THE MAKING OF MAC'S
Mac's Restaurant--nobody calls it MacFarland's--is a mystery. It is off
the beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It provides
nothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with all
these things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circles
especially it holds a position which might turn the white lights of
many a supper-palace green with envy.
This is mysterious. You do not expect Soho to compete with and even
eclipse Piccadilly in this way. And when Soho does so compete, there is
generally romance of some kind somewhere in the background.
Somebody happened to mention to me casually that Henry, the old waiter,
had been at Mac's since its foundation.
'Me?' said Henry, questioned during a slack spell in the afternoon.
'Rather!'
'Then can you tell me what it was that first gave the place the impetus
which started it on its upward course? What causes should you say were
responsible for its phenomenal prosperity? What--'
'What gave it a leg-up? Is that what you're trying to get at?'
'Exactly. What gave it a leg-up? Can you tell me?'
'Me?' said Henry. 'Rather!'
And he told me this chapter from the unwritten history of the London
whose day begins when Nature's finishes.
* * * * *
Old Mr MacFarland (_said Henry_) started the place fifteen years
ago. He was a widower with one son and what you might call half a
daughter. That's to say, he had adopted her. Katie was her name, and
she was the child of a dead friend of his. The son's name was Andy. A
little freckled nipper he was when I first knew him--one of those
silent kids that don't say much and have as much obstinacy in them as
if they were mules. Many's the time, in them days, I've clumped him on
the head and told him to do something; and he didn't run yelling to his
pa, same as most kids would have done, but just said nothing and went
on not doing whatever it was I had told him to do. That was the sort of
disposition Andy had, and it grew on him. Why, when he came back from
Oxford College the time the old man sent for him--what I'm going to
tell you about soon--he had a jaw on him like the ram of a battleship.
Katie was the kid for my money. I liked Katie. We all liked Katie.
Old MacFarland started out with two big advantages. One was Jules, and
the Other was me. Jules came from Paris, and he was the greatest cook
you ever seen. And me--well, I was just come from ten years as waiter
at the Guelph, and I won't conceal it from you that I gave the place a
tone. I gave Soho something to think about over its chop, believe me.
It was a come-down in the world for me, maybe, after the Guelph, but
what I said to myself was that, when you get a tip in Soho, it may be
only tuppence, but you keep it; whereas at the Guelph about ninety-nine
hundredths of it goes to helping to maintain some blooming head waiter
in the style to which he has been accustomed. It was through my kind of
harping on that fact that me and the Guelph parted company. The head
waiter complained to the management the day I called him a fat-headed
vampire.
Well, what with me and what with Jules, MacFarland's--it wasn't Mac's
in them days--began to get a move on. Old MacFarland, who knew a good
man when he saw one and always treated me more like a brother than
anything else, used to say to me, 'Henry, if this keeps up, I'll be
able to send the boy to Oxford College'; until one day he changed it
to, 'Henry, I'm going to send the boy to Oxford College'; and next
year, sure enough, off he went.
Katie was sixteen then, and she had just been given the cashier job, as
a treat. She wanted to do something to help the old man, so he put her
on a high chair behind a wire cage with a hole in it, and she gave the
customers their change. And let me tell you, mister, that a man that
wasn't satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Jules
and then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have groused
at Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier every
day. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation in
the girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were.
And he told me to hop it. So I hopped it.
Katie was wild about dancing. Nobody knew it till later, but all this
while, it turned out, she was attending regular one of them schools.
That was where she went to in the afternoons, when we all thought she
was visiting girl friends. It all come out after, but she fooled us
then. Girls are like monkeys when it comes to artfulness. She called me
Uncle Bill, because she said the name Henry always reminded her of cold
mutton. If it had been young Andy that had said it I'd have clumped him
one; but he never said anything like that. Come to think of it, he
never said anything much at all. He just thought a heap without opening
his face.
So young Andy went off to college, and I said to him, 'Now then, you
young devil, you be a credit to us, or I'll fetch you a clip when you
come home.' And Katie said, 'Oh, Andy, I _shall_ miss you.' And
Andy didn't say nothing to me, and he didn't say nothing to Katie, but
he gave her a look, and later in the day I found her crying, and she
said she'd got toothache, and I went round the corner to the chemist's
and brought her something for it.
