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

"Well, it's for sale," said he. "Like to run it yourself?"

"No," said I. "I thought it might be some fun to buy a Panama fan and blow it down."

With which we parted forever. I have returned to the gentleman's bailiwick several times since; but never again have I entered the portals of that hostelry, for fear that by the careless dropping of my tooth-brush or a cake of soap I might cause the complete collapse of the structure, with the possible destruction of innocent lives; though if I were assured that in falling it would land only on that landlord's head I think I would willingly go out of my way to hire an aëroplane some night and drop a pebble upon its roof from a height of three or four feet. This is not so vindictive as it seems, either; for it would not hurt that landlord over-severely. You could drop a much heavier weight than that hotel upon any bit of solid ivory within reach without hurting the ivory unduly.

A less sordid, and indeed wholly inspiring, incident along similar lines occurred three years ago at Georgetown, Texas, when on a terrific night in February, which I shall never forget, I stood for a few minutes face to face with what might have proved an appalling tragedy. As I look back upon the incident now it seems to me to have been at once the most thrilling, and at the same time the most stimulating, moment of my life.

I had arrived at Georgetown early in the afternoon, and simultaneously with my coming – and, as some of my critics may intimate, possibly because of it – there arrived also one of those dreaded windstorms known in that section of the world as a norther. Perhaps the Texans are so used to these outbursts of Nature that they take them as all in the day's work; but to myself, unused to anything more boreally disturbing than an occasional nor'easter on the Maine Coast, it was extremely disturbing. I did not dare walk on any of the sidewalks, fearing that the loudly rattling signboards of commerce might be precipitated upon me. One of the best liked literary friends of my younger days had passed from intellectual brilliance of a most promising sort into permanent mental darkness through the falling upon his head of a swinging sign in New York, and I had come to regard such possibilities with dread.

The Muse and I consequently spent the afternoon indoors in a quivering but substantial and well kept hotel, whose courteous landladies neither the Muse nor I will ever fail to remember with affectionate esteem. As I rode in an omnibus to the lecture hall that night, I rejoiced in the heaviness of the vehicle, which otherwise must have been overturned by the heavy blasts to which it was subjected.

When I reached the college I found the auditorium on the third floor of the main building in almost total darkness, the only light coming from an oil lamp standing on a piano at one end of the stage. The wind had put the electric lighting apparatus temporarily out of commission; but students were at work upon it, and I was assured that all would be well if I would defer my lecture for a little while. To this of course I consented; for, however pleasing it may be to talk to one person in the dark, there is no pleasure in addressing a multitude of people into whose eyes one is unable to look.

After fifteen minutes of waiting the electric lights suddenly gleamed forth, and I was gratified to see before me an audience of substantial size, made up for the most part of students, with a fair proportion of the townspeople scattered about here and there. The college was a coeducational institution, and the boys and girls were in fair measure paired off in congenial fashion.

With the restoration of the light the president of the college stepped to the front of the platform and presented me to the audience, after which I rose and approached the footlights to begin. But never a word was I permitted to speak; for as I started in the howling wind outside seemed to re-double in its fury and intensity. There came a sudden loud grinding and ripping sound, and a huge part of the roof was lifted bodily upward, and then dropped back with a crash. One heavy beam fell squarely in one of the aisles without injury to any one, though two feet off on either side it would have killed the occupants of the aisle seats, and from all parts of the great room big chunks of plaster and lathing fell in upon the audience.

There was present every element of a tragedy of fearful proportions; but from that assembled multitude of young people came not even a scream, and on every side I saw stalwart young Texans of To-day and To-morrow rise up from their seats, and lean over the girls sitting crouched in the chairs beside them, taking all the weight and woe of that falling ceiling upon their own manly shoulders! It was a magnificent exhibition of readiness of resource, self-control, and unselfish chivalry. Almost instantly with the first shock the president of the college, with a calmness at which I still marvel, rose from the chair behind me and confronted the gathering.

"Now, my young friends," said he, speaking with amazing rapidity, each word enunciated as incisively as though spoken with lips of chilled steel, "remember – this is one of the emergencies you are supposed to be trained to meet. There is no telling how serious this situation is; but let us have no panic. Rise and walk out quietly, and without too much haste."

