The “Under the Earth” bar in Melbourne—A swimming challenge spoof—The Australian Vaudeville Association—My connection therewith—They present me with an Address—At Adelaide—A cheery send-off—I bring to London with me Charlie Griffin, the feather-weight Australian champion—Fix up a match at the London National Sporting Club—I train him myself during a pantomime engagement—He is beaten by Jim Driscoll—But afterwards defeats Joe Bowker—My fight at the National Sporting Club with “Apollo”—All the “pro.’s” present—A great night—I am beaten by “Apollo”—Congratulations all round—Only Mrs. “Carlton” does not approve—Other boxing and sporting yarns.

Our Australian cousins are fine sportsmen, and they dearly love a joke, even if it is against themselves. When I was performing in Melbourne in 1907 I became very chummy with Jack Trenby, at that time one of the best-known jockeys in Australia, and one day we got talking about swimming. I told him that I rather fancied myself that way, and that I used to swim the hundred yards in sixty-four seconds in the days when the record for the English Championship (held by J.H. Darbyshire) was only one-fifth of a second under the sixty-one seconds.

“Good!” cried Trenby. “There’s a chap here named Murphy who thinks he can swim. We’ll have a lark with him, and unless I’m greatly mistaken we’ll rope in a few others of the ‘wide ones’ into the bargain.”

In those days—it may be so now for aught I know—the sporting element in Melbourne were wont to meet together in the hotel bar known as “Under the Earth,” situated in Burke Street, mention of which has been made in the previous chapter. A lot of us used to go swimming in the public baths every morning, and foregather here for a livener and a chat afterwards.

Well, for a whole week I went swimming with the rest, and, acting under Trenby’s instructions, I made no end of an exhibition of myself; diving in awkwardly flat on my stomach, and panting and splashing and puffing and blowing after I was in, like a maimed grampus. All the while, however, I pretended to think I was getting on famously, and one day when we were all enjoying our drinks in the “Under the Earth” bar Jack purposely switched the conversation on to swimming, and referred somewhat slightingly to my efforts in that direction.

Thereupon I pretended to get huffed, and offered to swim Murphy the length of the public bath and back again for a five-pound note.

Murphy snapped at the bet like a hungry dog at a bone, and every “bookie” there, and nearly every other man in the bar, rushed at me with their money, imploring me to raise my stakes and let them in. Jack Trenby, I may add, was loudest of all in asking to be given a chance to win my money, and although he must inwardly have been bursting with laughter, he never showed a trace of it on his countenance.

At first I feigned reluctance, but in the end I accepted their bets up to a total of £50, and the money was put up with Mrs. Hill, the proprietress of the hotel, the race being timed to come off at eleven o’clock on the following morning. After a little while, however, I pretended that I was only bluffing, and wanted to call the bets off. “You know, boys,” I said, “that I’m no swimmer. You’ve all seen me at the baths. I’m only a novice. I was just swanking. Tell you what I’ll do! Call the bets off, and I’ll set up wine for the crowd.”

But they only laughed, and told me that I had asked for it, and that I had got to go through with it. They, of course, thought that the £50 was as good as won.

Then, after a while, I changed my cue, and told them the truth. “Look here, boys,” I said, “I’ve been kidding you all for over a week. Take my tip and call the bets off. I’ll show you in the morning how easily I can beat Murphy, and for nothing. Why, I can swim the hundred yards within a second or two of the record time. I only wanted to show you all how easily I could have you. I don’t want your money.”

But no! They wouldn’t have it at any price. Not a man there, barring of course Jack Trenby, but imagined that I was bluffing, and though I went up to each one separately and offered to call his individual bet off, not one would agree to it.

Next morning all sporting Melbourne was at the baths. The Press, too, was represented. Murphy had seen to that.

We stripped, and then, turning to the crowd, I made a last appeal.

“Boys,” I cried, “I’m going to win—sure. Will you call all bets off?”

“No!” roared everybody in unison; and in we plunged.

Well, I beat Murphy by half a length, and everybody crowded round me, wanting to shake hands, and patted me on the back, saying that it was one of the smartest things ever done in Melbourne. And I dressed, and the crowd escorted me to the White Hart Hotel, where I spent my winnings, or the major part of them at all events, on a dinner for the boys. Alf Squires, who is now the proprietor of the Colonial Bar, Savoy Street, Strand, was the landlord of the “White Hart” at the time, and he did us well and no mistake about it.

