CHAPTER II

I tramp from Bristol to London with my properties. A one-day show with the “Retort” Circus at the Crystal Palace. The seats collapse. I join Croueste and Nella’s Circus. A “double somersault over five horses by the Little Clown.” An unexpected catastrophe. How I “performed” on the slack rope. With Powell and Clarke at Southampton. The preacher and the monkey. I appear at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, for a benefit at Sanger’s Circus. A lion in my dressing room! Practical joking among circus lads. Am tired of circus life and go in for “mumming.” I take an “engagement” at Royston’s Circus at Carlisle. Playing “Little Willie” in “East Lynne” and the “ghost” in “Hamlet” under difficulties. Am disappointed with “mumming” and go back to the circus. My first shave. Terrible death of Macmart, the lion tamer.

On the death of Pablo Fangue his circus was sold and my life became one of strange ups and downs. Looking back, if all were related, that life would seem to be one of great hardship, but in reality I had seen much of the unexpected and had always tumbled on my feet, so nothing took me aback. Besides, I had the habit of discovering the funny side of things, and this was my salvation.

After Pablo Fangue’s Circus changed hands, I joined John Powell’s show at Bristol, but finding there was no money accepted an engagement with a circus called the “Retort” (spell the word backwards and you will find it is “Trotter”) which was going to give a performance on Easter Monday at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. I tramped it from Bristol to London, loaded with my properties--a dancing spade, a long pair of stilts, a short pair ditto and a little portmanteau.

The mistress of the circus was a Mrs. Bonfantie, and I looked her up on Easter Sunday at the Half Moon Hotel, Hammersmith, where she was staying. I was nearly bootless and with ten shillings she lent me I went off to the New Cut and bought a pair of patent leather shoes for 2/11½. Early on Easter Monday I set out to walk to the Crystal Palace. It rained all the way and by the time I reached the Palace my patent leathers had turned out to be brown paper and the soles had to be tied together with string. No matter, I went into the ring just the same.

The circus was in the grounds, and the tent was crowded, the people being glad of the shelter out of the pouring rain. The seats being soddened with wet, the audience stood upon them, the supports slipped in the soft, muddy ground, and then the seats collapsed. The scared crowd rushed into the arena and I in my clown’s dress got considerably mixed up. That was the last of Trotters’ Circus so far as I was concerned--only one day.

In those happy-go-lucky times nothing seemed to matter. Some money was due to me from Trotters’, and their lawyer called at the coffee house, Westminster Bridge Road, where I had put up, and paid me a bright golden sovereign. I owed for my board and lodging and also for a washing bill. Which should I pay? “Toss up,” said Johnny Purvis, my pal. We stood under a lamp post (it was night). I tossed, muffed it and it disappeared into the gutter! It was an agonising moment. Anyhow, we found the coin, but whether we paid the coffee house or the washing I can’t remember.

The next few years was a jumble of odd experiences. Once I was with Croueste and Nella’s Circus at Blackburn. Business was very bad, so the proprietor of the circus asked me if I would do a double somersault over the horses as he thought that would bring a good house, and I agreed to do so after I’d had some practice. Bills were printed with the announcement in large type: “Greatest wonder in the World! The Little Clown will turn a double somersault in mid-air over five horses before alighting on his feet.” We only had three horses, but that didn’t matter. The night came off for this wonderful feat. The house was packed. I had practised the double somersault about half a dozen times and had got on all right. However, I suppose on the night I was over excited. I hit the vaulting board a terrific thump, and I went up in the air. How many somersaults I turned I don’t know, but my head came down on the ring fence and broke it (the fence, I mean). I got up, smiled, and they led me out of the ring. I was bad for about three weeks, and I never tried that game again.

