Will M. Cressy

“ The three aged women, dressed in all the simplicity of their village home; Uncle Abinidab, tall, austere and with the snow-white whiskers, and behind them, a big, [115] smooth-faced, broad-shouldered young chap that looked like a Plain Clothes Man in charge.
Four pale, anemic, shifty-eyed young fellows who were seated at a table near the door, took one look at George, reached under their chairs for their hats, and faded away through the door into the night. Mother, with a happy smile, piloted her little brood over to an empty table, and with a graceful gesture, motioned them to be seated. ”

“ Beck had wired Lehman to come to New York at once. What Mr. Beck said went. So Lehman went.
If there is any one thing on earth that Martin Lehman loves better than another it is not traveling. He is probably the only man on earth who can get seasick anywhere and everywhere. A sprinkling cart will give him symptoms. His son Lawrence says that he always has to stand by and hold his father's hand when he takes a bath. He always walks to and from the theater because the street car might pass through a mud puddle and he would get seasick. The next worst thing in the world is a railroad train. ”

“ Poor Lehman's getting up and dressing was absolute proof of the power of mind over matter. But finally, with part of his clothing on his back and the rest over his arm, he managed to stagger into the other car, only to discover that he had lost his berth ticket.
The conductor said that the only thing to do was to wait until the other passengers got located, and the berth that was left would naturally be his. It doesn't take a mind reader to see what he got. ”

“ Frantically I searched through my pocketbook for something that would show my identity. I dragged out my different Club Cards.
"See!" I said, "I belong to the Lambs' Club, in New York; and the Friars; and the Green Room Club; and the Touring Club of America; and the Vaudeville Comedy Club."
I stopped; almost tearfully I looked at him. I could do no more. He sniffed again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said,
"You're a hell of a feller when you're home, ain't ye?"
As I was going to the theater in Indianapolis I passed two ladies who were busily discussing a third. ”

“ Some folks are of an artistic nature; some folks are satisfied if things are useful, while others like to have them ornamental as well. A lady friend of ours, up in New Hampshire, belongs to this latter class. She likes to see things about the house look neat and pretty.
One of the things that grated on her artistic sense was the bath tub; it held water all right, and it was clean enough; but it was a plain, unpainted tin affair and she shuddered every time she looked at it. Every time she took a bath she shuddered twice. ”

“ You will find him at every stage door, sitting there in his old arm chair, calm, quiet, doing nothing; he is a man of few words; he has heard actors talk so much that he has got discouraged. He sees the same thing every week ”

“ Arriving in Chicago, he varied the misery of the trip by a taxicab trip across the city to catch the New York train: this time drawing lower nine.
"Troubles never come single." In the seat back of him was a woman with a baby. The lady in front of him indulged in perfume of a most violent type. ”

“ The chap down in front started to applaud, then his jaw dropped, and he gasped out,
"My God, how Mike has fallen away."
The manager of a small Moving Picture and Vaudeville Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska, was watching the opening show of the week. A Horizontal Bar came on, two men, one a straight acrobat, the other a clown. As soon as the act was over the manager went back and fired the clown.
[106] "Fired?" said the clown in amazement; "what for?"
"Because you can't do nothin'; you missed every trick you went after; t'other feller is all right; he can work." ”

“ There isn't the slightest symptom of any steering gear on it; the front axle is a straight iron rod without a sign of any joint in it.
One of the passengers is either sitting exactly [170] on the top of the steering bar, or else there isn't any; and with all four wheels set rigidly so it can't turn, the car is just leaving the roadway and plunging into a flower bed.
There is one theater in Chicago that is going to have an awful time enforcing that "no tipping allowed" rule. The Illinois Theater has a stage manager by the name of Frank Tipping. ”

“ TOMMIE RYAN'S HORSE
Tommie Ryan and his wife (Mary Richfield) live in a very charming house at Sayville, Long Island. The Ryan horse lived in the barn. Although, if Mrs. Tommie had had her way, he would have lived in the parlor. For "Abner" was the pride of her heart.
Abner had been in the family so long he had become a habit. He had grown so old that Tommie had to go out at night and fold him up and put him to bed; then in the morning he would have to go out and pry him up on to his feet again. ”

“ All Artists, while playing "the Provinces" in England, stop at "lodgings," that is, private houses. The landlady always keeps a book, in which she has the visiting Artists write their autographs, and a line telling how much they have enjoyed her "lodgings."
E. J. Connelly got into one house where he did not feel like writing just what he thought about it; but the landlady was so insistent that finally he took the book and wrote—
"Quoth the Raven; E. J. Connelly."
One night at the Vaudeville Comedy Club the conversation drifted around to Stage Tramps. ”

“ A "Topper" is one who is always billed at the top of the list of players. A "Bottomer" is the act that is considered next in importance to the "Topper," and is billed in big type at the bottom of the billing.
One thing that makes it hard to please an English Music Hall audience is its widely different classes. Admission to the gallery is from four to six cents while the orchestra seats are two dollars and a half.
While you can see a first-class Vaudeville show for four cents, it costs you twenty-four cents to sit in the gallery of most any Moving Picture show ”

“ But the maid never knew that I was the same fellow; and [163] along the last of the week she began to wonder what ever became of that old chap she saw around the stage during the show, but never afterwards. So she went over to Miss Dayne and said,
"Say, do you carry that old man with you or do you get a new one in every town?"
"Well," said Clarence Drown, manager of the Los Angeles Orpheum, "she is one of those women you are always glad to learn is the wife of some man you don't like."
Freddie Niblo, Jr., sat on the floor in their New York home one day, thinking it over. ”