The youngsters rose and marched out of the hall in a fashion that would have delighted the soul of a martinet among drill masters, down three flights of stairs to the campus, silently, and without the slightest outward manifestation of the fear that must have been in the hearts of every one of them.

There had appeared in one of America's best magazines only a few months previously a scathing arraignment of the young American of To-day, in which the girls were indicted as being frivolous, lacking in self-control, and full of selfishness, and the American boy was held up to public scorn as knowing naught of respect for authority, and wholly deficient in the quality of chivalry for which the youth of other times had been noted. I wished then and I wish now that the good lady who spoke so witheringly on that subject could have witnessed what I looked upon that night in Texas. I think she would have modified her utterance at least, if indeed she would not have changed her point of view completely. She would have made her assertions less sweeping, I am convinced; for she would have learned from that episode, as I have learned from my contact with the youth of this land, not only in Texas but elsewhere, that save for a superficial element, fortunately not very large, the American youth of to-day, boy or girl, is in the main a strong-fibered, self-controlled, unselfish, chivalrous product which would be a credit to any nation, anywhere, at any time, past, present, or future.

In conclusion let me say that when I returned to Georgetown the following season to deliver my undelivered lecture I was introduced to practically the same audience as "the man who brought down the house without even opening his mouth."

Which shows that not only are youthful chivalry and self-control not dead in Texas, but that American humor likewise is in flourishing condition in that truly imperial State of our Union.

XV

EMERGENCIES

Quick thinking on and off the platform is quite essential to the happiness of the man on the road. The sniping fates are always after him, in small ways as well as in large, and he must keep himself in a state of constant readiness either to dodge their flying shafts, or with some suddenly devised shield of resourcefulness to render himself arrow proof.

Sometimes the successful warding off of a flying missile sped from the bow of some malign goddess of mischance becomes the making of the man, as in a case once reported to me by a gentleman in Montana when after my lecture at Billings he and I were laughing over the complete capture of my audience by a big gray tomcat that had entered the lists against me. This privileged creature had leaped into the chair immediately behind me, and begun massaging his face in true feline fashion, to the intense delight of a most amiable gathering.

I suppose that if I had known what was going on behind me, I should have tried to rise to the occasion on the spur of the moment; but not knowing it I read on, in blissful unconsciousness of the fact that a series of living pictures was flashing across the vision of my audience directly to the rear. The only sensation experienced at the time by my innocent self was one of supreme pleasure and satisfaction that my audience had at last awakened to the beauty of my discourse, and was manifesting in most gratifying fashion its appreciation of even the subtlest of my points. When at the close of the reading the real truth was revealed to me I merely smiled, and never for a moment let on that until the chairman spoke of the animal I had not suspected its presence.

"We admired your composure, Mr. Bangs," said the chairman. "A good many men would have been rattled by such an intrusion as that; but you went right on without a break. In fact, if you don't mind my saying so, you were better after the cat than you were before he came."

"Oh, well," said I, "we have to get used to that sort of thing. The trained lecturer really ought to be able to go on even if a young earthquake were to fall upon him. Do you always try your lecturers on a cat?" I added.

"Well, I hadn't thought of it that way," he laughed; "but as a matter of fact we most generally do. That cat belongs to our janitor, and he's pretty sure to turn up somewhere during the evening. One year we had a man out here giving some recitations, and I tell you old Tom helped him out considerably. He was rolling along through some funny speech or other, when the cat jumped upon the platform, washed his face two or three times, scratched his ear for a minute, and then with his eye fixed on the audience he walked straight over the electric footlights to the other side of the stage and disappeared. The audience roared and the recitationist stopped, gazed with mock indignation at the people for a second or two, and then addressing me he said, 'Mr. Chairman, I understood that this was to be a monologue – not a catalogue.' Of course it brought down the house, and ever since then that man has been about the most popular number our lecture course has ever had."

As a standard of emergency repartee I am inclined to think this incident sets the high-water mark.

