CHAPTER IV

A turning point in my career. I accept an offer to go to America and travel with John H. Murray’s Railroad Circus. The discomforts of crossing the Atlantic. The adventures of a jar of whisky. Our opening show at Harlum a success. Blowing up “Hell Gate.” New York scared. Odd experiences down south. An indignant darkie thirsts for my blood. The clown not understood in America. A Yankee who didn’t like my “general appearance.” A Pittsburg “burglar.” I return to England.

While at Sheffield there came a turning point to my career. I was still with Adams’ Circus (perhaps I might mention that some little time before this I had got married) which had its “pitch” in Station Road, and a manager who happened to see me clowning came up to me after the performance and startled me by asking without any preface:

“How would you like to go to America?”

The question rather took my breath away and I stared blankly at him for a few moments. However, I had presence of mind enough to say:

“All right, if you make it worth my while. But you’ll have to let me finish my engagement here.”

He agreed to this, so I went that night to his hotel and we fixed the thing up, I signing a contract to travel with John H. Murray’s Railroad Circus for 27 weeks in America.

A little later I was at Liverpool after a grand send-off at Sheffield. Adams’ Company all wished me good luck, and I departed in the best of spirits. Having my wife with me and a little baby about two months old, we had a few preparations to make, but at last all was ready, and we settled down on board the steamship _Italy_.

We had a comfortable state room given us. My wife’s berth was at the bottom and mine at the top. On the opposite side was a settee. I was specially privileged, being the only one allowed to burn a little light through the night--because of the baby.

At that time there were no gigantic racing Cunard and White Star liners, and our vessel, though of good size, gave us more than we liked of the notorious Atlantic “roll.” On the third night out at sea a storm came on; we were not allowed to go on deck, and our imprisonment ended in our being battened down.

I was a fair sailor but my wife wasn’t, and as for the baby it did not seem to care much which it was. A tremendous wave hit the ship and she staggered under it. The passengers in the saloon were seized with a panic and started singing psalms, which somehow didn’t add much to our confidence. My wife made sure we were all going down, and in the middle of the hubbub the baby took a header out of the bunk and rolled under the settee, where it fixed itself until the ship gave a lurch in the opposite direction, and back came baby a bit scared but not much hurt. Of course, the Providence which is said to have a special care for babies and drunken men was at hand somewhere.

What with my wife crying and what with the psalm singers and the baby yelling its loudest, my customary self-possession nearly deserted me, but in that unpleasant moment my “whimsicality” came to my rescue as it has often done when I’ve been in a tight corner.

I had a happy thought and I’ll tell you what it was.

It so happened that on my coming on board some friend--I forget the name of the good Samaritan--presented me with a gallon of Scotch whisky of the right sort. Why not sample it in the hour of distress? was my question, which I at once answered in the affirmative by opening the wooden box which held the jar and extracting the bung, refreshed myself with a good “go.” Much comforted, I climbed into my bunk and dropped off to sleep. Towards morning I awoke and was conscious of an awful smell of whisky. At first I thought it was a dream, but this idea soon vanished. The whisky aroma was too real. The very atmosphere seemed saturated with it. I looked over the side of my bunk and saw that the jar had rolled out of the box and had smashed itself against an iron trough which ran under the settee, and so round the steamer by the bulwarks.

I jumped out of my bunk and in my half-sleepy condition seeing the trough full of liquid I imagined the latter was simply whisky and water, and that all I had to do was to bale it out to prevent the passengers in the next state room being annoyed by the smell. I seized a big head sponge and the jug of my wash basin and began sopping up the contents of the trough. I don’t know how many times I filled and emptied the jug and still the trough was as full of whisky and water (as I thought) as ever. Then it dawned upon me that I was, like Mrs. Partington, trying to mop up the Atlantic! For the trough running as it did round the ship and at the stern allowing the steering chains to pass through, was always full of water. It was a sad business losing every drop of the precious whisky, but in these days of “Dora” and “Pussyfoot” it would have been a dire disaster. I daresay this reads like a trivial incident, but somehow trivialities have a way of sticking in the memory.

Apart from the whisky catastrophe, the voyage was a terrible one--it lasted 17 days--and when the ship arrived at New York she was minus two boats and the deck smoking saloon. However, the warmth of our reception made us forget all our troubles.

We drove direct to a boarding house, No. 75, Third Avenue, corner of Fourteenth Street, kept by Mrs. Scholes, and I made ready for my opening matinee at Harlum, New York.

I was at once at home with my audience, and it is no exaggeration to say that I was a tremendous success and so also was my wife, who was a member of the company and a fine rider and tight rope dancer. I have never been able to define precisely what amuses an audience. I believe it is a question of inspiration and maybe some sympathetic feeling which brings the performer and his public together, goodness knows why or wherefore. Anyhow, all I can say of my first experiment with a New York audience was that it really consisted of putting in h’s where they ought not to be, and the cockneyism went down immensely.

