The social side of music-hall life—The Vaudeville Club—A telephone wheeze—The swanking “pro.” and his mythical salary—About “tops” and “bottoms”—Ring up “625 Chiswick”—“Big Fred” and Fred Lindrum—A queer billiard match—An unexpected dÉnouement—Roberts and the Australian billiard marker—I make of myself a human telescope—Growing to order—Willard the original “man who grew”—Puzzling a Scotland Yard “’tec”—My most wonderful fall—I make a “hit” in a double sense—A Wigan wheeze—The performer who got too much “bird”—A blood-thirsty barber—My worst insult.

The social side of the music-hall artiste’s life centres largely round the Vaudeville Club in the Charing Cross Road, and which is owned and run by the Water Rats, of which I am proud to be a member.

I recall a very funny little incident that happened here not long since. A lot of us were in the place, some playing billiards, some chatting together, etc., when there entered a certain well-known “pro.” who was notorious for swanking about the big salaries he commanded.

Going into the telephone-box, and carefully leaving the door ajar, so that we could hear what he was saying, he rang up a number, and the following one-sided dialogue took place.

“Hello!—Hello, I say!—Is that you, Mr. So-and-So?”

(We pricked up our ears at this, for the name he mentioned was that of one of the biggest men in the music-hall world.) “Oh, it is?—Good!—About Monday next. I—eh? I say about Monday next. I got your letter this morning. Thanks! But two hundred pounds a week is no good to me.”

(We gasped, and looked at one another.)

“Eh!—What’s that?—You’ll make it two hundred and fifty pounds? Not good enough, old chap. Ha! Ha! My terms are three hundred pounds a week, or nothing doing.”

(Everybody craned forward their necks, listening intently.)

“What? I can’t hear you very plainly. That’s better. Oh! You’ll make it three hundred pounds? Very well. Have the contract ready to-morrow for me to sign.”

Ring off.

Exit Mr. Swanker from the telephone-box. He strolls nonchalantly to the bar.

“Have a drink, boys?”

We assent.

Enter the then manager of the club, Mr. Case. “Excuse me, sir, but that telephone has been out of order since yesterday; we’re expecting a man in to see to it directly.”

Sudden and complete exit from the club of Mr. Swanker, followed by a roar of laughter from all the other members.

I may add that a “pro.’s” salary, his real salary that is to say, is always a jealously guarded secret. Ask, and you generally get told a lie. The public hardly ever knows, in fact I might almost say it never knows. Newspaper “pars” are no criterion. Neither is the position of an artiste’s name on the bill. “Tops” and “bottoms” are supposed to be the “star turn” positions. But I myself have topped the bill at £5 a week in my early days, with artistes getting £50 a week in very much smaller type below me. In fact the very first bill I ever topped I got £5 only, and it cost me about £3 in tips to stage hands and others to live up to my that week’s (supposed) reputation.

Another little Vaudeville Club telephone wheeze! We were sitting in the smoke-room one day, when a member was smitten with a sudden brilliant idea. Going to the box he rang up about a score of well-known “pro.’s,” and told each one who answered his call to ring up “625 Chiswick.”

“You’re wanted there badly,” he explained.

When he had finished we made a dive for the telephone directory, and turned up “625 Chiswick.”

Then we did a grin. It was the number of Wormwood Scrubs Prison!

After an interval our club telephone-bell started a perfect crescendo of violent rings many times repeated, and I’m told that the language that came on the wire from the victims of the joke ought to have shattered the receiver.

What the Governor of Wormwood Scrubs thought (or said) about the affair I have no means of knowing. But I can guess.

Yet another amusing happening at the Vaudeville Club occurs to me. There chanced to saunter in there one afternoon a member known as “Big Fred,” a Leeds man, who rather fancies himself at billiards. There was also in the club at the same time Fred Lindrum, the Australian champion.

The latter was known to everybody there—excepting Big Fred. The conversation was purposely switched on to billiards, and presently a match, for drinks round, was got up between the two Freddies, the champion having previously let it be known to the rest of us that he would not attempt to show his real form until his opponent and he had each made about seventy, when he would wade in and run out.

“Seventy all!” called the marker.