“ Out on the deck was a party of young folks: two of the girls were playing mandolins and they were all singing.
"'By Jove!' I exclaimed. 'That's a beauty! Whose is it?'
[72] "'Oh, that is Will Cressy's boat,' replied my friend impatiently. 'He is another of those Vaudeville people. There are a number of them over across the lake there, but we don't know them at all.'
"I sat for a while—thinking. Here I was, a recognized Broadway player of legitimate rôles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearian rôle without a rehearsal, a member of The Lambs and The Players Clubs. ”

“ The management of the Majestic Theater in Chicago always have a small sign at the side of the stage announcing the headline act for the following week. Upon this particular occasion this sign announced the coming of Mabel Hite and Mike Donlin.
There was a chap sitting down in front with his girl, who wanted her to think that he knew everybody and everything in Vaudeville. You know, one of those people who call all actors and actresses by their first names, and can tell you (incorrectly) all about their private affairs. ”

“ ONE-NIGHT-STAND ORCHESTRAS
My idea of what not to be is Musical Director of a Musical Comedy playing one-night stands. This is the real thing in the Trouble line.
Max Faetkenheuer was musical director with an opera company that was playing through the South. They arrived in one town at four in the afternoon, and Max found the orchestra waiting at the theater. They looked doubtful; they sounded dreadful. Individually they were bad; collectively they were worse. During the first number the cornet only struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped playing. ”

“ There used to be a door man at Keith's Boston House who could tell more in less words than any man I ever saw. One Monday morning some actors came in who had never been in Boston before, and they were asking this old fellow about the different hotels:
"How is the Rexford?" asked the Lady. ”

“ In one of my plays I issue a newspaper called The Wyoming Whoop. At the top of the first column are the words—"In Hoc Signo Vinces." One day one of the stage hands came to me with a copy of the paper in his hands, and pointing to this line, said,
"That means 'We Shoot to Kill,' don't it?"
My wife was in a hair-dressing parlor in Cleveland; the girl who was doing what ever she was doing to her, discovered that she was the Miss Dayne at Keith's Theater. ”

“ Marshall P. Wilder had just come off the stage at Shea's in Buffalo. His act had not gone at all to suit him, and he stood shaking his head and wondering what was the matter. A big, fat acrobat who was closing the show noticed him and said,
"What's the trouble, Kid?"
"I don't know," said Wilder, "but I can't seem to make them laugh."
"Augh, don't you worry about that; you ain't supposed to; you draw 'em in; we'll make 'em laugh." ”

“ And then, from somewhere out in that blur of misty light a voice said,
"Good morning."
Harry peered closer out through the mist before him, and after a moment's search he gave a yell and started upright in the bed with a scream of fright. For there, standing in the center of the room was the Contortionist, "limbering up." He was standing with his toes pointing toward Harry, but he had bent himself over backwards [92] until his head was way down between his legs, with his face sticking out through in front, looking at Harry with a cheerful grin. ”

“ For another moment he studied, then as he turned away, he shook his head sadly and said,
"I shall never go to another vaudeville show as long as I live."
[22]
IT'S HARD TO MAKE THE OLD FOLKS BELIEVE IT
We may be Actors and Actresses (with capital "A's") to the public; we may have our names in big letters on the billboards and in the programs; but to The Old Folks At Home we are just the same no-account boys and girls we always were. We may be Headliners in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, but back home we are still just Jimmie and Johnnie and Charlie that "went on the stage." ”

“ Billie watched him awhile, then turned to his friend and said,
"All the trouble with him is, he always takes three bases on a single."
Barney Reiley, then with the Old Homestead Company, now the manager of a theater in Indianapolis, and I were walking down the street in Baltimore, when the sun, shining through a magnifying glass, set fire to an oculist's show window. ”

“ The ticket office is the booking office.
The ticket agent is the booking clerk (pronounced "clark") .
A depot is the railway station.
You don't buy your ticket; you "book your ticket."
A policeman is a "Bobbie."
You drive to the left and walk to the right.
An automobile is a motor car. ”

“ The first one that she opened was the livery stable man's. It stated that the family he had given Abner to, according to Tom's directions, had just been arrested for beating and starving Abner.
I can't tell the rest; it is too sad; but to this day, every time Mrs. Ryan thinks of Abner, she looks at Tommie, and he goes out and sits in the Park. [63]
"Thou Shalt Not Steal," said the sign in the car.
The conductor looked at it and laughed "ha ha."
And he pinched four dollars, and whistled the air,
"None but the brave deserve the fare." ”

“ Another thing that we Americans are shy on, both in speaking and singing, is articulation. I always had an idea that I enunciated uncommonly clearly—until I went over there, when I learned more about speaking plainly in three days than I had in a lifetime here. ”

“ Nat Haines was playing Keith's, Providence, R. I. The act on ahead of Nat was Professor Woodward's Trained Seals. One afternoon Nat, hearing a noise, looked around and there was one of the seals coming out under the curtain behind him. It took Nat just two jumps to get off the stage. An attendant came out and captured the seal. Nat came back. "Well," he said, scratching his head; "I have followed every animal on earth but a skunk and a lizard, and now I have got that. Humph; Professor Woodward's Trained Shad. I think I will learn dressmaking." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Finally Hubby had a scheme. He went to Joe Apdale, the animal trainer, for assistance.
"Now, Joe," he said, "Hi'll tell you wot we'll do; Hi will go down hand set on the hedge of the dock there, hover the ocean. Hand you come along hand say, ''Ullo, old chap!' and slap me [87] on the back. Hi'll jump, and the bloomin' 'at will fall hin the water."
"All right," said Joe; "set your stage."
Hubby went down to the edge of the wharf, leaning over and looking at the water below.
Joe sauntered down that way, saw him, started, went over to him, said, "Hullo, old chap!" and slapped him on the back. ”