Читать книгу The Sunny Side of the Street - Marshall P. Wilder - Страница 10

Table of Contents

All of Them Full of Humor at All Times.—“Joe” Jefferson.—J. K. Emmett.—Fay Templeton.—Willie Collier.—An Actor’s Portrait on a Church Wall.—“Gus” Thomas, the Playwright.—Stuart Robson.—Henry Dixey.—Evans and Hoey.—Charles Hoyt.—Wilson Barrett.—W. S. Gilbert.—Henry Irving.

Actors are the most incessant jokers alive. Whether rich or poor, obscure or prominent, drunk or sober, prosperous or not knowing where the next meal is to come from, or whether there will be any next meal, they have always something funny at the tips of their tongues, and managers and dramatic authors as a rule are full of humorous explosives that clear the dull air and let in the sunshine. They are masters at repartee, yet as willing to turn a joke on themselves as on one another, and they can work a pun most brilliantly.

Joseph Jefferson one day called on President Cleveland with General Sherman, and carried a small package with him. All his friends know that dear old “Joe” is forgetful, so when the visitors were going the general called attention to the package and asked: “Jefferson, isn’t this yours?”

“Great Cæsar, Sherman,” Jefferson replied, “you have saved my life!” The “life” referred to was the manuscript of his then uncompleted biography. Jefferson delights in telling of a new playmate of one of his sons, who asked another boy who young Jefferson was, and was told:

“Oh, his father works in a theatre somewhere.”

“Pete” Dailey, while enjoying a short vacation, visited a New York theatre when business was dull. Being asked afterward how large the audience was, he replied: “I could lick all three of them.”

On meeting a friend who was “fleshing up,” he exclaimed: “You are getting so stout that I thought some one was with you.”

J. K. Emmett tells of a heathenish old farmer and his wife who strayed into a church and heard the minister say: “Jesus died for sinners.” The old man nudged his wife, and whispered:

“Serves us right for not knowin’ it, Marthey. We hain’t took a newspaper in thirty year.”

Fay Templeton tells of a colored girl, whose mother shouted: “Mandy, your heel’s on fire!” and the girl replied: “Which one, mother?” The girl was so untruthful that her discouraged mother said: “When you die, dey’s going to say: ‘Here lies Mandy Hopkins, and de trufe never came out of her when she was alive.’”

“Actors are the Most Incessant Jokers Alive.”

I have been the subject of some actors’ jokes, and enjoyed the fun as much as any one. May Irwin had two sons, who early in life were susceptible to the seductive cigarette, against which she cautioned them earnestly. I entered a restaurant one day where she and her sons were dining, and she called me over and gave me an opportunity to become acquainted with the little fellows. After I left them, one turned to his mother and asked:

“What makes that little man so short?”

“Smoking cigarettes,” she replied. And they never smoked again.

He Smokes Cigarettes.

Willie Collier invited me one summer to his beautiful home at St. James, Long Island. He was out when I arrived, and when he returned, Mrs. Collier said to him:

“You’re going to have Marshall P. Wilder for dinner,” and Willie replied:

“I’d rather have lamb.”

There is a colony of theatrical people near Collier, and they have a small theatre in which a dazzling array of talent sometimes appears, although the performances are impromptu affairs. On Sundays this theatre serves as a church for the Catholics of the vicinity. At one side hangs a large lithograph of Willie Collier, concerning which the following conversation between the two Irishmen was overheard:

“I wint into the church this mornin’ airly, while it was pretty dark, an’ I see a picture hanging there, an’ thinkin’ it must be one av the saints I wint down on me knees an’ said me prayers before it. When I opened me eyes they’d got used to the dark, an’ if I didn’t see it was a picture av that actor-man beyant that they call Willie Collier!”

“An’ what did’ you do?” asked the other Irishman.

“Sure, I tuk’ back as much av me prayers as I cud.”