We rubbed our hands, and smiled. “Cod” bets flew round as thickly as bees in a clover-bed in summer. Big Fred, suspecting nothing, was quite proud of the sensation the match was creating. Lindrum winked at us solemnly behind his opponent’s back. It was his turn to play.

“Now the fun begins,” we whispered to each other.

The champion played several perfect shots in succession, scoring twenty or so. Then he tried an exhibition stroke, and missed by a hair’s breadth.

Big Fred took up the running, scoring eighteen, an unusually big break for him, and leaving the balls in a well-nigh impossible position. Lindrum did his best, but failed. Then Big Fred ran out.

We looked at one another in blank amazement. The impossible had happened. The Australian champion had been beaten, and by a third-rate amateur.

“Have another game?” said Big Fred.

“I don’t mind,” answered Lindrum.

Big Fred was beaming all over, immensely pleased with himself. “I’ll give you ten start this time,” he said.

There was a perfect roar of laughter at this. We simply couldn’t help it. Big Fred was a good deal puzzled. Also he was somewhat nettled. He couldn’t understand what we were laughing at. “I’ll bet any of you chaps a quid I win this game also,” he cried.

“Done!” exclaimed half a dozen voices simultaneously, mine amongst them.

Of course the bets were “cod” bets in a sense. That is to say, we should not in any event have taken Big Fred’s money. But he, on the other hand, had a perfect right to demand ours—if he won. But we did not stop to consider that side of the question. We were so perfectly cocksure that he would lose—this time.

But he didn’t. By one of those million-to-one chances that do occasionally come off, he beat Lindrum a second time. Whereupon the champion broke his cue across his knee in a sudden gust of temper.

Big Fred regarded him in amazement. “Why, whatever’s the matter?” he inquired. Then we told him who his opponent really was.

“Well, I’m d——d!” was all he could say.

The next day Lindrum made over eight hundred in one break in an exhibition match against a brother professional at Thurston’s, and Big Fred, who was present, called out rapturously at the conclusion of the play: “That’s the chap I gave ten start to and beat.”

Chorus of sceptics, who knew nothing of the previous day’s incident:

“Liar!”

Here is another billiard story, which so far as I know has never before appeared in print, but which was being retailed in all the bars in Melbourne at the time I was there, and which I was assured relates an actual fact.

Roberts was going to Melbourne to play Inman, and found himself stranded at Perth (Australia) with two days to wait for a boat. Accordingly, with an eye to business, he went into the billiard-room of the principal hotel there to see whether there was any chance of arranging an exhibition match.

Boy Marker (a smart, well-set-up lad): “Have a game, sir?”

Roberts: “No, thanks!”

B.M.: “Oh, come, now. Be a sport. I’ll give you fifty in a hundred.”

R. (with dignity): “I’m Roberts.”

B.M. (genially): “Doesn’t matter, sir, who you are. I give fifty in a hundred to all the folks round here.”

R. (with increased dignity): “I’m Roberts, I tell you. The champion.”

B.M. (after a pause for consideration): “Oh, well, sir, if that’s so I can only give you thirty in a hundred.”

Speaking of billiards, I was once playing principal comedian at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre, Birmingham, when Inman and Stevenson—the latter of whom was then world’s champion—were there, and we got very pally together.

At this period George Gray had just come over from Australia, and was creating a big sensation in billiard circles by his wonderful breaks off the red.

I noticed that whenever I introduced either Stevenson or Inman to anybody, the first words they uttered almost invariably were, “What do you think of George Gray?”

Now it happened that on the termination of my engagement in Birmingham the three of us, Stevenson, Inman, and myself, travelled up to London together. It was a corridor train, and quite a number of “pro.’s” I knew were aboard it, though not in our compartment. “Now look here, you two,” I said, “I’ll bet you five shillings a time that anybody I happen to present to you will ask you what you think of George Gray.”

“Agreed!” they said, and a minute or two later a man I knew happened along the corridor. I called him into our compartment, introduced him, and sure enough he promptly rapped out the usual question.

So did the second man, and third. I had won fifteen shillings. Thereupon Stevenson suggested that the next bet should be one for a sovereign.

