Atchoo! Sneezes from a Hilarious Vaudevillian

On a barn-storming crusade with a small show, I remember, at an afternoon rehearsal, the flute player in the orchestra made me nervous by playing off key. After vainly endeavoring to correct the man, I lost my temper and exclaimed:

"Cut out the flute for goodness' sake!"

Thereupon the musician arose with fire in his eye.

"Oh! you want to get rid of the flute, do you?" he asked.

"Yes," I drawled carelessly, "I guess we'll get along all right without your assistance."

"Oh! you will, will you! Well, see here, young fellow, if I don't play the flute, you don't sing that song – and there'll be no show to-night. You understand?"

"Who'll prevent?" I demanded.

"Only the flute," was the answer. "I'm the mayor of this place, I am, and I issue the permits. See?"

And I saw.

On my last whirl around the circuit I went by way of the New York Central.

There was a newly-married couple in our car, and of course lots of us were more or less interested in their carrying-on.

Once the train plunged through a tunnel, and I suppose the newly-made Benedict took advantage of the golden opportunity to kiss his spouse.

"Morris-sinia!" yelled the brakeman as we came to daylight again.

"I don't care if he did," snapped the woman, "we're married."

At our first stop in a bustling town up in York State I was in the box office, when I was addressed by a young man who in hollow tones declared he had heard that to see so great an actor as myself was good for any form of ailment.

"You might help me," the young man declared with labored breathing; "anyway, I'd like to enjoy myself once more before I die. I have consumption, you know. Could you let me have a pass?"

I couldn't help but feel sorry for such a woebegone-looking, hard-luck chap, so I at once wrote him out a pass.

The man took the card, looked at it, coughed even more distressfully than before, and asked:

"Couldn't you make it two? I would like to take a friend."

"Has your friend consumption, too?" I asked, solicitously.

"N – no – not yet," faltered the man.

"Ah! then, I'm afraid I can't accommodate your friend. You see, I never give passes except to persons with the consumption."

Some people think there is little in a name, but I'm a great believer in an attractive title. I could mention scores of reasons for thinking as I do, and you can better believe I'm not alone in this thing.

Passing the Academy of Music a short time ago, one matinee day, I met my friend Shackleford coming out, and the play only half over.

"What is the matter?" I asked; "play bad?"

"No," he replied, "but it is too hot in there; the house is literally packed with women. You see it's the name – 'Ninety and Nine' – that catches them. Why, it's better than an actual horse-race or a locomotive, to draw. They fancy that the admission has been marked down from a dollar and can't resist the bargain."

Whenever I meet Chauncey Billings on Broadway the sparks are sure to fly in the fireworks display of dry wit that passes between us, just as though you struck flint and steel smartly.

The other day he approached, looking very happy, as though anticipating overwhelming me, so being forwarned I prepared to resist boarders.

"My dear Niblo," said he, "you will be surprised to learn I've taken up a new business."

"Indeed, What are you now?" I asked.

"I'm a detective in a pool room."

"What do you do?"

"Oh, I spot balls."

"That's nothing," I remarked, casually, "I used to work in a cheese factory."

"And what did you do?"

"Oh, play baseball."

"What, baseball in a cheese factory, Mr. Niblo!"

"Sure, I used to chase flies. That got tiresome and I went to work in a barber shop."

"What were your duties there?"

"I used to mix lather."

"And what did you mix lather for?"

"Oh, to lather Irishmen and Dutchmen, etc."

"I have a brother who works in an eye hospital," said Chauncey, soberly.

"What does he do?"

"Oh, he makes goo-goo eyes."

"That's nothing, I have a sister who works in a watch factory making faces."

And so we pass the retort discourteous, and exchange pleasantries as only old friends may.

In the Catskill village, where we delight to spend a portion of the heated term and all our hard-earned capital, there is a boarding-house run by an eccentric genius, who knows how to set a good table and never has an empty room through the season, though over the gate leading up to his hotel he has painted a sign that might well cause consternation in the breast of many a would-be sojourner, for it reads:

"Boarders taken by the day, week or month. Those who do not pay promptly will be taken by the neck."

There were some rumors floating around that this remarkable Boniface, as a Christian Science advocate, had been benefited to an astonishing extent in the recovery of his health.