It was while I was in Melbourne during this tour that I was instrumental in founding the Australian Vaudeville Association, now a large and flourishing organisation, and on my departure they presented me with an illuminated address on vellum, with the following inscription: “Presented to Arthur Carlton. Sir—We the undersigned members of the Committee of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Vaudeville Association convey to you our sincerest thanks and hearty appreciation for your untiring efforts and valuable assistance to us in our infancy. We extend to you the glad hand of fellowship, and deeply regret your departure from Australia. No pen can describe how grateful we feel for the valuable services you at all times have rendered us, often at great personal inconvenience. You have paved the way for a bright and glorious future for our young association. You leave our native land with the good wishes of every true artist here. In conclusion we trust that your sojourn amongst us has been a pleasant one, and we sincerely hope you will at no distant date pay us another visit, for though thousands of miles may separate us we will always keep you in memory. With every good wish for your future health and prosperity, we beg to remain.”

Then followed the signatures of a large number of prominent men in the Profession, all of whom I am proud to call my friends. I was very pleased and touched at the reception of this quite unexpected testimonial, and equally so by the fact that when I quitted Adelaide, en route for England, the famous “Besses o’ th’ Barn” band came down to the quay, with their instruments carefully hidden under their coats, and, as the ship made ready to cast off, struck up the air “For he’s a jolly good fellow.”

While in Melbourne on this occasion I met Charlie Griffin, the feather-weight champion of Australia, and brought him to London, where I arranged with Mr. “Peggy” Bettinson, of the National Sporting Club, London, to match him there against Jim Driscoll for £200 a side and the feather-weight championship of the world. I trained him personally myself in Edinburgh during my pantomime engagement there, and seconded him in the ring, with the assistance of the famous Tommy Burns, then heavy-weight champion of the world. He put up a good fight, and looked like winning, but greatly to my disappointment he was disqualified in the fifteenth round for a foul. However, a little later on, I matched him against Joe Bowker, the ex-bantam-weight champion of the world, for £100 a side and the club purse; and this fight Griffin won, knocking Bowker out—for the first time in his life—in the ninth round.

This leads me up to my own fight at the National Sporting Club, which came off on May 4th, 1914. The beginning of it was this way. Mr. Walter (now Sir Walter) de Frece (husband of Miss Vesta Tilley), and one of the Committee of the N.S.C., is well known in the profession for his love of a joke; and one day, knowing that I rather fancied myself as a fairly good amateur boxer, he offered to put up a silver cup, value 25 guineas, if I would box Mr. William Bankier, better known by his stage title of “Apollo,” the Ideal Scottish Athlete.

No doubt Mr. de Frece counted on my declining, for Apollo was supposed to be at that time probably the best all-round athlete in the world. His strength was prodigious. He will be remembered by patrons of the music-halls as the man who used to have placed upon the stage, as an item of his performance, an enormous sack of flour. This he used to challenge anyone in the audience to remove, offering £50 to whoever succeeded. Nobody ever did, although many tried, but at the end of each performance Apollo would lift it, and carry it off the stage, apparently with the most perfect ease.

When I add to this that his weight in training was 15 st. 10 lb. as against my 11 st. 10 lb., and that he is all brawn, bone, and muscle, the reader will be able to appreciate that in tackling him I was up against a pretty tough proposition. In fact, as I have already intimated, Mr. de Frece made his offer originally more by way of a joke than anything else, and he was considerably surprised when I took it on, merely stipulating that the club purse should, no matter which of us won, be given to the Music-hall Artists’ Benevolent Fund, the cup of course going to the victor. To this, Apollo, like the good sportsman he is, at once agreed.

The weights were announced by Mr. Bettinson as follows: “Apollo, the Ideal Athlete, 15 st. 10 lb.; Carlton, the Human Hairpin, 11 st. 10 lb.” My opponent had for his seconds Charlie Mitchell, ex-heavy-weight champion of England, and Jake Hyams. In my corner were Jim Driscoll, the feather-weight champion of the world, Dai Dollings, and the club’s second.

The battle looked like being over before it had properly begun. I had thought that my opponent would have sparred for an opening. Instead, however, directly the gong sounded for the start he rushed across the ring like a mad bull, and landed me a terrific punch under the heart.

Down I went, and I knew no more until I heard “nine” counted, and realised that I had to struggle to my feet before the fatal “ten.” I did it, but that was about all; and how I managed to last out the round I don’t know to this day. I dragged myself to my corner at the end of it feeling more dead than alive, and the sixty seconds that elapsed before the gong sounded for us to begin again seemed the shortest minute I ever spent in my life.

