"I play for a dance over to Masonic Hall."

"So do I," said the ba.s.s fiddler.

"We all do, but the drummer," said the flute player.

"_You do?_ Then what the devil have you kept me here rehearsing you for three hours for?" demanded Max.

"Well," said the cornet player, "we knew this was a big show, and we presumed you would be a good director, and we thought the practice would do us good."

"It will," said Max.

On another occasion he struggled all the afternoon with a "Glee Club and Mandolin Serenaders'" orchestra. Finally, by cutting out all solos, playing all the accompaniments himself, and confining the "Glee Club"

to "um-pahs," he got everything figured out except the cornet player; he was beyond pardon; so Max said to him,

"I am awful sorry, old man, but you won't do; so you just sit and watch the show to-night."

"Oh," said the Not-Jule-Levy, "then I don't play, eh?"

"You do not play," said Max.

"All right then; then there'll be no show."

"Why won't there be a show?" asked Max.

"Because I am the Mayor, and I will revoke your license."

He played.

At some Southern town we played once with "The Old Homestead"; the rehearsal was called for 4:30. At 4:30 all the musicians were there but the ba.s.s fiddler.

"Where is your ba.s.s fiddler?" asked our director.

"Well, he can't get here just yet," replied one of the other players.

"When will he be here?"

"Well, if it rains he is liable to be in any minute now; if it don't rain he can't get here until six o'clock."

"What has the rain got to do with it?"

"He drives the sprinkling cart."

The worst orchestra I ever heard was with an Uncle Tom's Cabin show playing East St. Louis. It consisted of two pieces; a clarinet and a ba.s.s fiddle, each worse than the other.

At North Goram, Maine, I once hired an entire bra.s.s band of twenty-two pieces to play for an entire evening of roller skating in the town hall, for three dollars. They were worth every dollar of it.

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.

"Oh, say," she said, "I wish you would tell me something."

"Yes? what is it?" asked Miss D.

"Is that old man that plays on the stage with you as homely as he looks?

His face is just like one of those soft rubber faces that the men sell on the street; the ones you pinch up into all sorts of shapes. He doesn't look as bad as that all the time, does he?"

Miss D. told her that there was not much choice.

Jim Thornton was playing his first engagement for Kohl & Castle in Chicago. As he came off from his first show, he stopped in the wings to watch the next act. A gentleman came along, touched him on the shoulder and said,

"You are not allowed to stand in the wings here."

Jim looked at him a moment, then said,

"And who are you?"

"Who am I? I am Kohl."

"You belong in the cellar," and Jim turned back to watch the show.

William Cahill was playing Paterson, N. J., and living at his home at the furthermost end 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: