of Brooklyn. Three hours and a half each way, twice
a day. A friend meeting him on the ferry said,
"You are playing Paterson this week, aren't you, Bill?"
"A little," replied Bill, "but I am going and coming most of the time."
* * * * *
I met Fred Niblo on Broadway:
"Hello, Fred," I said; "I went by your house this morning, and--"
"Thank you, Bill," he said, grasping my hand and shaking it heartily.
* * * * *
Clifford & Burke were playing Shea's, Buffalo. There was also a
bare-back riding act on the bill. There is a very old lady who comes
around the theater every night selling laundry bags, money bags and such
stuff to the actors. She had seen Clifford & Burke's act several times
and knew that they finished up their act with a dance.
Friday night she was sitting in our dressing room; Clifford and Burke
were on the stage when she came in but had finished their act and gone
to their room, although the old lady didn't know this. The horse act was
on and the old horse galloping around the stage "clickerty clack;
clickerty clack; clickerty clack," when suddenly the old lady stops
talking, pricks up her ears, listens a minute, then said,
"By garry, thim byes is doin' a long dance this night."
* * * * *
There was a German artist playing on the bill with us in Buffalo. He was
a very polite chap, but his English was very Berlin. One night, after
holding a rehearsal with a German acrobat, who was not much better off
than he was as to the English language, he came over to my wife, and
very slowly and laboriously he said,
"Goot evening, Madam Mees Dayne; eet iss colder than h----, don't it?"
* * * * *
Charlie Case was telling me how bad his teeth were:
"Why, Will," he said, "I have indigestion something awful. I can't chew
a piece of meat to save my life. I just bite it hard enough to make sure
it is dead, and swallow it."
* * * * *
Chick Sale comes from some one-night stand up in Illinois, I have
forgotten the name of it; but there are two rival hose companies in the
town. As fires are scarce, every once in a while they have a "contest."
The two companies line up side by side, somebody counts three and away
they go across the square to the watering trough. Upon arriving there
they unreel their hose, stick one end into the watering trough, m
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