How miserable are they who live in the past, who imagine when the sun sinks behind their horizon it will never rise again! To be sure, it is not pleasant to realize one is retrograding, yet it is better to forget the errors of the past, realize the advantages of mistakes and benefit by them "than, by opposing, end them."

During a short tour in vaudeville I had many opportunities for serious thought, particularly when I visited the various cities where I previously had been a conspicuous factor in my profession. As I contemplated my name upon the illuminated signs in front of the vaudeville theatres I also strolled through the streets and gazed at the names emblazoned in front of the various legitimate theatres. Many had played in support of me. Now they had usurped my place in the standard playhouses. I was "in vaudeville!"

I reflected upon my companion players—the trained seals, the amusing monkey, the docile elephant! As I wended my way through the sawdust path that led to my dressing-room I wondered what my mission on earth really was. Then philosophy took possession of me and convinced me that we were all performing our respective duties in different environments. It was just a case of "all hands 'round and change your partners!"

In vaudeville I was never happy. I was rather self-conscious, for when salary day came around I felt as if I were cheating to take the magnificent sum I was receiving for my twenty-seven minutes' work twice a day. Then again I wondered if dear old Richard Hooley, in whose theatre in Chicago I had played successfully for twenty years, knew of the evolution that had placed his boy, as he always called me, among the pot pourri of vaudeville. What would my good friend, Bob Miles of Cincinnati, and John Norton of St. Louis, have said had they seen my name as a head-liner in those cities where I had packed their respective houses?

As I strolled by the theatres managed by those dear, departed friends my truant thoughts, much as I antagonized them, would fly back to the past. Once again I would go to the Theatre of Variety in quest of "Five Shillings" and visions of a new and successful play for the next year or the one after would come with the rising sun! When the clouds came to obscure the sky of hope I would darken my chamber, bury the past and wait for the morrow and accompanying sunshine to light my future down the path of middle age.

In this precarious profession of ours we must accept defeat with courage. It should stir us to higher aims, braver deeds, stronger motives, inclinations and honesty of purpose. Never give up the fight so long as you have the capacity to hit out.

Even a dying mule always has a kick up his leg.

If he has his health and mentality any actor under seventy has one punch left.

I simply underwent a course of training in vaudeville, conditioning myself for a fight to a finish. I am ready at any time during the next ten years to produce a play that will appeal to the public. If I fail to secure one—back to the ranch and simple life!

Which will it be?

I wonder!

Chapter XL