buffalo, without other date than Friday, 1889, he writes:
“Considering the fact that I have written to you so seldom, you have
been real kind to write right on. ‘God bless you,’ as the feller says,
‘for your kind but wabbly heart.’ We are at the Iroquois, because it is
‘absolutely fireproof.’ We noticed that in Lynn and Boston the
absolutely fireproof buildings were a little hotter while burning, and
so we have chosen one for winter use whenever we could.”
One of his letters was written at a railroad junction in Minnesota where
he was waiting for the next through train to La Crosse, and had “only
twenty-three and one-half hours to wait.” The railroads were then
running in the interest of the “Hotel and Eating-House,” and made it a
rule to avoid connections as much as possible.
* * * * *
“MY DEAR POND:
“I am writing this at an imitation hotel where the roads fork. I will
call it the Fifth Avenue Hotel, because the hotel at a railroad junction
is generally called the Fifth Avenue, or the Gem City House, or the
Palace Hotel. Just as the fond parent of a white-eyed, two-legged freak
of Nature loves to name his mentally diluted son Napoleon, and for the
same reason that a prominent horse owner in Illinois last year socked my
name on a tall, buckskin-colored colt that did not resemble me,
intellectually or physically--a colt that did not know enough to go
around a barbed-wire fence, but sought to sift himself through it into
an untimely grave--so this man has named his sway-backed wigwam the
Fifth Avenue Hotel.
“It is different from your Fifth Avenue in many ways. In the first
place, there is not so much travel and business in its neighborhood. As
I said before, this is where two railroads fork. In fact, it is the
leading industry here. The growth of the town is naturally slow, but it
is a healthy growth. There is nothing in the nature of dangerous or
wild-cat speculation in the advancement of this place, and while there
has been no noticeable or rapid advance in the principal business here,
there has been no falling off at all, and the roads are forking as much
to-day as they did before the war, while the same three men who were
present for the first glad moment are still here to witness the
operation.
“Sometimes a train is derailed, as the papers call it, and two or three
people have to remain over, as we did, all night. (Luckily this happens
to be an ‘open date’ for our combine.) It is at such a time the Fifth
Avenue Hotel is the scene of great excitement. A large codfish, with a
broad and sunny smile and his bosom full of rock salt, is tied in the
creek to freshen and fit himself for the responsible position of floor
manager of the codfish ball. A pale chambermaid, wearing a black jersey
with large pores in it through which she is gently percolating, now goes
joyously up the stairs to make the little post-office lock-box rooms
look ten times worse than they ever did before. She warbles a low
refrain as she nimbly knocks loose the venerable dust of centuries and
sets it afloat throughout the rooms. All is bustle about the house.
Especially the chambermaid. We are put up in the guest’s chamber here.
It has two atrophied beds made up of pains and counterpanes. The light,
joyous feeling which this remark may convey is wholly assumed on my
part.
“The door of our room is full of holes where locks have been wrenched
off in order to let the coroner in. Last night I could imagine that I
was in the act of meeting, personally, the famous people who have tried
to sleep here, and who moaned through the night, and who died while
waiting for the dawn.
“This afternoon we pay our bills, as is our usual custom, and tear
ourselves away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel. We leave at 2:30. Hoping the
roads may continue to fork just the same as though we had remained, and
that this will find you enjoying yourself, I am,
“Yours truly,
“EDGAR WILSON NYE.”
* * * * *
On the back of one of his letters was a peculiarly drawn sketch of an
elongated hand and an extended index finger. Below was a burlesque
advertisement of a certain “Postmaster-General and dealer in gents’ fine
underwear,” and a variety of funny articles. He adds, “This space
reserved at reasonable rates,” and then, as I was still in England, asks
me to give his regards to Stanley, with a funny addenda in messages also
to “Victoria and P. Wales.”
I find a visiting-card left in my office about this period, on the back
of which Mr. Nye had written: “10 P.M.--It is now too late to make more
than three or four dollars at poker before quitting-time, so I will go
home.
BILL.”
It must be said here that Nye was not a card-player, and this was only
one of many references to things he never did.
A letter from Arden, N. C. (the town where he died), was dated “Sabbath
Morning, Just After Prayers.”
“I used to keep a scrap-book in which I glued the little printed
statements about my having called and subscribed for the paper, or to
the effect that I had just laid a porcelain egg on the editor’s table
measuring nine inches in circumference, but the book warped and the
glue in it turned sour, so that when I used to give it to my guests to
read while I went upstairs to dress, I noticed that they frequently
opened the window and sometimes went out for more air, strolling so far
away from the house that they never got back. So I don’t keep a
scrap-book any more.”
Referring to his new play, “The Cadi,” he wrote:
“The prospects are fine. What the _Vampire Press_ will say no one knows,
but Robson, Jefferson, among ’em, are hopeful and tickled. Let me know
if you can come to the show so I can ‘avoid the rush.’”
