From Pillar to Post Part 17

"Well, would you mind telling me where they are?" I queried.

"That is the High School Auditorium up there," he said, pointing to the Egyptian darkness I had just left. "The other is three squares down, where you see all those electric lights."

Whether I thanked the gentleman or not I do not know. I hope I did; but in the hurry of my departure I fear I seemed discourteous. Another speedy dash, which left me completely winded, brought me to the other Auditorium, and there in the full glare of an electric spotlight, a.s.sisted in its quest of publicity by a hoa.r.s.e-tongued barker with a megaphone, I was confronted by a highly colored lithograph, showing a very pink Mabel, Queen of the Movies, standing before a very blue American soldier tied to a tree, shielding him from the bullets of a line of very green Mexicans, under the command of a very red villain, holding a very mauve sword in his very yellow hand, and bidding them to "Fire!" If I was expected to take any part in the thrilling episode that appeared to be going on inside, there was nothing in the chromatic advertising outside to indicate the fact; though I confess I was becoming painfully conscious of certain strong resemblances between my very breathless self and that very blue American trooper tied to the tree.

"Excuse me," said I, addressing the barker, "but is there to be a lecture here to-night?"

"Not so's anybody'd notice it," said he. "These is the movies."

"Well--tell me--is there a lecture course of any kind in this town that you know of?" I asked.

"Sure!" said he. "Miss So-and-So down at the library is runnin' a lecture stunt of some kind this year. You'll find the library on Main Street, opposite the hotel."

Again, late as it was, the skies cleared, and I moved on to the library, completing the circuit of vast numbers of blocks to a point almost opposite the spot I had started from fifteen lifelong minutes before. I arrived in a state of active perspiration and suspended respiration that did not seem to promise much in the way of a successful delivery of my lecture that night. I hoped the Library Auditorium would not prove to be a large one; for in my disorganized condition I did not feel capable of projecting my voice even into the shallows, to say nothing of the sometimes unfathomable depths of endless tiers of seats. And my hope was realized; in fact it was more than realized, for there wasn't any Library Auditorium at all.

The citizens of that town had a library that was devoted rather to good literature than to architectural splendor. Their books were housed in an ordinary shop, or store. It was deep, narrow, and bookishly cozy, and at the far end of it, seated at a generously large table, engaged in knitting, was a charming lady who glanced up from her needles as I approached.

"Pardon my intrusion, madam," I panted, "but can you tell me where I can find Miss So-and-So?"

"I am Miss So-and-So," she replied graciously.

"Well," said I, "I am Mr. Bangs."

Her knitting fell to the floor. "Why--Mr. Bangs!" she replied, with a gasp almost equal to my own. "I am very glad indeed to see you; but what are you doing here?"

"I--I've come to lecture," I said weakly, almost pleadingly.

"To lecture?" she echoed. "_Why, your lecture is not to be until a week from to-night!_"

"Then I am afraid we shall have to get my astral body to work," said I; "for a week from to-night I shall be at Hiawatha, Kansas. How do you propose to have the lecture delivered--by long distance telephone, or parcels post?"

We gazed into each other's eyes for a moment, and then--we both laughed.

It seemed the only thing to do.

Gallantry forbids my saying which of us had made the mistake under the terms of the written contract. Suffice it to say that two months later I returned to that good little town, and was received like a conquering hero by an audience that in its cordiality more than compensated me for the distressing effects of an "unlectured lecture."

What promised to be a more serious complication occurred about a month later in Florida, where in pursuance of instructions from my Southern managers I arrived at Daytona on a Monday, to open the flourishing Chautauqua Course, which has become a permanent feature of life at that attractive Southern resort. The seriousness of the situation grew out of the quality of the genius and the nature of the popularity of the other individual involved, who was no less a personage than the Hon. William Jennings Bryan. Any minor star in the platform firmament who comes into collision with the planetary splendor of this Monarch of Modern Loquacity has about as much chance of escaping unscathed as a tallow-dip would have in a pa.s.sage at arms with the sun itself.

There is no escaping the fact that Mr. Bryan is the idol of the Chautauqua Circuit, and it is equally true that every bit of the success he has achieved therein he has earned many times over. I am not, never have been, and see no possibility of my ever becoming, a devotee of Mr.

Bryan's political fortunes; but as a platform speaker he is far and away the most brilliant and likable personality in the public eye to-day. He is an expert in playing upon the emotions of an audience, large or small--preferably large--as ever was Dudley Buck in the manipulation of the keys and stops of an organ, and he can at will strike chords in the human heart as searchingly appealing as any produced by an Elman or a Kreisler on the violin, or a Paderewski at the piano.

The keynotes of his platform work are a seeming sincerity and a magnetic humanness that are irresistible, and no individual who has ever listened to him in matters outside of political controversy, however reluctant to admit his greatness, has failed to fall beneath the winning spell of man, matter, and method. He is an interesting personality, and has a greater number of points of contact with the general run of humanity than any other public speaker of to-day. It is a stimulating thing to know that in this line of human endeavor he has got his reward in the a.s.sured position he holds in a movement at which it is the fashion in some uninformed and cynical quarters to sneer, but which in point of fact has had a supremely awakening effect upon the American people, and for which we are all of us the better off.