Of course I raised no objection, and soon another professional friend of mine was roped into the compartment and introduced. He was an enthusiast on billiards, and he talked at great length about the game, recalling many big breaks made by the two players in days gone by. Not a word about George Gray, though! I began to get uneasy. By the terms of our bet I was not allowed to mention the young Australian player by name, but I did my best to lead the conversation in his direction by making such remarks as, “You made a break off the red yesterday, Stevenson, didn’t you?”

All to no purpose, however; and my two travelling companions both laughed heartily when my friend eventually left without having asked the required question.

But when we reached London, Stevenson proposed that we should pool the £1 15s. and buy a couple of bottles of wine, explaining that he had previously squared the last friend to whom I had introduced him—and who also happened to be a friend of his—telling him on no account to ask him “What do you think of George Gray?”

This story, by the way, reminds me of another concerning Reece, who was equally good at swimming and billiards. He, too, got very tired of hearing the same query addressed to him; but the climax was reached one day when he was training for his attempt to swim the Channel. He was swimming about twelve miles out when a stranger swam up to him and, treading water vigorously, called out, “Hullo! You’re Reece, aren’t you? What d’ye think of George Gray?”

Somewhere in the Bible is the following text:

“Can a man, by taking thought, add one cubit unto his stature?”

The Hebrew chronicler who propounded this query evidently thought that there could be but one answer to it. In fact he did not really regard it, I suppose, in the nature of a query at all. He meant to say that the thing was utterly impossible a feat that could not be accomplished under any conceivable circumstances.

Herein he was right. For the Hebrew cubit, according to the best authorities, was probably not less than about eighteen inches long; and one may say at once that it is still impossible, as it was then, for a man—either by taking thought or in any other way—to add a foot and a half to his stature.

On the other hand, it is quite possible to temporarily increase one’s height between seven and eight inches. I know, because I have done it; and, moreover, the increase in height, though it cannot be sustained for any great length of time, is perfectly real while it lasts.

It is accomplished mainly by stretching the muscles of the knees, hips, chest, throat, and other parts of the body, and maintaining them rigidly in that position by what is more or less an exercise of will-power. Of this feat I do not pretend to be the originator. A man named Willard, an American, did the same thing in the States. I learnt the trick from him, or rather I should say that I got the idea of it from seeing him do it; and so far as I am aware I am the only man, other than Willard himself, who has succeeded in accomplishing it.

For it must not be imagined that it is an easy thing to do. On the contrary, it is exceedingly difficult. It is also apt to be dangerous. Willard, not long since, overstrained himself while practising it one day; and I myself have found the ill effects so pronounced that I never produced the feat—as was my original intention—in public, and I now only perform it very occasionally in private for the benefit of my friends.

How I first came to know about it was this way. Inman, the billiard champion, was visiting my house, and he brought Willard with him. After lunch we strolled out on the lawn, and I suddenly noticed that my American guest had apparently grown taller; as indeed, of course, he had. Naturally, however, I put it down to my fancy. But a minute or so later, on looking up suddenly from a flower I had been examining, I saw that he was taller than ever, and I suppose I looked the amazement I felt. Anyway, Inman and he burst out laughing, and the former then introduced Willard as “The Man Who Grows.”

Afterwards Mr. Willard was good enough to explain his method to me, and that night, after my guests had gone, I started practising on my own account. While I was at it, and still more after I had finished, I felt something of the sensation experienced in the olden days by criminals on the rack. Every bone, muscle, and sinew in my body ached; every nerve seemed on the quiver. But I persevered; and in time I succeeded.

I found, however, that the difficulty of the feat, and incidentally its attendant pain and discomfort, increased enormously with each additional inch. The first one was not so bad. But putting its difficulties, etc., at, say, ten, then those inseparable from the next inch of increase were fully one hundred; the third inch was represented by one thousand, and so on. In short, it resolved itself into a case of what mathematicians call, I believe, geometrical progression.

For these reasons I should not recommend the ordinary man to attempt the feat. He may easily do himself a serious inquiry. The strain told hardly on me, as I have already said.

I may mention that I have succeeded in mystifying a good many people by this growing feat, including at least one famous Scotland Yard detective. I was playing billiards with him, and an argument arose as to our relative heights. He was a tall man, measuring over six feet in his stockings, which is also my normal height. His impression was that he was taller than I, and to settle the point we adjourned to a police station and were measured by a machine that they kept there for recording the heights of criminals.