Nye’s friendships were steadfast. He wrote once, after John Cockerill
retired from the New York _World_: “The paper has wired me to
‘reconsider.’ But I would rather stick by Cockerill under all
circumstances, as he has been my staunch friend always, and now I’m
his’n.”
In 1892, Bill Nye was lecturing, and, as usual, quite successfully. At
that time our business relations had ended, and he was under other
management. He wrote to me from Chicago: “Everything is unsettled except
my salary, which is paid every twenty-four hours.”
Of a former experience he remarks: “I’d have done better to put in that
spring cultivating colts. However, it is none of my business this time.
The ghost walks every night.” Again during this tour he says: “I would
enjoy your letters more if you would not refer to Chautauqua, I have
always refused to lecture in the stockades. I’ve got a trunk full of
their letters now asking me to speak a few words in absolute confidence
to the United States in Foley’s Grove, but I will not. I am saving my
voice to cool my hot Scotches next winter.” He adds: “We had a long
visit with Riley last week. We had some old-fashioned fun, and I
descended for the day to the realms of Poesy, where they chew ‘star’
tobacco. Poesy is indeed a strange gift.”
In another letter he apologized for the smallness of the paper by
saying:
“This paper belongs to Mrs. Nye, and the envelope belongs to a man who
wanted an autograph. So, you see, I am getting economical. It has a
stamp.”
Here is a letter which he illustrated in a humorous fashion:
* * * * *
“ARDEN, N. C., May 23, 1895.
“MY DEAR JUNIUS BRUTUS POND:
“There’s no use talking, with all your faults I enjoy the sight of your
wild, unlicensed penmanship. ‘Another season of pleasure and amusement
stares us in the face,’ as you so truly, so succinctly, and so merrily
say! Oh, it is fun to be merry all the time at so much per pop, is it
not?
“Merrily yours,
“LITTLE BILLIE NYE.”
“P.S.--We have just merrily passed through diphtheria, but all is serene
again.”
* * * * *
In another letter of a near-by date he wrote: “Tell Mark Twain that if
he had not possessed the fatal gift of humor he might now be President
of the United States, and if I could have had my way he should have
been, anyway.
“Mr. Depew told me that Garfield admitted to him many years ago that he
(Garfield) was naturally a humorist, but had smothered the low, coarse
impulse to be amusing in order that he might forward his political
ambitions. And what was the result? He went down to his grave full of
laudable puns, but Mark Twain will live forever in the glad hearts of a
billion people, and with all due respect to Max O’Rell, who, on rather
small capital, has realized under your able management many a good
American dollar, I am glad that the sage of Hartford spoke up to him.
“Foreigners who come here and buy large fur overcoats and live on
lobster à la Newburg for the first time, should not go home and speak
lightly of our morals, either in France or England.”
A characteristic letter came to me from Buck Shoals, Arden, N. C., under
date of July 4, 1894:
* * * * *
“DEAR JAMESIE:
“Your note of the 28th of June struck my thirsty soul like a drop of dew
on the back of a somewhat feverish, warty toad, and so now on this our
country’s glorious natal day I take in hand to acknowledge receipt of
same.
“If ever a feller had his heartstrings strained to their utmost limit
for eight consecutive weeks, I have.
“Mrs. Nye was for some days halting between life and death, and lost her
big baby boy after all; then Bess came home from school with fever, and
both she and her mother are barely out of the woods now.
“In the midst of it all our house caught fire one fine night when I had
gone to bed more dead than alive, but we cut open the wall and got at it
with our amateur fire brigade before the whole structure had begun to
blaze.
“However, all is well now, and both the invalids will recover fully,
directly. The insurance company paid up promptly, and once more I
breathe a full, delicious breath of ‘this justly celebrated climate.’
“I did not write anything so all-fired mirthful during those weeks, but
got through somehow, having five weeks ahead on the Sunday-letter job.
I’m real tickled to know that you like the history, and you will be glad
to know that she has an ever-increasing sale, one book seeming to call
for another, as Uncle Sydney would put it. I shall look forward with joy
to your forthcoming book, for I feel no little pride in my autograph
collection of Hoosier poetry.
“Poor old Burbank [at one time Mr. Nye’s “running-mate”], I was about to
say, but why should I say that when he is taking a grand old rest after
a rather thorny trip? There never lived a more unselfish gentleman than
he. He was not brilliant as an originator, perhaps, but he honestly
admitted it, and used to the utmost and best all the powers that God
gave him. There are mighty few comrades who can go through dark alleys
and dangerous stage entrances that are kept locked against the lecturer
and only open to the call of the felonious loafer who comes to shift
your scenery--only a few comrades, I say, who can go through frosty
towns and bitter weather cheerily, as he did--noble old man. And there’s
no such test on earth to try a feller’s mettle, is there? I think it’s a
good idea to reform and abandon such a life before the hearse is
actually at the door waiting for one. I am cheerily preparing to say
farewell to these triumphal tours which wreck both soul and body at so
much a pair. But I must close and relight my punk. Good-by, old man, and
‘take keer o’ yourself.’ Write to me whenever you are tempted to disobey
your physician, and I will promptly respond.