"All of which," as a friend of mine once put it after I had expressed myself in similar terms concerning Mr. Bryan, "is some tribute for a narrow-minded, hide-bound, bigoted, old standpat, reactionary, antediluvian Republican to pay to a hated rival!"

I was frankly appalled on arriving at Daytona to find the town placarded from end to end with posters announcing Mr. Bryan's appearance there that evening--my evening, as I had supposed it to be. I did not know exactly what to do. I knew perfectly well what would happen to me if it came to a hand-to-hand contest for possession of the stage. Physically, with Mr. Bryan and myself left to decide the matter for ourselves, after the fashion of a pair of bantam white hopes, I felt that I might have a fairly good chance to win out; for I am not altogether without brawn, and in the matter of handling a pair of boxing gloves am probably quite as expert as the late Secretary of State; but n.o.body outside of Matteawan would be so blind to commonsense as to expect an audience anywhere either to stand neutral or to indulge in a policy of "watchful waiting" with such a contest going on on the platform.

My first impulse in the circ.u.mstances was to get out of town as quickly and as quietly as I could, and forget that there was such a place as Daytona on the map; but a careful scrutiny of my letter of instructions rea.s.sured me. The date, according to the supreme managers at Atlanta, was clearly mine, and I decided at least to go down with colors flying.

I have never run from my own lithographs, and I saw no reason why I should flee from Mr. Bryan's. I got in touch with the local committee as soon as possible, and soon had at least the solace of companionship in my misery. They were as upset about it as I was.

"But, Mr. Bangs," protested the chairman, almost with tears in his eyes--his voice was full of them--"you aren't due here until to-morrow night."

"I don't see how that can be," I replied unfeelingly. "You know perfectly well that I am not twins, and only twins can appear in two places at once. I am to lecture at Miami to-morrow night."

I handed the gentleman my letter of instructions, confirming my statement. It was all down in black and white.

"It's a perfectly terrible situation," said the chairman, tears even springing from his brow, "and I'm blest if I know what to do!"

"There is only one of three things to be done," said I. "The first is to let me sit in the audience to-night and listen to Mr. Bryan, collecting my fee on the ground that I have earned it by holding my tongue--which is some job for a man primed with unspoken words. The second is to let Mr. Bryan and myself go out on the platform and indulge in a lecture Marathon, he at one side of the stage, I at the other, talking simultaneously, the one that gets through first to get the gate money.

The third and best is for you to telegraph Mr. Bryan and find out direct from him what his understanding is as to the date."

The first or the last of the propositions would have suited me perfectly; for I should have been delighted to listen to Mr. Bryan whether I was paid for it or not--and most a.s.suredly had Mr. Bryan himself laid claim to the date no power on this earth could have lured me into a dispute over its possession. I am too proud of this life to risk its uncertain tenure for the brief glory of an hour on a preempted platform.

I am glad to say that before dusk the complication was cleared off; for, the third alternative having been accepted by the committee, Mr. Bryan was caught on the wire, and replied instantly to the effect that he was to lecture that night on some such subject as "The Curse of Wealth" at Palm Beach, where many sufferers from that particular blight are annually gathered together in large numbers. The skies immediately cleared, and I went out that night before a packed house, the unwitting beneficiary of widespread advertising on Mr. Bryan's behalf, and enjoyed myself very much; although as I sped along I could "spot" here and there in the audience individuals who, having come to hear Mr. Bryan, like Rachel weeping for her children, "refused to be comforted."

My only lasting regret was that my contract did not call for the payment to me of fifty per cent. of the boxoffice receipts. I have no doubt there were people there that night who thought, and possibly still think, that I stole that audience. And perhaps I did; but I was no more responsible for the theft than was poor little Oliver Twist, who found himself at unexpected places at unlooked for hours through the efforts of those "higher up." I may add too in all sincerity that if Mr. Bryan himself feels, or felt, in any way aggrieved over what he might call my "unearned increment" in listeners, I will gladly exchange fees with him.

I will unhesitatingly, at his request, and by return mail, send him my check for the full amount received by me on that somewhat nervous occasion if he will send me a postoffice order for the amount received by him the evening after.

Embarra.s.sments of a less poignant character frequently arise in the matter of unexpected calls for service, for which the public generally a.s.sumes the platform speaker to be necessarily always prepared, but for which as a matter of fact no amount of preparation could adequately fit any man built on the old-fashioned plan in respect to his nervous organization. One of these affairs came into my experience a decade ago, when, crossing the Atlantic Ocean on that high-rolling ocean greyhound, the _Lucania_, I was drafted by an overzealous committee of arrangements to preside over one of those impromptu entertainments got up on shipboard for the benefit of the widows and orphans of those who go down into the sea in ships. To these more than worthy enterprises grat.i.tude for benefits received has always made me a willing contributor; but to partic.i.p.ate in them has ever been a trial. I would rather lecture before the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum with a sore thumb.