It was in the middle of Andy's second year at college that the old man
had the stroke which put him out of business. He went down under it as
if he'd been hit with an axe, and the doctor tells him he'll never be
able to leave his bed again.
So they sent for Andy, and he quit his college, and come back to London
to look after the restaurant.
I was sorry for the kid. I told him so in a fatherly kind of way. And
he just looked at me and says, 'Thanks very much, Henry.'
'What must be must be,' I says. 'Maybe, it's all for the best. Maybe
it's better you're here than in among all those young devils in your
Oxford school what might be leading you astray.'
'If you would think less of me and more of your work, Henry,' he says,
'perhaps that gentleman over there wouldn't have to shout sixteen times
for the waiter.'
Which, on looking into it, I found to be the case, and he went away
without giving me no tip, which shows what you lose in a hard world by
being sympathetic.
I'm bound to say that young Andy showed us all jolly quick that he
hadn't come home just to be an ornament about the place. There was
exactly one boss in the restaurant, and it was him. It come a little
hard at first to have to be respectful to a kid whose head you had
spent many a happy hour clumping for his own good in the past; but he
pretty soon showed me I could do it if I tried, and I done it. As for
Jules and the two young fellers that had been taken on to help me owing
to increase of business, they would jump through hoops and roll over if
he just looked at them. He was a boy who liked his own way, was Andy,
and, believe me, at MacFarland's Restaurant he got it.
And then, when things had settled down into a steady jog, Katie took
the bit in her teeth.
She done it quite quiet and unexpected one afternoon when there was
only me and her and Andy in the place. And I don't think either of them
knew I was there, for I was taking an easy on a chair at the back,
reading an evening paper.
She said, kind of quiet, 'Oh, Andy.'
'Yes, darling,' he said.
And that was the first I knew that there was anything between them.
'Andy, I've something to tell you.'
'What is it?'
She kind of hesitated.
'Andy, dear, I shan't be able to help any more in the restaurant.'
He looked at her, sort of surprised.
'What do you mean?'
'I'm--I'm going on the stage.'
I put down my paper. What do you mean? Did I listen? Of course I
listened. What do you take me for?
From where I sat I could see young Andy's face, and I didn't need any
more to tell me there was going to be trouble. That jaw of his was
right out. I forgot to tell you that the old man had died, poor old
feller, maybe six months before, so that now Andy was the real boss
instead of just acting boss; and what's more, in the nature of things,
he was, in a manner of speaking, Katie's guardian, with power to tell
her what she could do and what she couldn't. And I felt that Katie
wasn't going to have any smooth passage with this stage business which
she was giving him. Andy didn't hold with the stage--not with any girl
he was fond of being on it anyway. And when Andy didn't like a thing he
said so.
He said so now.
'You aren't going to do anything of the sort.'
'Don't be horrid about it, Andy dear. I've got a big chance. Why should
you be horrid about it?'
'I'm not going to argue about it. You don't go.'
'But it's such a big chance. And I've been working for it for years.'
'How do you mean working for it?'
And then it came out about this dancing-school she'd been attending
regular.
When she'd finished telling him about it, he just shoved out his jaw
another inch.
'You aren't going on the stage.'
'But it's such a chance. I saw Mr Mandelbaum yesterday, and he saw me
dance, and he was very pleased, and said he would give me a solo dance
to do in this new piece he's putting on.'
'You aren't going on the stage.'
What I always say is, you can't beat tact. If you're smooth and tactful
you can get folks to do anything you want; but if you just shove your
jaw out at them, and order them about, why, then they get their backs
up and sauce you. I knew Katie well enough to know that she would do
anything for Andy, if he asked her properly; but she wasn't going to
stand this sort of thing. But you couldn't drive that into the head of
a feller like young Andy with a steam-hammer.
She flared up, quick, as if she couldn't hold herself in no longer.
'I certainly am,' she said.
'You know what it means?'
'What does it mean?'
'The end of--everything.'
She kind of blinked as if he'd hit her, then she chucks her chin up.
'Very well,' she says. 'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye,' says Andy, the pig-headed young mule; and she walks out one
way and he walks out another.