The intrusion of four-footed creatures on the line of vision at lectures is unfortunately not rare. Lecturers have no terrors for mice and rats, and just as every hall is provided with a janitor, or janitrix, so is every caretaker provided with a cat, as a preventive of rodential troubles. I have got so used to their presence, however, that I no longer bother about them. As long as they leave me alone, and hold their tongues, I am content to have them disport themselves as they please, in the public eye or out of it. But a dog is another proposition altogether.

Personally I like dogs better than I like cats; but for platform purposes I prefer the feline to the canine intrusion. One knows pretty well in advance what a cat will do; but a dog is a most uncertain quantity. The cat's attentions are likely to be general, or, if not, centered wholly upon his or her own toilet – washing her face, manicuring her ears, pursuing her tail – but the dog too frequently takes a direct personal interest in the chief performer of the occasion. And while I should never think of attributing critical faculties to any kind of dog, they sometimes have a way of expressing what might pass for opinions, worthy or unworthy, concerning the work in hand, in no uncertain tones.

As evidence of this I recall an afternoon devoted not long since to the reading of one of Browning's exceedingly difficult masterpieces, in the presence of a number of ladies and one highly intelligent Irish terrier. The poem was Browning's "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," full of beauty and of inspired thought, but not easy reading, and requiring unusual concentration of mind to get out the full measure of its charm. My small audience was most appreciative, and as I approached the climacteric I was feeling tolerably well satisfied with the results, when this keenly critical terrier suddenly rose from his resting place, stationed himself deliberately before me, stretched himself until it almost seemed that one could hear his bones crack, and sent forth upon the mystery-laden atmosphere about as expressive a whining yawn as one might expect from the Seven Sleepers themselves, all rolled into one, and too early awakened from their slumbers – and there the "climacteric" rests to this day.

I never finished the reading, and what had been an hour of highly concentrated mysticism reached its sixtieth second in a wild roar of hilarious relief.

A less comfortable moment involving a canine intruder occurred at Binghamton, New York, back in 1898, when I suffered the double intrusion of a secret society initiation going on overhead, which may or may not have been made interesting to the initiates by the presence of the proverbial goat, and the sudden appearance upon the stage of a huge bulldog of terrifying aspect.

Above me was every indication, in sound at least, of a wild creature "abounding and abutting" upon the whole length of the superimposed floor, accompanied by muffled yells, presumably from the despairing throats of brothers elect. But this was as nothing in its effect upon my peace of mind to the sudden development of that bulldog in our midst. He came in through the open door of the hall, and walked deliberately down the center aisle, and thence up the steps to the platform whereon I was engaged in the pleasing occupation of "Reading from My Own Works." Bright as I had fondly hoped these works would be thought, they immediately went dark in the face of that undershot jaw with its gleaming white teeth, the drooling lip, and the eager, curious eye on each side of the squat nose, fixed intently upon my quaking self. Whether I continued to read or merely extemporized I do not now recall – in fact, I really never knew – I simply know that I continued to make sounds with my vocal organs, one eye on the pages of my book, the other glued to the lower jaw of the intruder.

The latter, after satisfying his visual perceptions as to my superficial virtues and defects, seemed to find it necessary to satisfy also some inward nasal craving to settle certain lingering doubts in his mind as to my right to be where he found me, and to that end he proceeded to place his squat nose hard up against the calf of my leg, and to sniff vigorously.

By what strange mercy it was that I did not kick him, then and there, with results that I hesitate even now to dwell upon, I don't know. The supremely important facts are that I did not kick him, but droned quaveringly on through my work, and soon learned happily from a scarcely suppressed snort that he considered me too contemptible for further attention. He departed, going out as he had come, through the open doorway, and left me again in control of the situation, if not wholly of myself. When he had completely faded into the outer darkness I paused and said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I appreciate deeply your tribute of regard; but let me tell you frankly that I prefer flowers, even vegetables, to bulldogs. If you have any further four-footed tokens of your esteem in store for me, I beg that you will send them by special messenger to my office in New York, or by mail to my residence in Yonkers, the address of which you may secure from the chairman on your way out of the hall at the conclusion of my reading."

The ultimate results of this incident were far from happy. I naturally told the story, together with some other amusing details of my visit to Binghamton, to friends at my club later, not any more in confidence than they are related here, and as good-naturedly as their diverting quality rendered appropriate; and the fact that I had done so coming to certain Binghamtonian ears, I was placarded in one of the Binghamton papers as being "no gentleman," "an ungrateful guest," and so on, ad lib., in consequence of which Binghamton and I no longer speak as we pass by.