The company aboard a transatlantic liner is always, to say the least, "mixed" in the matter of nationality; and, while one might be willing to "make a stab" at being witty before a gathering all English, all French, all German, or Pan-American, woe be unto him who vaingloriously attacks the risibles of a mult.i.tude made up of all these widely varying racial elements! Their standards of humor are as widely divergent as are their several racial strains, and one might as well try to sit on four stools at once with perfect composure as expect to find the "Chair" under such conditions comfortable. One has to acquiesce in such demands, however, or be set down as disagreeable, and when the committee approached me in the matter they received a much readier yes than I really wished to give them.

The night came, and I found myself at the head table in the dining saloon working for dear life to keep the thing going. There was a pretty slim array of talent, and from one end of the program to the other there was n.o.body to hang a really good joke on, even if I had had one to hang.

A chairman can always be facetious at the expense of distinguished people like Chauncey M. Depew, Henry James, or Mr. Caruso, and "get away with it"; but the obscure amateur cannot be handled with brutal impunity. I think I may say truthfully that no man ever worked harder at the pumps of a sinking ship than I did that night. And to make matters worse there was a heavy rolling sea on, and, while I never suffer from seasickness, the combination of motion and nerves made me uncomfortably conscious of an insurgent midst as I forged hopelessly ahead.

Finally, however, there came a rift in the cloud of my despair. A pleasant little c.o.c.kney ballad singer who was coming over to America for a season in vaudeville volunteered to sing a ballad. It was well sung, and most pathetic. It depicted in dramatic fashion the delirium of an old British veteran, who, as the hour of death approached him, was fighting over again in fancy the battles of his youth. The refrain of the ballad was _Bring me the old Martini, and I shall die in peace!_--referring of course to the rifle that for a period of years up to 1890 had been the official weapon of Tommy Atkins. I made the most of so obvious a lead, and before introducing the next number on the program thanked the singer for his dramatic rendering of so fine a story.

"But, my friends," said I, "that ballad saddens me in more respects than one. I have long believed in international brotherhood. In common with my friend Conan Doyle and others who have advocated the hands stretched across the sea, I have been in sympathetic accord with the idea of universal brotherhood; but now and then certain little things crop up that, insignificant in themselves, show us none the less how radically far apart we really are. This splendid old British warrior calling for his Martini is a case in point, and I am sure my own compatriots here to-night at any rate will realize the vast gulfs of separation that exist between the Britons and ourselves when I ask them what they would bring to a dying American soldier, delirious or otherwise, if he were to call for a Martini."

The point took with the Americans; but the others, charming Frenchmen, delightful Germans, cultivated Englishmen, stared at me in stolid silence, and one or two of them shook their heads as if bewildered. It was a hard situation, and I slammed the rest of the evening through without further attempts at playfulness, retiring to the seclusion that my cabin granted an hour later, resolved never again to serve as presiding elder at a vaudeville show either on land or sea.

I felt almost as solemnly embarra.s.sed as I did one evening in Pennsylvania, later, when my lecture was opened with prayer and I heard a good clergyman begging the Lord to "show His mercy upon the audience gathered here," to "protect them from all suffering, and in His infinite wisdom, if it were His will, to enable the speaker of the evening to rise to his opportunity."

But there was an after result of that Martini jest which more than made up for the depression that followed its failure to strike home. I write of it, however, with some diffidence; for I am convinced that some reader somewhere will observe that the incident is only another variation of Senator Depew's famous tale of the Englishman who wanted to know what really was the matter with the mince pie. As a matter of fact it is the twin brother of that famous anecdote; but, while I am perfectly willing to think the Depew story really happened, I know that mine did, and I therefore record it.

The morning following the impromptu concert I was pacing the deck of the steamer when one of the more distinguished pa.s.sengers aboard, an English army officer, who occupied at that time, and still holds, an important post in British military circles, stopped me.

"Mr. Bangs," he said, holding out his hand, "I want to thank you for a charming evening last night, and to express my admiration for the delightful way in which you carried off your difficult honors. It was really most interesting."

"Thank you, General," said I. "That is very nice to hear. I thought it fell rather flat."

"Not at all, not at all," he rejoined; "though, to speak quite frankly, there was one of your jests that I--I--I didn't really get. What humor you have, sir, I think I appreciate. During a period of convalescence in the Transvaal somebody sent me a copy of your 'House Boat on the Styx,'

and I--I--I found it very amusing; but this joke last night--after the little chap had sung that ballad--about the dying veteran you know--it quite escaped me. Er--_what would they bring an American soldier who called for a Martini?_"

"Well, General," said I, restraining an impulse to be amused, "I might explain, and explain and explain the point to you, giving you a chart in full detail, exploiting the theory of the thing as fully as possible, without satisfactory results. It is a case where an object lesson will demonstrate in a minute what no amount of abstract argument could convey in a year. If you will come with me into the smoking room, I'll show you exactly what nine out of ten people in America would give to a soldier crying aloud for a Martini."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "But what was the point of this little joke last night?"]

We repaired accordingly to the smoking room, and in response to my order the steward shortly placed two misty Martini c.o.c.ktails before us.