He, of course, measured his ordinary six feet odd. I stretched myself ever so slightly, and of course without any apparent effort, and beat him by two inches. “Well,” he exclaimed, “I should never have thought it!” “Oh,” I retorted, “I believe it’s the fault of that old machine of yours. It doesn’t record accurately. I’m taller than that.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense!” he replied hotly. “Thousands of criminals have been measured by it, some of them several times over and on different occasions, but the measurements never vary by more than the minutest fraction of an inch. I’ll bet you anything you like you’re wrong.”

Of course, I wasn’t going to bet on a certainty, so I simply said that I thought he was mistaken, and, placing myself on the platform of the machine, I invited him to readjust the measuring-arm. This time it stood at six feet four inches.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he ejaculated, in blank amazement. “This beats everything. I can’t understand it.” “Nor can I,” I replied gravely, “because by rights I should measure six feet six inches. Will you please try again?”

Too astonished to reply, he proceeded to do as I had asked. The measuring-arm registered six feet six and a half inches. “Half an inch too much,” I said. “Your machine’s no good.”

By this time my detective friend hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or his heels. He was dumbfounded—flabbergasted. So, taking pity on him, I explained to him how it was done.

“Well,” he remarked thoughtfully, after he had recovered somewhat from his astonishment, “I hope the knowledge of how to accomplish the feat won’t spread among the criminal fraternity, for if it does the Anthropometrical Department at Scotland Yard may as well close down.”

As I have previously intimated, I don’t perform the above feat in public for fear of straining myself. There are plenty of ordinary ways in which a man can hurt himself in my business, without looking about for extraordinary ways. For instance, I once came an awful cropper on the stage through no fault of my own. It was at the Victoria Palace, London, where I was performing for the first time with a giant. I had also with me my contortionist, and I thought it would be a good gag for me, on my being suddenly confronted with the big man, to throw up my hands above my head, utter an exclamation of surprise, and fall over backwards.

This I did, having previously instructed my contortionist to be behind me, so as to catch me as I fell. But he didn’t do it. He forgot all about it, and walked away to the wings. The consequence was that I turned a half summersault, and alighted on the back of my head with a resounding thwack that was heard plainly all over the theatre.

There were shrieks of laughter from everywhere—pit, stalls, and gallery. I didn’t laugh though. Neither did my contortionist later on, when I got him by himself. Meanwhile I was suffering from slight concussion, and reeled to and fro about the stage like a drunken man. This caused more laughter. I had hardly ever made such a hit before; a “hit,” I may say, in a double sense.

I went through the rest of my show with a lump on the back of my head that was really the bigness of a hen’s egg, and which seemed to me to be about the size of an ostrich egg, and “still growing.” When I had finished, George Barclay, who was then my agent, and who chanced to be in front, came round on purpose to congratulate me.

“It was great,” he said. “I never saw a funnier or more natural fall in my life.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” I replied airily. “Didn’t you ever see me do that before?”

“No,” he said, “I never did.” “No,” I thought to myself, “and you’ll never see me do it again.”

After that I cut that part of my show, nor did I ever again rely on being caught behind my back by a man I couldn’t see, and who might or might not be there.

Of course it is easy enough for a trained athlete to fall, if he knows he is going to fall. I myself can fall twenty or thirty feet without hurting myself. Only on this occasion I didn’t know. A man can give himself a nasty jar, or even injure himself pretty severely, by merely stepping off a kerb, if he doesn’t know the kerb is there.

There are other directions in which an artiste’s life is not exactly all beer and skittles. A young friend of mine found this out on his first visit to Wigan. His was not a bad turn of its kind, but Wigan is notoriously a “hard” town to work for artistes hailing from the south of England, and the people there didn’t at all appreciate his particular business. Monday night was a dead frost. He didn’t get a hand.

He couldn’t make it out, and he went round to the front entrance as the people were streaming out in order to try and overhear what the audience really thought about his show. Of course, they didn’t recognise him without his make-up. Not that it would have mattered much, probably, if they had.

