MILES and BARTON, lessees of the Bijou Theatre, New York, took me under contract in 1886 and immediately I embarked for Europe in search of material. As I was scheduled to follow Henry E. Dixey, who had made himself famous at the time by his performance of Adonis, I realized that my task would be a heavy one. On my arrival in London I put myself in touch with several authors and succeeded in purchasing the rights of "Little Jack Shepard," "Erminie," "Turned Up" and a musical comedy called "Oliver Cromwell."

Armed with this material I returned to America with William Yardley, intending to open the season at the Bijou with the musical play "Little Jack Shepard" under his direction. We produced this play in the autumn, but did not realize our expectations. In the cast were Loie Fuller, who played the title rÔle, Charles Bishop, Lelia Farrell and a prima donna whose name I forget. (She couldn't sing for nuts, but fortunately the first night she suffered from a severe cold which forced her to speak the lyrics.)

During the run of "Little Jack Shepard" I read the various librettos I had purchased abroad and while Miles (dear old Bob!) congratulated me on my perspicacity in procuring such material, Barton objected strenuously to one and all of them and advised me to dispose of them to the best advantage. I immediately sought Frank Sanger and disposed of all my holdings to him at just what they had cost me. I had previously read the book of "Erminie." Gus Kerker played the score for us. Barton, with his usual capacity for doing the wrong thing, violently protested against "Erminie," saying it was a reflex of the old play "Robert Macaire" and vastly inferior!

When business dropped with "Little Jack Shepard," Miles and Barton were in a quandary as to what would follow it and came to me with a request that I put on one of the plays which I had brought over from Europe. I asked them which they preferred and they decided upon "Erminie." "Very well," I said, "I will see what I can do, but unfortunately I have disposed of the rights to Mr. Frank Sanger." We called him up on the telephone and found that he had left the office at the request of the management of the Casino, but would be back in half an hour. I jumped into a cab, went to the office and saw Frank. He informed me that he had just sold the American rights to Aronson, manager of the Casino, who had engaged Francis Wilson to play the leading part. Sanger was much distressed about this as he considered that the part would suit me "down to the ground." Everyone knows the history of "Erminie." It made everybody connected with it rich. Through Barton's dogmatic stupidity we all lost fortunes.

I asked Frank if he had disposed of all the material that I had sold him and discovered that "Turned Up" was still in the market. He very kindly offered it to us for a thousand dollars down (he had previously paid me five hundred cash for it) and only (!) ten per cent of the gross receipts. We were forced to accept the play upon those conditions. We opened with it, in conjunction with a burlesque on "The Bells" written for me by Sydney Rosenfeld. In this I appeared as Mathias, giving an imitation of Henry Irving. We retained most of the cast that we had used in the previous bill with the exception of Robert Hilliard and Charlie Coote whom I engaged to play the two light comedy rÔles.

I have never been associated with an entertainment which was received with such manifest appreciation as that double bill. We thought we were in for a run of at least one season and maybe two. So sanguine was Hilliard over the success of that evening that he spent two hundred dollars the following day in decorating his dressing-room. He was sure we had found our theatrical home for six months or a year.

Barton, one of the old-school managers, considered that the performance of "Turned Up," irrespective of its success, was destroying the policy of his little playhouse. The idea of Miles and Barton was to make the Bijou the home of burlesque and comic opera and while "Turned Up" was turning the people away Barton writhed under its success. It was produced without his sanction and success meant nothing to him when compared with his wounded vanity. The receipts went as high as nine thousand on the week and never dropped below six thousand during the entire run which was only eight weeks.

Much to our surprise, Barton one day insisted upon taking off "Turned Up." He figured that whenever the receipts fell below a certain figure (which should have been a sufficient profit for any playhouse), they were losing money and Miles discovered that instead of having the usual two weeks' clause in all of their contracts with the artists they were engaged for a stipulated number of weeks. This included even the ladies and gentlemen of the chorus. The result was that a salary list of about fourteen hundred dollars a week represented a company walking around doing nothing. There was no chorus in "Turned Up." I suggested that he sublet his people and not perform such a suicidal act as closing a gold mine, but I was voted down. We then revived "The Skating Rink" and "The Mascot" to only mediocre business.

About this time a New York critic, A. C. Wheeler, submitted a manuscript entitled "Big Pony," music by Woolson Morse, a very clever composer whose "Cinderella at School" I had previously produced at the Boston Museum. We accepted this play and gave it a magnificent production. On the reading I thought that the first and third acts were exceptionally fine and the title rÔle, Big Pony, I fancied too. I suggested that the second act might be improved. The dialogue referred to political issues that were long since dead. Wheeler insisted that the play should be performed as he had written it and would not permit one change. He proved very obdurate and we were finally compelled to either accept it as written or give it up. We finally decided to produce it and much to my dissatisfaction I was compelled to deliver supposedly funny lines which I knew were funereal.

The first act proved a sensational hit, my entrance receiving such a tumult of applause that it was fully a minute and a half before I was permitted to sing my first song. This was a most difficult composition. The lyrics were in the true Indian language, which made it very difficult for any of the cribbers of the time to hypothecate it. (I am sure that the champion purveyor of songs, Seymour Hicks, would have encountered a "water jump" had he tried to. Hicks has often been called "Steal More Tricks" on account of his fascinating and "taking" ways.) We had a very good third act, but the second act was so terrible that the play proved an unmitigated failure.

