Step Lively! A Carload of the Funniest Yarns that Ever Crossed the Footlights

"Yes," drawled the philanthropist, grinning.

"What right have you to collect money for your wife?" demanded several.

"What right have I to collect money for any other fellow's wife?" was the retort that closed the debate.

I've never ceased to believe that fellow was the nerviest bunco man I ever met.

I traveled down to Coney Island the other day with a friend recently married.

They went to housekeeping, and I suspect the little woman has been bombarding him with all manner of fearful dishes which she insists upon trying.

That's so like my Clara – oh, so like! Did I ever tell you about Clara? Well, I'll sing about her instead. Listen:

My Clara bought a gaudy book,
With colored pictures illustrated:
It teaches her, she says, to cook —
In other things she's educated.
But, oh! she still her bread will burn,
Her steak is hard and she will fry it;
To cook I know she'll never learn,
Why will she try it?

I have a friend who wrote a book —
He means, he says, to write another,
The greatest fortitude it took
To hear it read. I had to smother
Some awful yawns. I'd have to call
The man a silly fool who'd buy it;
But then poor Jones can't write at all,
Why will he try it?

I know a girl who loves to sing
And does so at the least persuasion
Or none at all – an awful thing,
I know by one most sad occasion.
Her voice might have some sort of use
If to saw filing she'd apply it,
But singing! She has no excuse.
Why will she try it?

And so it goes. Most people pant
To do the things they're most unfit for —
To preach – to paint – we know they can't —
And what they can don't care a bit for.
Perhaps we, too, our callings miss,
But tell us so and we'll deny it.
We still will fool with that or this,
Why will we try it?

Good deal of truth there, you'll admit.

But speaking of Coney Island, many's the happy hour I've spent on its historic sands. And perhaps I've done my share at amusing the thousands who throng there on a hot holiday.

Yes, I was the Mikado of the seaside.

That was in the days when I never dreamed I should be standing before so brilliant an audience as I see before me tonight, in such a magnificent theatre, and under the auspices of such a generous-hearted proprietor – that means another fifty per! No, no, it was in the dear, dead days, when the world was young. It makes me weep to think how we fleeced – I mean entertained – those Coney Islanders. We gave a little show on the sands, and we had with us one jolly old actor who only once attempted playing in the legitimate. I was curious about that "once."

When in a confiding mood I confessed that I had heard of his aspirations, he chuckled and admitted that years back, growing disgruntled with amusing people he had boldly essayed the role of Hamlet.

"Well," I remarked, encouragingly, "I suppose the audience called you to come out before the curtain?"

"Called me," he said, soberly, "why, they just dared me!"

Then there was Signor Tossi, the wonderful diver, who for a stipend plunged from an elevated platform into a tank of water.

"See here," I said to him boldly one day, "the danger about this drop isn't much – how have you got the nerve to call it a leap for life?"

"Why, don't I make my living by it? See?"

I guess he was right, don't you?

You can just believe a Coney Island audience doesn't fancy being held up or swindled. But they put up with a good deal of it just the same.

Nor do they have any patience with delays.

Things must hustle right along down there to be popular.

Once this same actor tried to give a scene from Othello, where the filmy handkerchief plays such a part as evidence of Desdemona's amours.

You remember Iago sets up the game on his friend and talks about

"Trifles light as air
Are, to the jealous mind,
Confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ."

Othello demands the handkerchief be produced, and repeats this several times in order to make it more effective.

The audience, or some of them at least, failed to appreciate this repetition, and grew decidedly restless.

At last, when for the third time Othello called for the handkerchief, somebody yelled out.

"Wipe yer nose on yer slaive, ye naygur, and let the play prosade."

Of course you all know that of late years a certain class of women have taken to enjoying man's attire.

Personally I don't like it.

There are some who do.