* * * * *
I don't follow the drama much as a general rule, but seeing that it was
now, so to speak, in the family, I did keep an eye open for the
newspaper notices of 'The Rose Girl', which was the name of the piece
which Mr Mandelbaum was letting Katie do a solo dance in; and while
some of them cussed the play considerable, they all gave Katie a nice
word. One feller said that she was like cold water on the morning
after, which is high praise coming from a newspaper man.
There wasn't a doubt about it. She was a success. You see, she was
something new, and London always sits up and takes notice when you give
it that.
There were pictures of her in the papers, and one evening paper had a
piece about 'How I Preserve My Youth' signed by her. I cut it out and
showed it to Andy.
He gave it a look. Then he gave me a look, and I didn't like his eye.
'Well?' he says.
'Pardon,' I says.
'What about it?' he says.
'I don't know,' I says.
'Get back to your work,' he says.
So I got back.
It was that same night that the queer thing happened.
We didn't do much in the supper line at MacFarland's as a rule in them
days, but we kept open, of course, in case Soho should take it into its
head to treat itself to a welsh rabbit before going to bed; so all
hands was on deck, ready for the call if it should come, at half past
eleven that night; but we weren't what you might term sanguine.
Well, just on the half-hour, up drives a taxicab, and in comes a party
of four. There was a nut, another nut, a girl, and another girl. And
the second girl was Katie.
'Hallo, Uncle Bill!' she says.
'Good evening, madam,' I says dignified, being on duty.
'Oh, stop it, Uncle Bill,' she says. 'Say "Hallo!" to a pal, and smile
prettily, or I'll tell them about the time you went to the White City.'
Well, there's some bygones that are best left bygones, and the night at
the White City what she was alluding to was one of them. I still
maintain, as I always shall maintain, that the constable had no right
to--but, there, it's a story that wouldn't interest you. And, anyway,
I was glad to see Katie again, so I give her a smile.
'Not so much of it,' I says. 'Not so much of it. I'm glad to see you,
Katie.'
'Three cheers! Jimmy, I want to introduce you to my friend, Uncle Bill.
Ted, this is Uncle Bill. Violet, this is Uncle Bill.'
If wasn't my place to fetch her one on the side of the head, but I'd of
liked to have; for she was acting like she'd never used to act when I
knew her--all tough and bold. Then it come to me that she was nervous.
And natural, too, seeing young Andy might pop out any moment.
And sure enough out he popped from the back room at that very instant.
Katie looked at him, and he looked at Katie, and I seen his face get
kind of hard; but he didn't say a word. And presently he went out
again.
I heard Katie breathe sort of deep.
'He's looking well, Uncle Bill, ain't he?' she says to me, very soft.
'Pretty fair,' I says. 'Well, kid, I been reading the pieces in the
papers. You've knocked 'em.'
'Ah, don't Bill,' she says, as if I'd hurt her. And me meaning only to
say the civil thing. Girls are rum.
When the party had paid their bill and give me a tip which made me
think I was back at the Guelph again--only there weren't any Dick
Turpin of a head waiter standing by for his share--they hopped it. But
Katie hung back and had a word with me.
'He _was_ looking well, wasn't he, Uncle Bill?'
'Rather!'
'Does--does he ever speak of me?'
'I ain't heard him.'
'I suppose he's still pretty angry with me, isn't he, Uncle Bill?
You're sure you've never heard him speak of me?'
So, to cheer her up, I tells her about the piece in the paper I showed
him; but it didn't seem to cheer her up any. And she goes out.
The very next night in she come again for supper, but with different
nuts and different girls. There was six of them this time, counting
her. And they'd hardly sat down at their table, when in come the
fellers she had called Jimmy and Ted with two girls. And they sat
eating of their suppers and chaffing one another across the floor, all
as pleasant and sociable as you please.
'I say, Katie,' I heard one of the nuts say, 'you were right. He's
worth the price of admission.'
I don't know who they meant, but they all laughed. And every now and
again I'd hear them praising the food, which I don't wonder at, for
Jules had certainly done himself proud. All artistic temperament, these
Frenchmen are. The moment I told him we had company, so to speak, he
blossomed like a flower does when you put it in water.
'Ah, see, at last!' he says, trying to grab me and kiss me. 'Our fame
has gone abroad in the world which amuses himself, ain't it? For a good
supper connexion I have always prayed, and he has arrived.'
