From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book

A not infrequent source of terror to the platform speaker, if not a real peril, is the small boy one encounters en route, singly and alone or in groups. I am glad to say that I have always delighted in him, and so far, despite the possibilities, none of my contacts with him has resulted disastrously; but, while nobody ever need mark him "FRAGILE," it is none the less true that he should be handled with care, and kept right side up if possible, for the sake of the general comfort.

One of these youngsters once gave me a supreme example of intrinsic honesty which I shall never forget. I met him on the evening of my lecture in the town of Everett, Massachusetts. I had somehow got the notion that Everett was farther afield from Boston than it really is, and starting early I arrived at the high school hall a full hour before the advertised time. The building was dark, and every door was locked; so that for some thirty or forty minutes I was compelled to pace the sidewalk in front of it, awaiting the arrival of somebody who could let me in. After several turns up and down the street I was accosted by a bright-faced little urchin who held a ticket for my lecture in his hand.

"Want to buy a ticket for to-night's lecture, mister?" said he.

"No, son," said I. "I've heard this lecture several times already, and I wouldn't go through it again for seven dollars."

"Gee!" he ejaculated. "If it's as bad as that, I guess I'd better tear this up." And he destroyed the ticket on which he had doubtless expected to realize much soda-water money before my very eyes, and went whistling along upon his honest little way.

Perhaps this little lad does not come properly under the head of Hazards; but in one of the larger cities of Arkansas I once came upon a group of boys who did, and they kept me in a state of trepidation for a goodly part of the evening. It happened that simultaneously with my arrival in town there arrived also a snowstorm that for that section of the country was a heavy one. Heavy or light, it brought with it enough snow to provide these forty-odd youngsters with the kind of occupation that all healthy-minded youngsters find to their taste – that of snow-balling passersby. When my motor arrived at the lecture hall the boys were on hand, and for two or three minutes the car was the object of a fierce fusillade of icy missiles that nearly put the chauffeur out of commission. The committee hustled me into the hall with no more damage than one rather slushy splosh of snow perilously close to my neck.

"It's a shame, Mr. Bangs," said the chairman, "and I apologize. These boys aren't a bad lot; but they are irrepressible. I'd advise you to go slow with them to-night. They've broken up two lectures already."

"Gracious!" said I. "Do they attend the lectures?"

"Yes," said the chairman. "By arrangement with the school authorities they have the first two rows reserved for them free."

And sure enough when I walked out upon the platform there they were, two solid rows of them, eying me like hungry birds of prey ready to pounce upon a particularly luscious morsel. I should have fled if flight had been possible; but it was not, and I looked forward to an hour and a half of trial. But as the chairman was introducing me an idea popped into my head which I am glad to say saved the day – or rather the night. Instead of my usual opening I addressed a few words to the boys.

"It is an awful shame, my young friends," said I, "that the requirements of this lecture course and the necessities of my own engagements compel you and me to waste such a delightful evening as this indoors. I feel just as badly as you do about it; for while what few hairs I have are gray, I give you my word that I'd rather go into a good redhot snowball fight with you than listen to the finest lecture that was ever delivered. If I didn't have to go on to Memphis to-night, I'd ask the committee and the audience to postpone this lecture until the snow melts, so that I could show you what a corking shot I am at any old beaver hat, moving or fixed, that ever crowned a mortal head."

The effect was instantaneous. A wave of enthusiasm swept over the lads, and the only interference I had from them during my talk was a somewhat too-ready inclination on their part to help me along with laughter and applause at points where tears and silence would have been more appropriate. Moreover, when at the close of my lecture I started with some reluctance to leave the hall, instead of the volley of arctic ammunition that I had expected, I found those youngsters lined up twenty on a side between the door and my motor with their hats off, forming a little alley of honor for me to tread, giving me three rousing cheers as I departed.

From which somewhat trying experience I deduce that there is a good deal more latent courtesy in Young America than certain despairing critics of modern manners would have us believe. It may be that the reason why we do not find it oftener is that we do not ourselves give it the opportunity to express itself.

I have spoken of our exposure to "battle, murder, and sudden death," and to some it may have seemed an exaggeration to claim anything of the sort as a platform peril; and yet there was one occasion upon which I was so uncomfortably tangent to such conditions that they seemed all too real. It was in one of our far western States. Scheduled to lecture there at eight P.M., my train did not reach the town until nine-forty-five. I had telegraphed news of my delay ahead, and my audience with rare courtesy had voted to remain at the hall until I arrived.

I dressed on the train, and on descending from it was whisked to the opera house in a prehistoric hack, which shed one of its wheels en route, spilling the committee and myself into the road, but without damage; while my Only Muse went on to the hotel, a two-story affair, where she secured accommodations for the night. Later, on the conclusion of my talk, on my arrival at the hotel, I found the Muse sitting up in bed, pallid as a ghost, with a revolver at her side.

"What on earth is the matter with you?" I demanded, more than startled at the sight.

She hardly needed to answer; for almost as I spoke from a saloon located immediately underneath our room came the sharp crack of pistols. Somebody below there was engaged in the pleasing occupation of "shooting up" the place. Not having seen the plans and specifications of the hotel, I did not know how thick the floor was, or what were the prospects for a sudden eruption of bullets through the carpet. It was not any safer to venture out either; for there was no telling how far the trouble might spread. So I jumped into bed and trusted to a combination of Providence, floor, and hair mattress to hold me immune. The disturbance did not last long, however, and shortly after midnight all was quiet, and sleep came.