Augustus Thomas, the playwright, who is always “Gus” except on the back of an envelop or the bottom of his own check, was chairman of a Lambs’ Club dinner at which I was to speak. When I began, he joked me on my shortness by saying:

“Mr. Wilder will please rise when making a speech.”

I was able to retort by saying: “I will; but you won’t believe it.”

When an acquaintance said to him after being wearied by a play: “That was the slowest performance I ever saw. Strange, too, for it had a run of a hundred nights in London!” Thomas replied:

“That’s the trouble. It’s exhausted its speed.”

He was standing behind the scenes one night with Miss Georgia Busbey, who while waiting for her cue, said: “Tell me a story, Mr. Thomas, before I go on.”

“It must be a quick witty one then, Miss Busbey.”

“I know it, but I’ve come to the right place for it.”

Stuart Robson was present at a Lambs’ Club dinner of which Mr. Thomas was chairman; but he endeavored to hide when called on for a speech. Thousands of successful appearances on the stage never cured him of his constitutional bashfulness.

Thomas said: “Is Mr. Robson here? If he has not gone, we should like to hear from him.”

Robson said: “Mr. Thomas, will you kindly consider that I have gone?”

Thomas replied: “While the drama lasts, Mr. Robson can never go.”

Robson had been a close neighbor and friend for many years to Lawrence Barrett. His bosom friend Marshall Lewis fell in love with Barrett’s charming daughter Millie, and Robson pretended to think it was the greatest joke in the world.

“Why don’t you go in, and win and marry her, Marshall?” he used to say in the squeaky voice which was not for the stage alone. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do—the day you marry Millie Barrett I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

This went on for some time, until to Robson’s astonishment and chagrin Miss Barrett accepted Lewis.

By the way, when Barrett learned of it he exclaimed: “My dear boy, you don’t know what you’re doing. You are robbing me out of my only remaining daughter.”

“Not at all,” Lewis replied, with a slap on the back of his father-in-law elect. “I’m merely giving you another son.”

When the marriage day came Robson did not attend the ceremony; but he sent his daughter Alicia in his place, and gave her a check for five thousand dollars, drawn to Lewis’ order, but with emphatic orders not to part from it until Lewis and Miss Barrett were pronounced man and wife. When Alicia returned her father asked her if she had given Lewis the check.

The girl replied: “Yes, father.”

“What did he do and say?” Robson inquired impatiently.

“Why, father, he was so overcome that he cried for a minute after I gave it to him.”

“Egad!” squeaked Robson, “was that all? Why, I cried for an hour when I wrote it.”

Henry Dixey is an adept at the leisurely tale, which is a word picture from start to finish. Here is a sample:

In one of the country stores, where they sell everything from a silk dress and a tub of butter to a hot drink and a cold meal, a lot of farmers were sitting around the stove one cold winter day, when in came Farmer Evans, who was greeted with:

“How d’do, Ezry?”

“How d’do boys?” After awhile he continued: “Wa-all, I’ve killed my hog.”

“That so? How much did he weigh?”

Farmer Evans stroked his chin whiskers meditatively and replied: “Wa-all, guess.”

“’Bout three hundred,” said one farmer.

“No.”

“Two seventy-five?” ventured another.

“No.”

“I guess about three twenty-five,” said a third.

“No.”

Then all together demanded: “Well, how much did he weigh?”

“Dunno. Hain’t weighed him yet.”

Other men kept dropping in and hugging the stove, for the day was cold and snowy outside. In came Cy Hopkins, wrapped in a big overcoat, yet almost frozen to death; but there wasn’t room enough around that stove to warm his little finger.

But he didn’t get mad about it; he just said to Bill Stebbins who kept the store: “Bill, got any raw oysters?”

“Yes, Cy.”

“Well, just open a dozen and feed ’em to my hoss.”

Well, Stebbins never was scared by an order from a man whose credit was good, as Cy’s was, so he opened the oysters an’ took them out, an’ the whole crowd followed to see a horse eat oysters. Then Cy picked out the best seat near the stove and dropped into it as if he had come to stay, as he had.