Well, it did begin to look as if he was right. Ten high-class
supper-folk in an evening was pretty hot stuff for MacFarland's. I'm
bound to say I got excited myself. I can't deny that I missed the
Guelph at times.
On the fifth night, when the place was fairly packed and looked for all
the world like Oddy's or Romano's, and me and the two young fellers
helping me was working double tides, I suddenly understood, and I went
up to Katie and, bending over her very respectful with a bottle, I
whispers, 'Hot stuff, kid. This is a jolly fine boom you're working for
the old place.' And by the way she smiled back at me, I seen I had
guessed right.
Andy was hanging round, keeping an eye on things, as he always done,
and I says to him, when I was passing, 'She's doing us proud, bucking
up the old place, ain't she?' And he says, 'Get on with your work.' And
I got on.
Katie hung back at the door, when she was on her way out, and had a
word with me.
'Has he said anything about me, Uncle Bill?'
'Not a word,' I says.
And she goes out.
You've probably noticed about London, mister, that a flock of sheep
isn't in it with the nuts, the way they all troop on each other's heels
to supper-places. One month they're all going to one place, next month
to another. Someone in the push starts the cry that he's found a new
place, and off they all go to try it. The trouble with most of the
places is that once they've got the custom they think it's going to
keep on coming and all they've got to do is to lean back and watch it
come. Popularity comes in at the door, and good food and good service
flies out at the window. We wasn't going to have any of that at
MacFarland's. Even if it hadn't been that Andy would have come down
like half a ton of bricks on the first sign of slackness, Jules and me
both of us had our professional reputations to keep up. I didn't give
myself no airs when I seen things coming our way. I worked all the
harder, and I seen to it that the four young fellers under me--there
was four now--didn't lose no time fetching of the orders.
The consequence was that the difference between us and most popular
restaurants was that we kept our popularity. We fed them well, and we
served them well; and once the thing had started rolling it didn't
stop. Soho isn't so very far away from the centre of things, when you
come to look at it, and they didn't mind the extra step, seeing that
there was something good at the end of it. So we got our popularity,
and we kept our popularity; and we've got it to this day. That's how
MacFarland's came to be what it is, mister.
* * * * *
With the air of one who has told a well-rounded tale, Henry ceased, and
observed that it was wonderful the way Mr Woodward, of Chelsea,
preserved his skill in spite of his advanced years.
I stared at him.
'But, heavens, man!' I cried, 'you surely don't think you've finished?
What about Katie and Andy? What happened to them? Did they ever come
together again?'
'Oh, ah,' said Henry, 'I was forgetting!'
And he resumed.
* * * * *
As time went on, I begin to get pretty fed up with young Andy. He was
making a fortune as fast as any feller could out of the sudden boom in
the supper-custom, and he knowing perfectly well that if it hadn't of
been for Katie there wouldn't of been any supper-custom at all; and
you'd of thought that anyone claiming to be a human being would have
had the gratitood to forgive and forget and go over and say a civil
word to Katie when she come in. But no, he just hung round looking
black at all of them; and one night he goes and fairly does it.
The place was full that night, and Katie was there, and the piano
going, and everybody enjoying themselves, when the young feller at the
piano struck up the tune what Katie danced to in the show. Catchy tune
it was. 'Lum-tum-tum, tiddle-iddle-um.' Something like that it went.
Well, the young feller struck up with it, and everybody begin clapping
and hammering on the tables and hollering to Katie to get up and dance;
which she done, in an open space in the middle, and she hadn't hardly
started when along come young Andy.
He goes up to her, all jaw, and I seen something that wanted dusting on
the table next to 'em, so I went up and began dusting it, so by good
luck I happened to hear the whole thing.
He says to her, very quiet, 'You can't do that here. What do you think
this place is?'
And she says to him, 'Oh, Andy!'
'I'm very much obliged to you,' he says, 'for all the trouble you
seem to be taking, but it isn't necessary. MacFarland's got on very
well before your well-meant efforts to turn it into a bear-garden.'
And him coining the money from the supper-custom! Sometimes I
think gratitood's a thing of the past and this world not fit for
a self-respecting rattlesnake to live in.
'Andy!' she says.
'That's all. We needn't argue about it. If you want to come here and
have supper, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to have the place
turned into a night-club.'