I remember another unexpected accident at the same circus. A performer on the slack rope had been engaged and we boys at practice in the morning thought we would try this trick. I was wearing little top boots and I put on a pair of what we call “slings”--fastenings which, attached to the ropes, enabled the performer to attempt certain feats without the risk of falling--round my top boots. The boys gave the rope a good swing and I started doing somersaults, thinking I couldn’t fall as I had the slings on. “Try the ‘throw out,’” shouted my pals below--that is, whirl myself head downwards. I did try, and to my horror I came out of my top boots and went crash down. Luckily, I fell on the seats, and I got up without even a scratch on me. Meanwhile, my top boots were dangling in the air, and just as I was going to get them my master came in and said, “What’s this?” I told him what I had done. Result--a lovely hiding for trying to do another man out of his performance. That taught me a lesson!

While I was with Croueste and Nella two things happened on the same day which fixed themselves on my memory. One was not of much importance, the other was a terrible business. The circus was at Bolton, and by this time I was getting on in my teens and had begun to fancy myself considerably. I saw myself a full-blown “pro” and had visions of an overcoat with an astrachan collar, wide bell-bottomed trousers, my hat stuck on one side, and with all the airs which the budding actor then affected. I was well satisfied with my general appearance save in one respect. I could not grow a moustache and this made me look younger than I really was.

The great drawback of my youthful aspect in my eyes was that the girls took no notice of me. All my circus pals of my own age could get sweethearts without any difficulty, but never a one had I. I persuaded myself or my friends persuaded me that the cause was the absence of hair on my face. They worked zealously on my behalf, but whether this zeal was genuine I have now reason to doubt, though I thought it was all right at the time.

To begin with they got some stuff from a druggist which I had to rub on my face. I rubbed and rubbed, but nothing came of it. Then Joe Smith, one of the circus men, said to me, “Why don’t you go and get shaved?”

“What’s the good?” said I, “there’s so little to shave.”

“That’s nothing to do with it. The more your face is scraped the quicker your moustache will grow.”

Acting on the advice of this authority I paid a visit to a Bolton barber. His charge was not high, it was only a halfpenny. Plucking up my courage I went into the dirty little barber’s shop, looking round before entering to see if anyone was seeing me going in. I saw a miserable old man about 80, and directly he caught sight of me he called out roughly, “What do you want?” and I told him. He got a filthy dirty towel and put it round my neck, and I began to feel horribly nervous. I’d been reading about Sweeney Todd, the barber of Fleet Street, and I wished I was out of the shop. He got the brush (I will never forget the brush--if you call it a brush) and he put some stuff on the brush supposed to be soap (I don’t know what it was). He was very shortsighted and he lathered my face, not forgetting my eyes, my nostrils and my mouth.

After scrubbing my face for a minute or two he turned round and began stropping a razor, accompanied by a loud muttering, which I thought sounded like “N--ow ----ow!” Maybe it was his cough--anyhow to me he was Sweeney Todd! In a flash I was out of the chair--through the door and running down the streets with the soap stuff on my face, scraping it out of my eyes, out of my nostrils, spitting it out of my mouth, and I ran till I became exhausted. At the show (it was a penny circus, by the way) Joe Smith enquired anxiously whether I’d had a shave yet. “No,” said I stoutly, “and I don’t want one.” Nor did I. So much for the unimportant event of that night.

Bolton Fair was on and later, when the various shows were closing we heard a frightful screaming. It was then nearly eleven o’clock. We rushed out of the circus on to the fair ground and saw a crowd pouring from Mander’s menagerie shrieking with terror. Feeling that some dreadful disaster had happened we ran up the steps to the entrance and into the menagerie.

Our fears were too truly realised. A terrible tragedy met our eyes. The lion tamer, Mr. Macmart, was being worried and mauled by his lions. He had been giving a sort of extra show after the ordinary public performance was over, to amuse a party of students, and no red-hot irons were handy. What had happened was this: One of Mr. Macmart’s tricks was for the lioness to lie at his feet while he put his foot on one of the lions. By a great mischance he stumbled over the lioness and fell, and directly he was on the ground the lions leaped at him.