The poor chap heard enough. Those who weren’t slating his performance, were asking each other what Wigan had done to have such a “dud” as he was dumped down there. Next night he got the bird. On Wednesday he got more bird. On Thursday he got most bird. On Friday morning he decided to take a long walk into the country, and try and forget it all. He walked, and walked. Presently he came to a village. A barber’s pole sticking out caught his eye, and he turned into the shop to get a shave.

Barber: “’Ast bin t’Empire at Wigan this week, laad?”

Pro. (shortly): “No, I haven’t.”

Barber: “Well, aw did. And aw saw a turn there, worst aw iver saw. If he comes in here aw’ll cut his bloomin’ throat!”

Personally I think the worst insult I ever suffered was rubbed into me while I was performing at Glasgow, very early in my career. I was working at the old Tivoli and Queen’s, a very rough house. I had to give two shows a night for £5 a week, and the return fare from London cost me £3 6s.

Friday was amateur night there. That is to say that on that evening the first performance commenced an hour or so earlier than usual, and all sorts of budding “pro.’s,” or people who imagined themselves “pro.’s” were encouraged to come on the boards and make exhibitions of themselves.

Well, the people there didn’t approve of my show. My prize jokes were received in dead silence. My best gags evoked no responsive laugh. Finally a voice from the gallery rang out clear and shrill:

“Gang awa, hame, mon, and come agen on Friday nicht.”

Another time I was touring the provinces with a cinematograph show depicting the destruction of Pompeii. In between I would give exhibitions of conjuring, card-manipulation, and so on.

These latter, however, were more in the nature of fill-ups. The moving pictures was supposed to be the real attraction. It had cost a lot of money to film, and in those days it was thought to be a wonderful production.

It is the custom of showmen running these sort of mixed entertainments in small provincial towns to stand at the entrance to the hall at the conclusion of the show and be introduced by the manager to the people he knows as they are leaving the building.

One evening I was introduced after this fashion to a typical old Yorkshire farmer.

“Good evening, sir,” I said, using the accepted formula for such occasions, “I hope you enjoyed the show.”

“Well,” he replied dubiously, “I don’t know about that. The conjuring was all reet. But that there moving picture wur a fraud.”

I explained to him that it represented the very last word in cinematography, and had cost a small fortune to produce, as indeed it had.

“Garn!” retorted the old chap, “tha can’t kid me. They never ’ad cinematographs in them days.”

In 1912 I was appearing at the Palace Theatre, Lincoln. I was running the show with my own company on sharing terms, so that it was to my interest to draw as full houses as possible.

At this time the “hidden treasure” craze was at its height, and the idea struck me that I might as well utilise it for my show.

So I used to announce, prior to opening, that instead of paying £50 for “turns” on my bill, I proposed to give away this sum amongst my audiences during the ensuing week.

To this end I had a number of vouchers printed announcing that “the finder will receive £1 on presenting this paper to Carlton at the Palace Theatre during the evening performance.” These I would take out secretly at dead of night, and hide in various likely and unlikely spots, my usual method being to fold them up into quite a small compass, and run a drawing-pin through them. By these means I was able to pin them underneath a seat where I happened to be sitting, say in a park, for instance, or any other public place, without attracting attention. At other times I would pretend to hide the vouchers in various places where I knew people were watching me and then watch them vainly searching for the thing that was not there. It was great fun.

Of course I did not invariably pin them under seats. I hid them here, there, and everywhere, all over the place. People used to follow me about in the day-time, in order to try and spot where I put them. But, needless to say, they were never successful. I saw to that. Still, it was all good advertisement, and it was fun for me to watch them digging and searching for my vouchers miles away from where I had hidden them.

I used to give out clues from the stage at each performance, giving very easy ones the first night or two, and making them more obscure and difficult as the week wore on. Whenever a voucher was found, I used to have the finder up on the stage, and get him to sign it with his name and address, and these were afterwards pinned up outside the theatre, so that the public could see that my offer was a genuine one.

Well, it so happened that at Lincoln, while I was working this stunt, the late B.C. Hucks, the famous Daily Mail flying man, who, it will be remembered, was the first Englishman to loop the loop, was holding an aviation meeting there. I invited him to the theatre, and suggested that I should have him up on the stage and introduce him to the audience. “It will be a good ‘advert.’ for you,” I told him.