Two hours later we were awakened by a snarling quarrel going on directly under our window. Two men were applying epithets of an uncomplimentary nature to each other, when suddenly one of them passed the bounds of even occidental toleration. He called the other a name that no right-minded man could be expected to stand, and we heard three sharp cracks of a revolver zipping out in the air. We sprang from the bed and rushed to the window, and there lying flat on his back, on a light fall of snow, in the glare of an electric lamp, was a man, with a gradually widening red spot staining the white of the road on which he lay. There was no sign of an assailant anywhere; but in a few moments, in absolute, almost ghostly silence, black figures appeared from seemingly everywhere, and bent over the fallen victim. We could hear low whisperings, and then suddenly one of the black figures detached himself from the group, and ran off down the street, returning shortly with a covered carriage. Into this the murdered man was placed, the carriage was driven off, the snow muffling the feet of the horses, the black figures vanished as silently as they had come, and all that was left of the tragedy was the red spot in the snow.

We had heard tales of witnesses to similar disturbances being detained for months under surveillance, practically prisoners of the law, pending the trial of the guilty, and were in no mind to suffer a similar experience ourselves. Wherefore when morning came we rose with the first glimmer of dawn, packed our suitcases, and, asking no questions of anybody, departed for other scenes on the earliest milk train we could catch; which happened, fortunately, to be going in the right direction for us.

Personally I have a horror of the Zeppelin and its powers to make things uncomfortable from its aërial thoroughfares; but as between it and the perils of being shot up from below by playful spirits in a frontier saloon I think I shall choose the Zeppelin if the choice must be made. At any rate, if either emergency should ever again enter into my life, I trust I shall have a bomb-proof roof overhead, or an armor-plated hair mattress underneath me; for I have no taste for a last end in which a coroner will be called upon to decide whether the victim of the affair was a mortal being, or a lifeless combination of porous plaster and human sieve.

XIII

EMBARRASSING MOMENTS

I shall never forget the expression of serene immunity from care on the face of one of my editorial chiefs when some years ago I told him that I was very much embarrassed by certain arrangements he himself had made over my head. They were such arrangements as to make my position frankly impossible.

"You have embarrassed me more than I care to say," said I.

"Embarrassment is a sign of weakness," he replied calmly. "Don't ever be embarrassed."

"But what can I do?" said I. "You have made these arrangements, and – "

"Well, if I were you," said he, smiling, and putting considerable emphasis on the you, "rather than admit that anything under heaven embarrassed me I'd tell me to go to the devil with my arrangements."

I took him at his word. We both laughed, and the immediate awkwardness vanished. While I cannot truthfully say that telling him to "go to" was a wholly satisfactory ultimate solution of all our difficulties, I have as a matter of policy adopted that attitude toward troublesome things ever since, to the material advantage at least of my own peace of mind. I have found the philosophy involved a workable one, and more than helpful to me in the pursuit of my platform labors, especially that part of it involving the "laugh."

It certainly rescued me from a deal of unhappiness over a wasted date a year or so ago in Michigan, for which I was in no sense to blame, and which, had the various parties been inclined to quarrel over misfortune, might have resulted in much unpleasantness.

Following a Wednesday night engagement in mid-Ohio was a Thursday night in a more or less remote section of the Wolverine State. To reach the Thursday night scene of action I was required to rise at five o'clock in the morning and travel with one or two awkward changes of trains to Fort Wayne, going thence to Kalamazoo, and from there by a way train to the point in question. It was a long, tedious drive of a day, and when I reached Kalamazoo I unburdened myself vigorously to the Only Muse to the effect that if anybody, anywhere, would offer me a job as third assistant manager of a tolerably stationary peanut stand at two dollars a week, payable in deferred promises, I should consider the offer a most tempting one.

My comfort was not at all enhanced by my discovery on reaching Kalamazoo that I had completely misread the timetables, and that instead of arriving at our destination at five in the afternoon, leaving me plenty of time for rest, refreshment, and change of clothes, the only possible train, even if it ran on time, could not get me through to the haven of my desires until five minutes before eight, with the lecture scheduled to begin at eight-fifteen. So I rested, refreshed, and dressed at Kalamazoo, and perforce traveled over the last stage of that wearisome journey in full evening dress, slowly but surely accumulating en route a sufficient supply of soot, cinders, grit, and other appurtenances of travel on a soft-coal, one-horse railroad, to make me appear like a masterpiece of spatterwork when I arrived at the farther end.

By some odd mischance, never as yet satisfactorily accounted for, the train got through on time. The Only Muse and I hastily boarded an omnibus, and were whisked through the impenetrable depths of a dark night to the hotel, whence, after seeing her properly bestowed, I hastened to the Auditorium where the lecture was to be held. To my surprise when I got there I found the building wholly dark. There was not a sign of life anywhere about it. I banged, whacked, and thundered on the door like an invading artillery corps; but with no response of any sort. But a glance up the street a moment later relieved the pressure of my woe; for there my vision was cheered by a brilliantly lighted church.

"Of course," I thought, "the Auditorium is too small to accommodate the audience, and they've changed over to the church."

I glanced at my watch, and discovered that I had two minutes to spare. A goodly sprint brought me panting to the front door of the edifice, and with some unnecessary noise, perhaps due wholly to the impetuosity of my approach, I burst in upon the assembled multitude – to find, alas! that the very sizable audience gathered there with their heads bowed, and listening to an eloquent appeal for blessings desired by a gentleman wearing a long frock coat and a white necktie, were not for me. To my chagrin I soon learned that I had come within an ace of breaking up a prayer meeting – if I may be allowed the use of such incongruous terms in the phrase. I backed out as gracefully as I could, and collided with a late comer.

"Is there more than one Auditorium in town?" I whispered, after apologizing for my reactionary behavior.

"Oh, yes," he replied politely, "there is the Auditorium, and the High School Auditorium."

"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, assisted in its quest of publicity by a hoarse-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.