I don't know when I've heard anything like it. If it hadn't of been
that I hadn't of got the nerve, I'd have give him a look.
Katie didn't say another word, but just went back to her table.
But the episode, as they say, wasn't conclooded. As soon as the party
she was with seen that she was through dancing, they begin to kick up a
row; and one young nut with about an inch and a quarter of forehead and
the same amount of chin kicked it up especial.
'No, I say! I say, you know!' he hollered. 'That's too bad, you know.
Encore! Don't stop. Encore!'
Andy goes up to him.
'I must ask you, please, not to make so much noise,' he says, quite
respectful. 'You are disturbing people.'
'Disturbing be damned! Why shouldn't she--'
'One moment. You can make all the noise you please out in the street,
but as long as you stay in here you'll be quiet. Do you understand?'
Up jumps the nut. He'd had quite enough to drink. I know, because I'd
been serving him.
'Who the devil are you?' he says.
'Sit down,' says Andy.
And the young feller took a smack at him. And the next moment Andy had
him by the collar and was chucking him out in a way that would have
done credit to a real professional down Whitechapel way. He dumped him
on the pavement as neat as you please.
That broke up the party.
You can never tell with restaurants. What kills one makes another. I've
no doubt that if we had chucked out a good customer from the Guelph
that would have been the end of the place. But it only seemed to do
MacFarland's good. I guess it gave just that touch to the place which
made the nuts think that this was real Bohemia. Come to think of it, it
does give a kind of charm to a place, if you feel that at any moment
the feller at the next table to you may be gathered up by the slack of
his trousers and slung into the street.
Anyhow, that's the way our supper-custom seemed to look at it; and
after that you had to book a table in advance if you wanted to eat with
us. They fairly flocked to the place.
But Katie didn't. She didn't flock. She stayed away. And no wonder,
after Andy behaving so bad. I'd of spoke to him about it, only he
wasn't the kind of feller you do speak to about things.
One day I says to him to cheer him up, 'What price this restaurant now,
Mr Andy?'
'Curse the restaurant,' he says.
And him with all that supper-custom! It's a rum world!
Mister, have you ever had a real shock--something that came out of
nowhere and just knocked you flat? I have, and I'm going to tell you
about it.
When a man gets to be my age, and has a job of work which keeps him
busy till it's time for him to go to bed, he gets into the habit of not
doing much worrying about anything that ain't shoved right under his
nose. That's why, about now, Katie had kind of slipped my mind. It
wasn't that I wasn't fond of the kid, but I'd got so much to think
about, what with having four young fellers under me and things being in
such a rush at the restaurant that, if I thought of her at all, I just
took it for granted that she was getting along all right, and didn't
bother. To be sure we hadn't seen nothing of her at MacFarland's since
the night when Andy bounced her pal with the small size in foreheads,
but that didn't worry me. If I'd been her, I'd have stopped away the
same as she done, seeing that young Andy still had his hump. I took it
for granted, as I'm telling you, that she was all right, and that the
reason we didn't see nothing of her was that she was taking her
patronage elsewhere.
And then, one evening, which happened to be my evening off, I got a
letter, and for ten minutes after I read it I was knocked flat.
You get to believe in fate when you get to be my age, and fate certainly
had taken a hand in this game. If it hadn't of been my evening off,
don't you see, I wouldn't have got home till one o'clock or past that
in the morning, being on duty. Whereas, seeing it was my evening off,
I was back at half past eight.
I was living at the same boarding-house in Bloomsbury what I'd lived at
for the past ten years, and when I got there I find her letter shoved
half under my door.
I can tell you every word of it. This is how it went:
_Darling Uncle Bill,_
_Don't be too sorry when you read this. It is nobody's fault,
but I am just tired of everything, and I want to end it all. You
have been such a dear to me always that I want you to be good to
me now. I should not like Andy to know the truth, so I want you
to make it seem as if it had happened naturally. You will do this
for me, won't you? It will be quite easy. By the time you get this,
it will be one, and it will all be over, and you can just come up
and open the window and let the gas out and then everyone will
think I just died naturally. It will be quite easy. I am leaving
the door unlocked so that you can get in. I am in the room just
above yours. I took it yesterday, so as to be near you. Good-bye,
Uncle Bill. You will do it for me, won't you? I don't want Andy to
know what it really was._
KATIE
That was it, mister, and I tell you it floored me. And then it come to
me, kind of as a new idea, that I'd best do something pretty soon, and
up the stairs I went quick.