I shall never forget to my dying day the terrible scene. One beast was at the poor man’s head and the other at his feet, roaring and snarling like two dogs over a bone--it was frightful. We fired revolvers with blank cartridges, hoping to make them desist, but it was in vain. However, at last we got him out by dividing the cage into three parts by the shutters provided for the purpose, but it was too late, the poor fellow died within twenty minutes. He was an Irishman with one arm and for some reason the lion probably had taken a dislike to him, as a few years before the same creature attacked him and so injured his arm that it had to be amputated.

Among other engagements in my teens was one with Powell and Clarke’s Circus, during which time the Southampton Circus was let to a preacher, for Sunday service. It so happened that young Powell had just bought a rhesus monkey off a sailor, and on a certain Sunday morning, when the circus was crowded to hear a noted preacher, the monkey got loose and crept very gently to where the reverend gentleman was. There was no viciousness in the monkey, but he just pulled the reverend gentleman’s trouser leg. The clergyman naturally turned to see the cause, dropped the hymn book as though it were red-hot, and with one jump was across that ring and through the stable door quicker than I can tell you, his flock scooting after him. That finished the preaching in the circus.

Some time after this, when I was at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, Mr. Levy, the manager of Sanger’s Circus in Deansgate, asked me if I would appear for his benefit, and I got permission from my manager to do so. The night came. I did my clown’s business and after I had finished I returned to my dressing room. I was just undressing, when I heard the door locked, and the next moment I saw something move in the distance in the corner of my dark dressing room. It was one of the lions. I was so frightened that I lost speech. I made myself as little as I could and did a bit of horizontal bar on the rafters, and after being there about ten minutes, the door was unlocked. It was just a practical joke and I think the lion was more alarmed than even I was. It took about three or four men to shove him out: he was so old, poor old dear! This poor lion was as docile as a kitten, but I was not supposed to know that!

Some sort of joking was always going on among the boys. I remember once at Astley’s we let four of the lions loose one evening for a lark. It was more of a lark than we had bargained for. Lions wanted catching in a large place like that--and at the last we had to beg Cooper, the lion tamer, to get them back in their cage.

Another practical joke and I come to the end of my boyish “whimsicalities.”

There was a clown once with Adams’ Circus called Nat Emmatt, and he had a performing goat. Nat was always very nasty to us boys, was always getting us in trouble, and we determined to get our own back. On one occasion Emmatt was in the ring and his goat was waiting at the wing doors to go in the arena. Now this goat had a funny little tail, and we tied a halfpenny squib to the excrescence, set the squib alight and sent him in the arena. The antics that goat performed with “bang, bang” going at his latter end, and the fury of Nat Emmatt, sent the audience into convulsions. Of course, they thought it was part of the show. A reward was offered to find out who frightened the goat, but the culprit was never discovered.

Summing up my young days, I can honestly say that in spite of its hardships the circus life of yore had its attractions. The travelling from town to town, the buzz, the din, the excitement of fairs, the admiration and wonder of the gaping rustics, the jovial meetings of old chums, the comparison of experiences, were delights which don’t exist in these days. What a pride it was to herald the coming of a circus by a procession through some sleepy country town, the company in full dress, the wild animals staring with all their eyes, the band blaring and banging its loudest, boxed up in a sort of triumphal car of gold and scarlet, and strongly reminding one of the gigantic trophies of gingerbread on the fair stalls!

Then there were the catastrophes, which were bound to occur even in the best regulated shows, and the expedients to be thought out at a moment’s notice to overcome them--the chances whether expenses were going to be paid or not--the vagaries of the weather--the bad or good temper as the case might be of the proprietor! All was delightfully uncertain; sometimes disappointing, sometimes exhilarating, but one thing was never absent--the sense of freedom--and so long as we pleased our audiences our mission of life was fulfilled.