Pretty soon the crowd came back, and the storekeeper said: “Why, Cy, your hoss won’t eat them oysters.”

“Won’t he? Well, then, bring ’em here an’ I’ll eat ’em myself.”

When Charley Evans and Bill Hoey traveled together, they had no end of good-natured banter between them.

Once when Hoey saw Evans mixing lemon juice and water for a gargle, he asked: “What are you doing that for, Charley?”

“Oh, for my singing.”

“Suppose you put some in your ear; then maybe you’ll be able to find the key.”

While they were crossing the ocean, Evans came on deck one day dressed in the latest summer fashion—duck trousers, straw hat, etc.—and asked Hoey: “How do you like me, Bill?”

“Well, all you need to do now is to have your ears pierced,” was the reply.

At the ship’s table the waiter asked Hoey what he would have.

“Roast beef.”

“How shall I cut it, sir?”

“By the ship’s chart.”

Evans always carried the money for both, and the two men had a fancy for wearing trousers of the same material, though of different sizes, for Evans was slighter than his partner. One day Hoey fell on hard luck. He had been to the Derby races, where a pickpocket relieved him of his watch and his money too. They were to start for America next morning, and Evans had plenty of money and return tickets also, yet Hoey was so cut up by his losses that he went to bed early and tried to drop asleep. This did not work, so after tossing for several hours, by which time Evans had retired, he got up and began to dress himself. But to his horror his figure seemed to have swelled in the night.

This was the last straw; he woke his partner and with tears in his eyes and his voice too, he said: “Charley, beside all my hard luck to-day I’m getting the dropsy.”

“Bill,” said Evans after a glance, “go into the other room and take off my pants!”

A certain diamond broker called on the late Charles Hoyt with a large bill.

While Hoyt was drawing a check the broker said: “Charley, a dear friend of mine was robbed yesterday.”

“Is that so? Why, what did you sell him?”

The English stage is as full of jokers as ours. Wilson Barrett tells that at a “First night” his play did not seem to suit the pit, so he came before the curtain at the end of one act and asked what was the matter. The “Gods” have great freedom in English theatres, so there was much talk across the footlights between the stage and the audience; but it was stopped abruptly by a voice that said:

“Oh, go on, Wilson! This ain’t no bloomin’ debatin’ society.”

W. S. Gilbert, although not an actor, is a playwright and extremely critical. A London favorite had the best part in one of Gilbert’s pieces, but the author thought him slow. Going behind the scenes after the performance, Gilbert noted that the actor’s brow was perspiring, so he said:

“Well, at all events, your skin has been acting.”

Gilbert can give evasive answers that cut like a knife. A player of the title part of Hamlet asked Gilbert’s opinion of the performance.

“You are funny, without being vulgar,” was the reply.

Forbes Robertson, who essayed the same part, asked Gilbert: “What do you think of Hamlet?”

Gilbert answered: “Wonderful play, old man; most wonderful play ever written.”

E. S. Willard tells the following story of Charles Glenny, of Irving’s Lyceum Company. “The Merchant of Venice” was in rehearsal, and Glenny did not repeat the lines: “Take me to the gallows, not to the font” to the liking of Irving, so the latter said in the kindly manner he always maintained at rehearsals:

“No, no, Mr. Glenny; not that way. Walk over and touch me, and say: ‘Take me to the gallows, not to the font.’” The line was rehearsed several times, but unsuccessfully.

Finally Irving became discouraged and said: “Ah, well; touch me.”

Irving witnessed Richard Mansfield’s performance of “Richard III,” in London, and by invitation went back to see the actor in his dressing-room. Mansfield had been almost exhausted, and was fanning himself, but Irving’s approach revived him, and natural anticipation of a compliment from so exalted a source was absolutely stimulating.

But for the time being all Irving did was to slap Mansfield playfully on the back and exclaim in the inimitable Irving tone: “Aha? You sweat!”

“Aha! You Sweat!”