Evening star., 1915-03-21
SUNDAY MAGAZINE FOR MARCH FL. 1918

"But it isn't mine," said |.
@Buy it," said She
In an instant had the room clerk on the
telephone. "Will you sell me that vest!"
asked
"Why-no,' he said. Il don't want to
sell it..
"But need it in my business" pleaded.
"We]l you've got it, haven't you?'
"Yes, I've got it all right, " replied ;
"bnt / can't get into it 7vithout putting a yard
Of extra 7oidth in the back. Come on-be a
good fellow and sell it to me-" added with
all the pathos that could summon.
"No," he answered with chuckle, "no-
| couldn't sell it to you; but I'H give tito you
7cih all the pleasure in the aorld!"
In this fashion was the emergency met
and l went out before my audience that
night on time in improvised raiment pinned
on to my person, "a thing of shreds and
patches, and blazoning as to my shirtfront
with all the respondent gilt of three brass
tacks, all of which brought vividly to my
mind the words of Antonio, in "'fhe Mer-
chant of Venice"
o, what goodly outside falsehood hath!
TT may seem to the casual observer that
such matters as shirt studs and white
waistcoats are of too slight Importance to
worry speaker; but "whole date" was
/
high silk hat, which caused kindly livery
stable keeper to drive me eighteen miles
from a stranded railway train through a
blizzard to the town of my destination, be-
cause he judged from my hat that avas a
member of a favorite minstrel troupe that 7ras
to perform there the same night. When he
discovered that l was only one of "them
lecture fellers,' for whose free tickets he
had no use, he was terribly disappointed.
Anyhow, an audience likes man to be
wholly himself, and cares little for a speaker
who modifes his dress according to his ideas
of how they wish him to look A popular
and prominent candidate for Governor of
New York once lost large number of votes
that might have elected him because in adj
dressing gathering of workingmen at an
East Side rally the night being insufferably
hot, he took off his coat and collar, and
spoke to them in his shirt sleeves. The men
were deeply offended. They significantly
asked if he would have taken off his coat in
the presence of a fashionable uptown audi
ence, and would have none of his presumed
assumption that they were any less worthy
OF his respect, or careful of their own dignity,
than his so-called smarter, better-class peo-
pie.
have always found the full evening dress
and high collar of an effete civilization wholly
comfortable, and wear them accordingly
wherever | lecture, whether it be in the rare
fed social atmosphere Of high academic cir
cles, or in mining camp where there dwell
possibly rougher, but none the less genuine,
human folk. l think that in the latter en-
vironment indeed it is positive aid to sue
cess to do so; for there can be no doubt that
reduced to it's essentials the evening dress
of the modern male creature is really funny
thing, and in an evening devoted somewhat
to humor any element that is in even the
least degree mirth-provoking does not come
aniss.
Perhaps the most overpowering sense of
being confronted by an emergency came to
me again back in 1898 out of an experience
that turned out to be critical only in my
own imaginings. Most of our troubles are,
l fancy, imaginary,-purel psychological,
as the modern phrase has it,-but while
they are on they are none the less acute for
all that. On the occasion of which | write,
at more than feverish moment in our rela-
tions with Spain and Cuba, was summoned
to lecture at the attractive little port of
Brunswick, Georgia. 1t was here, by the
way, that | first had the pleasure of seeing
my name on hotel bill of fare, which in the
platform world is the height of fame, just as
in the theatrical world it is the acme of dis
tincton for a star to see his name pasted on
an ash barrel, or spread across the hoardings
1,N%f ,C Il