For this I am sincerely sorry, but none the less must rest content. I do not think I should care to return there even if I were asked, for fear that in pursuance of their system of tribute they might try my courage upon the lineal descendant of that goat above stairs, or possibly upon some actively inclined bull, playfully unleashed in my vicinity as a test of my composure if not of my good manners.

The minor matter of dress is frequently the cause of emergency calls for help from embarrassed lyceumites, and to get out of predicaments in which mistakes of packing under the pressure of hurry place us sometimes taxes our resources to the uttermost. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once told me of an amusing complication along these lines by which he was confronted in a New Jersey community, whither he had gone to dine with and address the students of a famous school.

On his arrival at the scene of action Dr. Doyle, as he was then known, discovered to his dismay that in the hurried packing of his suitcase he had forgotten to put in his evening coat. Everything else was there; but his swallowtail was missing. Now Sir Arthur is not only a distinguished novelist and story writer, but is a particularly punctilious and tactfully courteous gentleman as well; and, having heard stories of other Britons coming to this country and attending functions given in their honor in tweeds, as if we Americans knew nothing of the niceties of dress, was careful always to avoid giving offense himself by similar vagaries. So, rather than seem contemptuous of the conventionalities on this occasion, the doctor pleaded a headache as his excuse for not appearing at dinner, and in the interval of time thus gained transformed his blue serge traveling coat into a perfectly good dinner jacket, or Tuxedo, as some do call it, with properly rolling lapels, by cutting off the buttons and rolling the front of his coat back into a broad lapel effect; pressing the resulting garment into stayable shape by putting it between the mattresses of his bed, and lying on them for an hour.

I cannot say that I have ever found myself master of any such wonderful ingenuity when face to face with a similar predicament; but in Austin, Texas, two years ago I suffered from a condition that for the time being seemed quite as poignantly distressing.

My trunk had been despatched from San Antonio to Houston, and I was "living in my suitcase." With only twenty-five minutes to spare before I was due upon the platform, I found myself without shirt studs, and at the moment without anything at hand to use as an acceptable substitute. A hurried visit to the main street and some of its tributaries divulged nothing in the nature of a haberdashery or a jeweler's shop that had not been closed for the night.

I was in a terrific quandary; but the Only Muse, always a resourceful person, reminded me of Oliver Herford's expedient many years before in using in a similar emergency a set of brass-headed manuscript fasteners. Fortunately I had with me several bits of manuscript that were held together by these useful little contrivances – small pieces of metal with shining brass caps, backed by flexible flanges to hold the caps in place. These were inserted in the buttonholes of my shirt in most satisfactory fashion, and in a few moments as far as externals were concerned I presented as goodly an appearance as any man rejoicing in the effulgent glory of three lustrously golden studs.

With a sigh of relief I then turned to put on my white waistcoat, only to discover, alas! that that too was missing, nor was there any sign anywhere of any other kind of vest that could do duty convincingly, or even acceptably, with a claw-hammer coat. Again I flew precipitately down the stairs, this time to the kindly room clerk in the hotel office. I explained my predicament to him in a few well chosen words, ending up with:

"Haven't you a white vest you can lend me?"

"Certainly I have," said he, and together we repaired to his room in quest of the needed garment. He soon found it, and I returned rejoicing to my room, the treasure hugged tightly to my breast; but when I came to try it on I discovered, what I had overlooked in the agitation of the moment, that as eight is to thirty-two, so was the room clerk's façade to mine! I could get into the vest; but no compressor ever yet invented could so adjust my physical proportions to the garment that it would come within four inches of meeting in front.

"What the deuce am I going to do?" I cried, sinking into a chair in despair.

"Slit it up the back, and I'll pin it on you," suggested the ever-ready Muse.

"But it isn't mine," said I.

"Buy it," said she.

In an instant I had the room clerk on the telephone. "Will you sell me that vest?" I asked.

"Why – no," he said. "I don't want to sell it."

"But I need it in my business," I pleaded.