Continuous Vaudeville, Will M. Cressy [top 10 inspirational books TXT] 📗

Fred Niblo and his wife (Josephine Cohan) were playing at Proctor's 23d Street Theater in New York. Fred always wore a Prince Albert coat in his act. On this day he had considerable trouble in getting his necktie to suit him. Finally he got arranged, slipped on the Prince Albert, buttoned it, took one final look into the glass, and started for the door.

"Where are you going, dear?" asked Mrs. N. in that wifely tone that always makes a man shrink.

[108]"Why, I am going out to do my act," said Fred. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," said Mrs. N., "only I thought perhaps you would want to put some trousers on."

[109]

When George W. Day got married he took awful chances. Well, of course, we all do, for that matter; but George took more than usual, for he married into a Scotch Presbyterian family, and anybody knows that Actors and Scotch Presbyterians were not originally created for Affinities. But George, in addition to being an Actor, is a Musician, an Artist and a Corking Good Fellow, and the wife's folks, after taking him on probation for ten or fifteen years, finally decided that they would accept him into the family.

Up to two or three years ago, Mother-in-law was the only one of the family who had visited Mr. and Mrs. George in their New York home; the rest of the family had continued to reside in Peaceful Valley, or wherever it was, and hope for the best for that poor erring daughter who had fallen victim to the wiles of "a Actor." But finally Mr. and Mrs. George and Mother-in-law[110] had persuaded Mother-in-law's two sisters and one of the sister's husbands to come down to New York and visit the Days.

Uncle Abinidab was a tall, ministerial appearing man, "ninety years of age, and whiskers down to here"; he dressed in a black pair of trousers, a black Prince Albert coat, black tie, and a black slouch hat.

The two aunts wore the black silk dresses that their father had brought from India sixty years ago. Mother-in-law was also dressed in black.

George worked in as many "neutral tints" on his own wardrobe as he could, trying to "tone down" to fit the occasion. The ice box was used for the sole purpose of storing food; George's cigars, pipes and tobacco were locked up in an old trunk in the storeroom. The family Bible was hunted up, dusted, and placed in a conspicuous position on the centertable in the front room. George carefully censored his drawings which were stuck up on the walls all over the house; and any lady who did not have on a Buffalo overcoat and rubber boots was placed out in the trunk with the pipes.

The week that followed was "one round of gayety" for the folks. George walked off over[111] five pounds showing them the Brooklyn bridge, Central Park, Grant's tomb, Fifth Avenue, Fleischman's bread line, Macy's store, the post-office, Tammany Hall, and every church in the city.

It took them the first five days to play this route. And then on Friday night Mother-in-law horrified George by informing the others that on the next day she and George would show them Coney Island. By going out early in the morning, and in the evenings, and rehearsing his day's route in advance, George had managed so far to conduct his little Company around the city without running them into any "High Life." But he knew that if that crowd ever struck Coney Island on a good busy afternoon, his hopes of becoming a favorite son-in-law were gone.

But Mother insisted, so the next morning he took Deacon Abinidab and the three "sisters in black" and started for Coney Island. Although I have examined him closely on this point, he does not seem to have any very clear idea yet as to where they went that day, or what they did. All he can say is that "it was awful." They insisted on Hot Dogs, Pop Corn, Peanut Brittle, Dreamland, Luna Park, and all the rest; they went[112] through the Old Mill, and they made George come down the "Bump the Bumps," "Shoot the Shoots" and such other exhilarating devices as they did not dare to tackle themselves.

They had supper in Henderson's, watching the Vaudeville show on the stage as they ate. They watched the fireworks, and it was ten o'clock before George could get them started toward home. When he got them on the train, homeward bound, he heaved a sigh of mighty relief, but afterwards regretted wasting a sigh of that sort in that way.

Arriving in New York, they were wending their way up Broadway, near Twenty-ninth Street; Uncle Abinidab had been sort of hanging back for a block or two, looking here and there in a searching kind of way, and finally he took George's arm and said confidentially: "George, laddie, do ye ken a place where we can get a wee nippie?" George didn't know whether the inquiry was on the level, or whether it was a sort of "feeler" to find out how he stood on the temperance question. But he decided to "play safety" so he stated promptly that he did not know of such a place in New York City.

But Mother! Ah ha! That mother-in-law, that since Creation's dawn has been abused and[113] vilified, that mother-in-law, that through all those years George had feared and dreaded; that mother-in-law, at whose approach he had hidden his pipe and tobacco; that mother-in-law that he had never approached without a clove and a stage fright. Now, it was she who spoke up like Horatio at the Bridge and said:

"I know a place."

George was stunned; speechless; if the statue of Horace Greeley just passed, had spoken those words, he couldn't have been more surprised. He looked at her in amazement and asked her what "place" she knew. "Right down this street here," she said; "come on."

And if you guessed a thousand years, you never would guess where that blessed old lady steered those innocent Presbyterians. Into "Bohemia," one of the swiftest, all-night restaurants and dance halls in New York City. Neither Mr. or Mrs. George has ever had the courage to this day to ask how on earth Mother came to even know of the existence of such a place, much less of its locality.

Down Twenty-ninth Street they marched; Mother in the lead, the two sisters next, then Uncle Abinidab "with whiskers down to here,"[114] and last, and making himself the "least," he could, with his two hundred and seventy pounds, came George, wondering what the finish would be. The Orchestra, one of those Austrian Table-Dote-with-Red-Wine Affairs, consisting of half a dozen crazy fiddlers and a girl beating one of those woven wire mattress pianos with a couple of sticks, was whooping it