For a long time it seemed as though I was glued to travelling circus life. Yet I had dreams that some day I should do something better. I had wild ideas of becoming an actor, but at the moment when I was clowning in the ring and earning my name of “Whimsical” Walker there didn’t seem the ghost of a chance of these ideas ever being realised.

Those days were not these days when actors and actresses without any training suddenly jump into notoriety (for a time) so long as they have some link with “Society.” Their reputation is established when the illustrated papers deem them of sufficient importance to photograph them playing with their pet dogs in their back gardens, or when they get themselves talked about through some eccentricity of conduct--outside the theatre. Hard work, talent, study of the histrionic art, appear nowadays to be the last things necessary to success. It is too often a question of self-advertisement.

It was not so during the period of which I am writing, and of course, earlier. The would-be actor and actress without any qualification beyond vanity and ambition and maybe influence and money, had not a look-in. The old managers would have turned up their noses at such presumption. You had to begin at the beginning and know your profession from A to Z before you were regarded seriously.

What did that queer showman Richardson say of Macready, who, though the son of a theatrical manager, had not gone through the drudgery of mumming at a fair? When the great actor was well-known Richardson was asked if he had ever seen him. “No, master,” was the blunt answer. “I knows nothing about him; in fact, he’s some wagabone as nobody knows--one o’ them chaps as ain’t had any eddication for the thing. He never was with me as Edmund Kean an’ them Riglars was.” Many of “them Riglars,” afterwards famous in their day, from Henry Irving downwards, if they didn’t start with the immortal Richardson, commenced their career in some acting booth of very much the same character.

So, I repeat, there was just the possibility of fame for me if I stuck at what I was doing. But this is just what I didn’t do--at least for a time. I was nearly out of my teens when after all kinds of circus ups and downs, picking up bits of knowledge that came in useful subsequently, I decided to become an actor! The life looked easier. Being on a walking tour--not from choice, but for the simple reason that I wasn’t able to comply with the slight formality which had to be gone through with the booking clerk at the railway station before they would permit me to ride--I eventually arrived at Carlisle and found myself with Royston’s Temple of the Drama, otherwise Royston’s Mumming Booth.

I was in time to lend a hand with the tilt, and with aid of a hammer and a few tacks we had it erected in readiness for the evening performance. I smiled at the manager, expecting some slight recompense for my exertions, but all he said was:

“Laddie, you have helped us out of a great hole; I will repay you; you shall to-night play ‘Little Willie’ in ‘East Lynne,’ and in the second part you shall play the ghost in ‘Hamlet’--and do your spade dance in the graveyard scene.”

I pointed out to him that I knew neither of the parts.

He said, “You can read.”

I admitted the fact.

“Good--we have a doll in the bed for the dying scene in ‘East Lynne’--you will be underneath and read the part. As the ‘Ghost’ you will read from the part which you will carry as a baton. Don’t you worry, I’ll make a first-class actor of you yet.”

I thanked him and asked him about money. He gazed at me as if I had suddenly told him the Home Secretary would hold him out no hope of a reprieve.

“Money, money,” he gasped. “You won’t need money--you’ll live on the fat of the land; the audience will present you with eggs--cabbages--carrots!”

He was right!! They did!! It was a repetition of the old time days in Ireland when the audiences paid for their admission in kind.

When on the Saturday night a settlement had to be arrived at, I joined with the other performers round the drum. My share came to the magnificent sum of 9½d. I was about to gather up my hard-earned money when a man appeared saying he wanted the ground rent, and my ninepence went towards making up the amount!

After this experience I returned to the circus life once more, and from Royston’s I went to Footit’s Circus, and we opened at Nottingham.

Of all the towns in England I think I liked Nottingham as well as any. The free-hearted factory lasses and chaps went mad over the circus, and I was always sure of raising a laugh whenever I wanted one. The audiences were out for pleasure and fun, and were not ashamed to show their feelings. I think of the Nottingham crowds who now fill the picture palaces, often as mum as mice, and wonder if they can laugh as heartily as they did in the days of Footit’s Circus!