Curiously enough, though, once I was on my feet for the second round I felt much better. I watched carefully that Apollo did not again get in a blow under my heart, and about half-way through the round I managed to split his lip with a lovely straight left. This made him wild, and he forced the pace, using all his weight, but did me very little further damage, although I felt pretty tired by the end of the round.

Driscoll bucked me up during the interval, telling me that I was winning easily on points, which was the truth.

He also made me promise that in the next round I would give Apollo an opening, and wait until he led a straight left. Then I was to take a half step back, and counter with my right. This was all right in theory, but in practice, in my case at all events, it didn’t work “worth a cent,” as our American cousins would say. I did my best from the moment when I stood up for the third round to do as I had promised, but Apollo seemed to know all about it, for I got a terrible pasting waiting for the straight left that never came. Being so tall and thin, I caught the majority of his punches on my shoulders and arms, and mighty glad I was when the round ended.

Well, they massaged me in my corner, and Driscoll kept on saying, “He’s bound to lead a straight left directly, then down he’ll come, and, don’t forget, the bigger they are the heavier they fall.” I smiled rather sickly, for I was not so sure.

Towards the end of the fourth round Apollo made another of his mad, tearing rushes at me, and this time he got me over the ropes. I am 6 ft. 2½ in. tall, and the new, thin, wire-like rope cut me right across the small of the back. His whole weight was on top of me. I slid and slithered along the rope, scraping all the skin off the hollow of my back. It was like being flayed alive; far worse than all the punching.

This was practically the end of the fight. Almost directly afterwards Apollo shot out with his right, catching me full on the nose, a terrific punch, and down I went, covered in blood.

My head hit the floor—whack. I saw stars. I also heard “stars”—the “pro.’s” applauding. But I was by no means “out.” I heard the timekeeper counting. “One—two—three—four”—and so on!

All the while I was thinking what a mug’s game it was; so far, that is to say, as I was concerned. My hands were paining me terribly; and they, I reflected, were my capital—my livelihood. I came to the conclusion then that I had done quite enough for one night for sweet charity’s sake, and that the cup might go hang for all I cared. I had no money interest in the contest personally, be it remembered. So I stayed down for the fatal ten seconds; when, of course, Apollo won.

Then the cheering burst forth, and lots of people crowded round me, slapped me on the back, tried to shake me by the hand, and told me I had put up a regular game, plucky fight against a far heavier and stronger opponent. Amongst those foremost in congratulating me was Charlie Mitchell, Apollo’s second. “By God, Carlton!” he cried; “but I’m glad it’s all over. Why, he might have killed you.”

When I went up to my dressing-room my seconds rubbed me down with embrocation, and after ten minutes’ rest or so I felt all right; but my left arm and shoulder were black and blue, and my nose didn’t properly stop bleeding for three days afterwards. This, as I pointed out to my wife at intervals after I returned home, seemed a rather unusually long time. “Yes,” replied she soothingly, “but then yours is an unusually long nose.” Which was true, but not flattering.

Women, however, I have long since discovered, are not sympathetic, except in the story books. When I reached home that same evening, for instance, not wishing to disappoint my wife I told her a fib.

“Marie,” I said, “I’ve won the fight.”

“You look it,” she said, eyeing me stonily. Then added: “Where’s the cup?”

I had forgotten for the moment all about this item in the programme, and so had to tell another fib in order to cover up the first.

“Somebody’s pinched it,” I said. “Tell you all about it in the morning. Just now I want to go to bed.”

I went.

Next morning the pillow was red instead of white.

But all the same I performed as usual that evening.

I was once asked by Mr. “Peggy” Bettinson, the manager of the National Sporting Club, to box Jimmy Wilde, fly-weight champion of the world, on the occasion of a benefit performance in aid of the Music-hall Benevolent Fund. These sort of performances are not easy for the amateur, for most professional boxers hit hard even when they are not “out for blood,” and on this occasion I had to let Wilde show his ability, while also letting the audience see that I too knew something, at all events, about boxing.

Roars of laughter greeted our appearance in the ring, the contrast between me, standing 6 ft. 2½ in., and the diminutive Wilde, who only stood 5 ft. 4 in. and weighed 7 st. 2 lb., being a striking one. And when we started off boxing, and I allowed Wilde, on his making to hit me, to run between my wide-opened legs, as under an arch, the merriment of the onlookers knew no bounds.