Fate ordained that in this, my first visit to New York, the great business of blowing up Hell Gate, a huge rock in the middle of the river, should take place. We were living at Houston Street at the time, not far from the scene of action, and everybody was in a state of the utmost alarm. The air was full of rumours, the least of which was that half New York would be destroyed by the concussion. Not a few of the residents in Houston Street removed their furniture and took refuge in Hoboken. All the people in the house where I was were prepared for the roof to fall in, and the floors to close telescope fashion. The time for the explosion arrived. The little daughter of the chief of the police touched a little electric button--the rock flew into fragments and--that was all. Nothing else happened, not even a pane of glass was broken. But we all felt very much better.

I have fears that my recollections of my first American tour are rather mixed. We went to so many places. Everything was so new and fresh, so different from what we had been accustomed to in old England. There were no gaping rustics; no sleepy picturesque villages. No old churches. No inviting quaint hostelries. No rippling streams and moss-grown bridges.

When we went down south, for instance, we found audiences divided. The whites would not sit with the blacks. But of the two I preferred the blacks. My word, they _could_ laugh! One couldn’t help being funny when one saw their black eyes rolling till you saw almost nothing but the whites, and their gleaming teeth stretching nearly from ear to ear!

But it was as well to be on your guard. Once I had to sing a song with the words like these:

There was an old woman who had three sons, Benjamin, James, and John, One got lost, one got hung The other was lost and never was found, That was an end of the three sons.

I thought it would be a good joke to sit down by the side of a fat old negress whom I had spotted in the audience and say to the Ringmaster, “Here’s a discovery.”

“Where?”

“Why, here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, here’s the old lady who had three sons, Benjamin, James and John.”

At this point I left the old lady, rushed into the arena, and whilst the audience were laughing, a man next to this old woman, also a nigger, stuck his hand behind his back.

“Look out,” suddenly whispered Mr. Murray, the proprietor, to me, “he’s going to pop you off.”

That meant to shoot me.

I said, “Is he?”

Well, you know there is a pole that keeps the circus tent up in the centre, so I made myself as thin as possible against this pole, and directly the horse came round covering me from the nigger, I ran out of the ring into my dressing room and disguised myself.

After the performance was over this outraged black gentleman wanted to find the clown who had insulted his mother. Said he, sticking out his chest with pride, “She never had any sons but me.”

I never tried that wheeze any more and I was glad to get out of the town, for I was told that had this good son, who was so ready to defend the honour of his mother, had an opportunity, he would most certainly have put a bullet into me.

Perhaps a greater contrast between England and America could hardly be found than in their respective ideas about pantomime. Pantomime is (perhaps I ought to say _was_, for I’m afraid the juveniles of to-day have very little opportunity of seeing the real old-fashioned harlequinade) one of the cherished traditions of the English boy. Fifty years ago grown-ups had not come to look upon the pantomime as silly and vulgar. To children the clown with his mixed notions of _meum_ and _tuum_ was an old friend; the pantaloon, his companion and scapegoat in crime, hardly less so. If the child’s notions as to the precise object of the mysterious flittings on and off the stage of the harlequin and columbine were a little hazy it did not much matter; they completed the picture. But in America--well, a disagreeable experience of mine showed what was thought of the clown on the other side of the Atlantic.

On one occasion I was standing at the back of the curtain waiting for the signal to enter the arena, when a formidable looking gentleman who had somehow found his way in behind the circus, came up to me and stared me in the face. I could see he wasn’t quite sober, but this didn’t make him any the less dangerous. I was in my clown’s dress and painted up; and looking at me with every sign of disapprobation he coolly pulled out a revolver.

“Say, damn you,” he drawled, “I’m going to pop you off.”

I knew the fellow meant shooting, but I showed no signs of alarm and remarked quietly,

“Why should you? I’ve never done you any harm. You don’t even know me. I only arrived in this town with the circus this morning.”

“No, you’ve done me no harm, but I don’t like your general appearance.”

And without a doubt he would have expressed his dislike in a more decided fashion, but at that moment one of the circus employees came along, hit him on the back of his neck with the palm of his hand, wrested the revolver from him and threw him down. My rescuer was only just in time, for the fellow meant mischief. It turned out that he was very drunk and on the verge of D.T. But would an Englishman in the same condition have a horror of the harmless clown? I fancy not.

In those days the revolver in America was far too handy to please me. When we were in Pittsburg murderous outrages were of constant occurrence, and one night my wife and I had quite a scare at the hotel where we were staying. She had gone to her room as usual and I remained downstairs playing billiards. After a couple of games I went up to the bedroom, opened the door, and there saw my wife sitting up in bed trembling with fright.

She dared not speak, but calling pantomime business to her aid, she easily made me understand that a burglar was under the bed! I pantomimed back that I would go out of the room and fetch my six-shooter. I did so, made some kind of noise, opened the door and stalked in, calling out in a rough voice:

“Come from under that bed or I’ll fire.”

He crawled out--not a burglar, but a poor little collie dog wagging his tail in the most friendly manner. The collie belonged to the hotel proprietor, of whom I bought him for a 10-cent cigar. In my customary fashion with all the animals I ever had, I soon taught him no end of tricks, and he travelled with me during the rest of my tour in America. He was the best of pals and always looked after me in the most amusing fashion at the various restaurants where I dined and supped. I was very sad when the poor animal I had come to love so much was run over by a tramcar in Omaha and killed.