CHAPTER XVI

My first engagement at Covent Garden. My performing pig. Its ultimate end. Some dog yarns. Animal trainers not cruel. “Verdun,” the wonderful performing horse. How E. T. Smith swallowed a £1,000 note. A shadow in my life. My first panto at Drury Lane Theatre. A “great cab act.” Comic film scenes indebted to the harlequinade. The decline of the harlequinade. The clown’s difficulties with the orchestra. Royalty at the pantomime. I present Princess Mary with a Christmas cracker. The cracker and the cats--a practical joke. The relief of Ladysmith--an excited audience. Arthur Roberts, the prince of “spoofers.” Escapades at a Sheffield hotel. Pressmen “spoofed” by a water chute. The “spooferies.”