One of my spoofs, however, very nearly miscarried, and had it quite done so Wilde would have known it, for I can hit hard on occasion. It was during the third round. I had got him in a corner, and made up my mind to raise a good laugh. So, watching my opportunity, I put out my left arm in front of him, and upper cut with my right, my intention being that the blow should be delivered at least a yard wide, and that then I would look up into the air, as though pretending to wonder where he had gone to.

This, I say, was my intention. But such was Wilde’s marvellous, cat-like agility, that he, knowing nothing of what was in my mind, slipped from under my left, and bounded a full yard on one side, with the result that my blow, delivered with all my strength, actually grazed his ear.

After it was all over “Peggy” Bettinson said to me, “Carlton, old man, you nearly caught him with that upper cut in the third round.” “Yes,” I said, “I nearly did.” But I never told “Peggy,” or indeed anybody else, that I had really intended missing him by a yard.

Another time I was asked to box with Jim Driscoll, the retired feather-weight champion of the world, for the Hero Boxers’ Fund. The affair came off at the Middlesex Music-hall, and in order to raise a laugh I had arranged with my second to hand me a bottle of Bass to drink in the interval after the first round, to bring me a cigar to smoke in the second, and to squirt a syphon of soda water over me at the conclusion of the third round.

These tactics certainly made the audience laugh. But the actual boxing was no laughing matter—for me. Driscoll hit hard and often, and at the finish I was pretty well done up. Seeing this, I suppose, somebody in the gallery called out for the referee’s decision, whereupon Mr. Eugene Corri, who was acting in that capacity, stepped forward and gravely announced “Carlton is the winner.”

In this way I obtained a decision, given publicly, over the feather-weight champion of the world, by the most famous referee in the world.

This, again, caused a fresh outburst of laughter. But I was lying flat on my back in my dressing-room—gasping like a fish out of water. I lay like that for a full half-hour before I felt the slightest inclination to rise. While I was thus prone, a friend entered to condole with me. “Why didn’t you stop his blows?” he asked. “I did,” I gasped. “Anyway, I didn’t see any go by.”

By the way, talking of Jimmy Wilde, the following true story concerning him occurs to me. Down in Wales, where he lives, they call him the “Tylorstown Terror,” the “Mighty Atom,” the “Giant Killer,” and other similar awe-inspiring names indicative of his pugnacity and fearlessness. Nevertheless, it is an open secret in the district that there is one individual whom Jimmy stands in mortal dread of. This is his wife.

His friends say that when he has been out late with the boys, on his return home he invariably throws his cap into the passage of his house before venturing within. If the cap comes flying out again, Jimmy doesn’t go in that night. If it remains in the passage for an appreciable length of time, Jimmy follows it indoors.

While on the subject of boxing I may mention that I have frequently been taken for Bombardier Wells, even in the National Sporting Club itself, where he is, of course, well known. This is due, I suppose, to us both being about the same build and height, with similar light-coloured curly hair. I once took advantage of this circumstance in order to extricate myself from a somewhat tight corner.

When I was in Cumberland salmon fishing I was invited by the captain of the Maryport patrol boat to accompany him on a cruise to the fishing grounds. These boats carry trawls in order to try for the best fishing grounds, and those on board are allowed to fish on the understanding that none of the catch is offered for sale, the surplus, after the crew have taken their pick, being distributed amongst the poor of Maryport.

Well, we had quite good sport, and after landing I was proceeding towards my hotel with a string of fine fish—a present from the captain—which I intended dispatching that evening to my home in Surrey, where I knew they would be a welcome surprise to my wife and children. Very soon, however, I was surrounded by a hostile crowd, who demanded to know where I got the fish, and what I intended doing with them.

I explained that I had been out with the patrol boat—of which fact the crowd was perfectly well aware—and that I intended the fish as a present for my wife and family. “Oh, no, you don’t,” exclaimed two or three voices. “These fish are for poor people; not for stranger ‘toffs’ like you.”

In vain I tried to reason with the crowd. They became more and more aggressive, jostling me, and making one or two attempts to snatch the fish from my hand. Suddenly a happy thought struck me. Drawing myself up to my full height, I exclaimed: “Gentlemen, you don’t know who I am.” “No,” they roared, “and we don’t care. But we mean to have those fish.”

“Well, gentlemen,” I continued, “it’s hard lines on me if you are not going to allow me to carry home fish. You all know me—by reputation at all events. I’m Bombardier Wells.”

The effect of my announcement was magical. From open hostility the attitude of the crowd changed in a moment to almost embarrassing friendliness. They pressed round me closer than ever, patting me on the back and shaking me by the hand, and not another word was said about depriving me of my fish.