There she was, on the bed, with her eyes closed, and the gas just
beginning to get bad.
As I come in, she jumped up, and stood staring at me. I went to the
tap, and turned the flow off, and then I gives her a look.
'Now then,' I says.
'How did you get here?'
'Never mind how I got here. What have you got to say for yourself?'
She just began to cry, same as she used to when she was a kid and
someone had hurt her.
'Here,' I says, 'let's get along out of here, and go where there's some
air to breathe. Don't you take on so. You come along out and tell me
all about it.'
She started to walk to where I was, and suddenly I seen she was
limping. So I gave her a hand down to my room, and set her on a chair.
'Now then,' I says again.
'Don't be angry with me, Uncle Bill,' she says.
And she looks at me so pitiful that I goes up to her and puts my arm
round her and pats her on the back.
'Don't you worry, dearie,' I says, 'nobody ain't going to be angry with
you. But, for goodness' sake,' I says, 'tell a man why in the name of
goodness you ever took and acted so foolish.'
'I wanted to end it all.'
'But why?'
She burst out a-crying again, like a kid.
'Didn't you read about it in the paper, Uncle Bill?'
'Read about what in the paper?'
'My accident. I broke my ankle at rehearsal ever so long ago, practising
my new dance. The doctors say it will never be right again. I shall
never be able to dance any more. I shall always limp. I shan't even be
able to walk properly. And when I thought of that ... and Andy ... and
everything ... I....'
I got on to my feet.
'Well, well, well,' I says. 'Well, well, well! I don't know as I blame
you. But don't you do it. It's a mug's game. Look here, if I leave you
alone for half an hour, you won't go trying it on again? Promise.'
'Very well, Uncle Bill. Where are you going?'
'Oh, just out. I'll be back soon. You sit there and rest yourself.'
It didn't take me ten minutes to get to the restaurant in a cab. I
found Andy in the back room.
'What's the matter, Henry?' he says.
'Take a look at this,' I says.
There's always this risk, mister, in being the Andy type of feller what
must have his own way and goes straight ahead and has it; and that is
that when trouble does come to him, it comes with a rush. It sometimes
seems to me that in this life we've all got to have trouble sooner or
later, and some of us gets it bit by bit, spread out thin, so to speak,
and a few of us gets it in a lump--_biff_! And that was what
happened to Andy, and what I knew was going to happen when I showed him
that letter. I nearly says to him, 'Brace up, young feller, because
this is where you get it.'
I don't often go to the theatre, but when I do I like one of those
plays with some ginger in them which the papers generally cuss. The
papers say that real human beings don't carry on in that way. Take it
from me, mister, they do. I seen a feller on the stage read a letter
once which didn't just suit him; and he gasped and rolled his eyes and
tried to say something and couldn't, and had to get a hold on a chair
to keep him from falling. There was a piece in the paper saying that
this was all wrong, and that he wouldn't of done them things in real
life. Believe me, the paper was wrong. There wasn't a thing that feller
did that Andy didn't do when he read that letter.
'God!' he says. 'Is she ... She isn't.... Were you in time?' he says.
And he looks at me, and I seen that he had got it in the neck, right
enough.
'If you mean is she dead,' I says, 'no, she ain't dead.'
'Thank God!'
'Not yet,' I says.
And the next moment we was out of that room and in the cab and moving
quick.
He was never much of a talker, wasn't Andy, and he didn't chat in that
cab. He didn't say a word till we was going up the stairs.
'Where?' he says.
'Here,' I says.
And I opens the door.
Katie was standing looking out of the window. She turned as the door
opened, and then she saw Andy. Her lips parted, as if she was going to
say something, but she didn't say nothing. And Andy, he didn't say
nothing, neither. He just looked, and she just looked.
And then he sort of stumbles across the room, and goes down on his
knees, and gets his arms around her.
'Oh, my kid' he says.
* * * * *
And I seen I wasn't wanted, so I shut the door, and I hopped it. I went
and saw the last half of a music-hall. But, I don't know, it didn't
kind of have no fascination for me. You've got to give your mind to it
to appreciate good music-hall turns.