Wheeler, known as Nym Crinkle, one of the cleverest critics of his time, was a most unscrupulous fellow and he took his medicine as such fellows usually take it. Instead of accepting the inevitable as a true sportsman should, Wheeler attributed the play's failure to me and without my knowledge became my bitter foe. The papers were severe in their reviews of the play, but most gracious to all the players, particularly to me. This rankled in his diminutive heart. Having torn down so many houses, he could not stand having his own citadel stormed. While we often met in the private office and talked over the possibilities of resuscitation he would smilingly, yet stubbornly, refuse to alter a line or allow anyone to suggest changes. The play evidently appealed to his vanity. He never missed a performance, occupying a box with a lady who owned a half interest in the piece, a Miss Estelle Clayton.

We all knew that the play was doomed and knowing that it was shortly to be taken off many of us took liberties with the text and gagged whenever the opportunity presented itself. I remember a gambling scene that I had in the last act in which I threw dice with one of the characters, incidentally losing all my fortune and vast estates. One evening as my last dollar disappeared over the dice cloth I noticed Wheeler (as usual in the box) beaming at some of my sallies. I said to the opposite character, "Now, my friend, I will throw you for this play—manuscript, parts and all."

The players and the audience, knowing that the play was about to be withdrawn, screamed with laughter. Just as I was pondering over some other funny quip my heart came up into my throat as I saw the box party get up and file out, their backs expressing profound indignation. I said to myself, "My finish," and maudled through the rest of the performance. I had made an enemy for life of A. C. Wheeler and well he exercised his avenging powers. For years he assailed me from every angle, his vilifying articles never ceasing until his death. I was to blame, I presume, but I really intended no harm—only fun.

That same evening I unconsciously offended and made an enemy of another person, one of the box party, a Mr. Durant, a downtown broker who, I afterwards ascertained, shared half of Miss Clayton's interest in the play. Up to that time I had never heard of the gentleman and we never met until several weeks after. One day in Kirk's cafÉ on Broadway at Twenty-seventh Street I was approached by a half drunken individual who insultingly invited me to drink. I was seated at a table with dear old Anson Pond and politely refused several of his solicitations. He was most persistent, accompanying his requests with profane and obscene references to me and my work on the stage.

The place was packed with men who stopped and listened to the drunken tirade the stranger was heaping upon me. Pond, an athlete, calmly looked on and said nothing. One or two of the bartenders quietly signalled me to hit him on the head with something. I turned to Anson and said, "If this fellow doesn't stop it looks as if I must put one over." He smilingly approved. Then the drunken gentleman leered at me, again inviting me to drink. If that didn't appeal to me he was willing to accompany me to some adjacent room, lock the door and the one who survived would return the winner. Before I answered his belligerent request I swung my puny right which landed, fortunately, upon the point of his impertinent jaw and down he went in a heap.

This seemed to meet with the approval of the spectators and I calmly resumed my seat, thinking that he would take the count. Imagine my horror when I saw this huge man unravel himself, slowly rise and approach me with much ferocity. He was about six feet tall, and weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. That was the way he appeared to me, at all events. I naturally expected Pond or some of the on-lookers to interfere, but no such luck! As he viciously approached me he swung his right very hard at my head. I ducked it, got to my feet, determined to find out if he knew anything about boxing. I feinted him and discovered that he was ignorant of everything pertaining to the noble art. I also realized that if he ever caught me in his embrace it was "Goodnight to home and mother" for "America's Foremost!" I jumped about and finally with good judgment and better luck, landed a punch on the identical chin, in the same place, and down went the part owner of "Big Pony," again.

Still no interference! The bartenders continued nonchalantly wiping the tumblers. Pond kept on complacently puffing his weed and the spectators obligingly formed an extemporaneous ring. I was standing, gasping, in the center of the room. My right hand was split and rapidly becoming the size of a cantaloupe.

The gentleman on the floor slowly uncoiled himself and came at me again, only to receive a blow on the same spot and go to the floor. This time I nearly went with him! Weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds my work upon the human punching bag was beginning to tell. This kept up for two more rounds and still no one interfered. The reason was afterwards explained to me. I was "winning so easily!"

Winning, indeed! I was slowly dying and had I been possessed of the necessary courage I would have solicited interference, realizing that I must stop or faint! I was slowly but surely passing away. I had enough strength left in my legs to back towards the lunch counter, knowing that there were missiles on the table. As he closed in on me, instead of endeavoring to avoid him, I clutched him in a fond, yet tenacious, embrace. As we went down I reached up on the table, endeavoring to grasp the first article on which my hand came in contact. I clutched something, which proved to be a caster filled with its usual bottles. I hadn't enough strength left to lift the article but I dragged it casually down and let it fall gently upon the gentleman's forehead, which was beneath me. As the catsup, Worcestershire sauce and vinegar slowly trickled into his eyes he gently drew me towards him and whispered, "I've had enough."

He anticipated me by just a second!

I gallantly permitted him to rise, after gracefully tumbling off his stomach. Then in stentorian tones I said, "Get up, you loafer!" and walked majestically away. I pantomimed to Pond (I couldn't talk after that one burst of "Get up") to get me some brandy and water and under the pretext of fatigue I laid my head upon his shoulder—and passed away for about five minutes.

I explained this encounter to Ed. Buckley some weeks later and after receiving his congratulations, I queried, "Kindly tell me, Ned, how—when my antagonist was out the next day without a mark on him and I never left my bed for two weeks—how do you figure me the winner?"

Ned's silence was profound.

Chapter XXVIII