Hucks willingly agreed. But he did not know what was in my mind. Otherwise, perhaps, he might not have fallen in with the suggestion so readily. For when I got him on the stage, and after introducing him to the people in front, where needless to say he received an enormous ovation, I went on to say that “Mr. Hucks had very kindly consented to take me up in his aeroplane on the day following, and that I would throw down ten £1 vouchers for the crowd to scramble for.”

“That’s so, isn’t it, Mr. Hucks?” I said at the conclusion of my speech, turning to him and shaking him by the hand; and poor Hucks, taken off his guard, could do no more than nod a smiling assent. But all the while, under his breath, he was addressing remarks the reverse of complimentary to me.

Next day I was at the aerodrome to time. Hucks was there. I half hoped that he wouldn’t have been. I had had time to reflect overnight, and I didn’t at all relish the experience I was up against. For flying in those days, the reader must remember, was not by any means the safe and easy thing it has since become. Nor were the aeroplanes then what they are now. In fact the early types were just big, power-driven box-kites.

However, I was in for it, and up we went. I was in a blue funk, and when Hucks, after circling round two or three times, asked me if I had dropped the vouchers, I replied that I had forgotten all about them. Which was the fact.

So round we went once more, and I threw them out. “There goes ten pounds,” I said to myself, and groaned in spirit. But I need not have worried. We were several thousand feet up, and the wind caught the flimsy pieces of paper and blew them heaven knows where. Not one of them was ever presented.

A story occurs to me as I write, which I will call “The Biter Bit.” It concerns the brothers Egbert, better known as the “Happy Dustmen.” These two are probably about the most confirmed practical jokers on the music-hall stage. They are for ever playing tricks on somebody. Everybody in the profession knows this, and consequently tries to avoid sharing a dressing-room with them.

Well, these two found out somewhere how to make a substance which, smeared on anything, will explode on being touched, even ever so lightly. They tried it first on Bransby Williams at the Sheffield Hippodrome, smearing a quantity on a seat. When he sat down, it exploded with a report like a bomb, and poor Bransby leapt about six feet, imagining that there was an air raid on.

But this was only a trial spin, so to speak. The following week the two practical jokers were at the Hippodrome, Portsmouth, where they shared a dressing-room with Harry Claff, known as the “White Knight.” Harry had not, as it happened, heard of the Sheffield incident, but the reputation of the Brothers Egbert in the matter of practical joking was, of course, well known to him, so that he was on his guard.

The brothers tried hard to get him away from their dressing-room after rehearsing together on the Monday, so that they could put some of the explosive stuff on his seat, his grease paints, his make-up box—anywhere, in short, where he would be sure to handle it or come in contact with it. But try as they would, they could not succeed. Harry stuck to them too tightly.

At length the three of them left the theatre to go to their respective diggings. The brothers saw Harry to his. Then Seth Egbert slipped hurriedly back to the dressing-room, and started smearing the stuff all over Claff’s various belongings. Now every theatrical dressing-room is provided with a mirror, and just as Seth had finished baiting his trap he happened to glance up into this mirror, and there, clearly reflected, was the face of Harry Claff, an amused grin on his face. Suspecting that the brothers were up to something, he had followed Seth back to the theatre, and caught him in the act.

I had the curiosity to inquire of the brothers how they made the stuff. Here is their formula; but if any of my readers contemplate making any of it, with a view to playing tricks on anybody, I warn them to be very, very careful, as the compound is exceedingly dangerous, being one of the most powerful explosives known, and used extensively in the late war.

You take sixpennyworth of flaked iodine and one pennyworth of 88 ammonia, together with a sheet of filter paper. Put a small piece of iodine on the filter paper held over a tin can, and pour over it enough ammonia to dissolve it into a paste. This, smeared while wet on any hard substance, such as the handle of a door, for instance, will explode—when dry—with quite a violent report directly anyone touches it. But no more than the tiniest piece, about the size of a pin’s head, must be used.

Which reminds me, by the way, that a small piece of metallic sodium thrown into a bath of water, or into a river where anyone is fishing, will zigzag about all over the place in the most erratic fashion. Only, don’t use too much sodium; a piece about the size of a threepenny-piece will work wonders, causing great astonishment and roars of laughter amongst the uninitiated.