“Yours ever,
BILL”
* * * * *
The personality of the professional humorist is often of a
very different sort from that which those who know him only
through his merry-making would naturally picture. The history
of one and another shows that they have turned their
bright side to the world, have laughed and joked, and have so
bubbled over with humor that they seem to have no serious
side--all this with a background of physical disease, or a personal
sorrow, that made mental depression inevitable, and to
be constantly fought against.
Bill Nye, with whom the public smiled for so many years,
kept alive his quaint humor in the face of bodily disability
under which men of less courage would have succumbed at
once.
He had a happy spirit, a genuine humor, which can ill be
spared. He said no ill-natured or malicious thing in all his
writings, and, for one so quick to discover shams, this one
fact speaks volumes for the sweetness of his soul.
EXPLORERS, TRAVELLERS,
AND
WAR CORRESPONDENTS
[Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY]
HENRY M. STANLEY was engaged by me in the summer
of 1886, while travelling in England with Henry
Ward Beecher. I was asked if I did not want Henry M.
Stanley in America. I replied that Mr. Stanley had once
made the attempt, and had been a most dismal failure. A
day or two later, when I mentioned this circumstance to Mr.
Beecher, he replied: “Get Stanley if you can. He is one
of the greatest men we have. I have been reading ‘Through
the Dark Continent’; it is a great book. He is doing good
work for civilization. He is clean.”
I arranged then to call upon Mr. Stanley at his apartments
in New Bond Street and learn what his ideas were in regard
to revisiting the United States. There I saw him for the first
time, and found a very quiet, unassuming little man with dark
hair and penetrating light blue eyes, reticent, but very pleasant.
He allowed me to do the talking.
I related what I had heard Mr. Beecher say of him, and
saw at once that it pleased him. It was about one o’clock.
I asked him if he had lunched; he had not, so I invited him
to the Café Royal, where we lunched together.
At luncheon I tried to entertain him with conversation, telling
of America and the changes that had taken place during
his absence. He listened attentively, but made no response;
finally, in order to get him to speak, I began to put questions
to him about Africa and its people. I then discovered that I
had found and touched the proper key, and he was soon relating
to me wonderful accounts of his adventures. When we
came to separate, I remarked that there was a great American
comedian playing at the Gaiety Theatre, and asked if he would
not like to see and hear him. He replied that he would be
delighted, so the appointment was made, and we occupied a
box at the Gaiety together that evening in company with a
young English friend of mine. Mr. Stanley seemed to enjoy
the play very much, paying the closest attention until the
curtain dropped.
We parted at Charing Cross, Stanley saying, “Good-night;
I am indebted to you for a very enjoyable evening,” and
started home. I don’t know why, but as he turned the first
corner I hurried after him. I have never told this before, and
I cannot tell now why it was that I could not help following
him. But he had produced a most remarkable impression
upon me. I kept saying to myself: “That is Stanley! Stanley,
the wonderful explorer! What a life he has had! How
I should like to have shared with him his hazardous adventures!
How I should like to serve such a man!”
The next morning I received the following letter from Mr.
Stanley, which he must have written and mailed to me on his
return from the theatre:
* * * * *
“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:
“I am willing to go to America and deliver fifty lectures for you,
beginning November 29th next, six lectures a week, you paying me $100 a
lecture and my travelling expenses from the date of the first lecture to
the close of the tour, settlements to be made weekly. In case I am
recalled by the King of the Belgians, I am to be allowed to return
without let or hindrance. If this proposition meets your views, you may
sign and return a copy of this letter, which I send in duplicate.
“Yours very truly,
“HENRY M. STANLEY.”
* * * * *
I at once signed a duplicate copy of the letter, and then cabled to
America that I had secured Stanley for a lecture tour. I returned home
in October, and found a number of letters and inquiries relating to the
lectures.
When Mr. Stanley arrived in America, November 27, 1886, I had rented
Chickering Hall, New York, for the first lecture of the tour. I secured
Henry Ward Beecher to present Mr. Stanley, who had been interviewed
fully by the reporters on his arrival. There were columns about him in
all the newspapers in New York and adjoining cities.
The evening came, but tickets had gone slowly. Mr. Beecher introduced
Mr. Stanley in a brief description of his remarkable career, paying a
handsome tribute to his work for usefulness to mankind, and then
followed the lecture entitled “Through the Dark Continent.” It was
descriptive of his many adventures in Central Africa, and proved to be
thrilling and interesting in the extreme.
Mr. Beecher had prophesied correctly.