‘Well,’ he said, smiling cynically, ‘you want a raise and the theatre circuits want a cut.’ He shrugged. ‘Since the fiasco at the Oxford Music Hall, we’ve had nothing but complaints. They say the company’s not up to the mark – a scratch crowd.’*
‘Well, they can hardly blame me for that,’ I said.
‘But they do,’ he answered, pinning me with a steady gaze.
‘What do they complain about?’ I asked.
He cleared his throat and looked at the floor. ‘They say you’re not competent.’
Although the remark hit me in the pit of the stomach, it also infuriated me, but I replied calmly: ‘Well, other people don’t think so, and they’re willing to give me more than I’m getting here.’ This was not true – I had no other offer.
‘They say the show is awful and the comedian’s no good. Here,’ he said, picking up the phone, ‘I’ll call up the Star, Bermondsey, and you can hear for yourself… I understand you did poor business last week,’ he said over the phone.
‘Lousy!’ came a voice.
Karno grinned. ‘How do you account for it?’
‘A dud show!’
‘What about Chaplin, the principal comedian? Wasn’t he any good?’
‘He stinks!’ said the voice.
Karno offered me the phone and grinned. ‘Listen for yourself.’
I took the phone. ‘Maybe he stinks, but not half as much as your stink-pot theatre!’ I said.
Karno’s attempt to cut me down was not a success. I told him that if he also felt that way there was no need to renew my contract. Karno in many ways was a shrewd man, but he was not a psychologist. Even if I did stink it wasn’t good business of Karno to have a man at the other end of the phone tell me so. I was getting five pounds and, although my confidence was low, I demanded six. To my surprise Karno gave it to me, and again I entered his good graces.
*
Alf Reeves, the manager of Karno’s American company, returned to England and rumour had it that he was looking for a principal comedian to take back with him to the States.
Since my major setback at the Oxford Music Hall, I was full of the idea of going to America, not alone for the thrill and adventure of it, but because it would mean renewed hope, a new beginning in a new world. Fortunately Skating, one of our new sketches in which I was the leading comedian, was going over with great success in Birmingham and when Mr Reeves joined our company there I pinned on as much charm as I could; with the result that Reeves wired Karno that he had found his comedian for the States. But Karno had other plans for me. This sickening fact left me in doubt for several weeks until he became interested in a sketch called The Wow-wows. It was a burlesque on initiating a member into a secret society. Reeves and I thought the show silly, fatuous and without merit. But Karno was obsessed with the idea and insisted that America was full of secret societies and that a burlesque on them would be a great success there, so to my happy relief and excitement, Karno chose me to play the principal part in The Wow-wows for America.
This chance to go to the United States was what I needed. In England I felt I had reached the limit of my prospects; besides, my opportunities there were circumscribed. With scant educational background, if I failed as a music-hall comedian I would have little chance but to do menial work. In the States the prospects were brighter.
The night before sailing, I walked about the West End of London, pausing at Leicester Square, Coventry Street, the Mall and Piccadilly, with the wistful feeling that it would be the last time I would see London, for I had made up my mind to settle permanently in America. I walked until two in the morning, wallowing in the poetry of deserted streets and my own sadness.
I loathed saying good-bye. Whatever one feels about parting from relations and friends, to be seen off by them only rubs it in. I was up at six in the morning. Therefore, I did not bother to wake Sydney, but left a note on the table stating: ‘Off to America. Will keep you posted. Love, Charlie.’
eight
WE were twelve days on the high seas in terrible weather, bound for Quebec. For three days we lay to with a broken rudder. Nevertheless, my heart was light and gay at the thought of going to another land. We travelled via Canada on a cattle boat, and although there were no cattle aboard there were plenty of rats and they perched arrogantly at the foot of my bunk until I threw a shoe at them.
It was the beginning of September and we passed Newfoundland in a fog. At last we sighted the mainland. It was a drizzling day, and the banks of the St Lawrence River looked desolate. Quebec from the boat looked like the ramparts where Hamlet’s ghost might have walked, and I began to wonder about the States.
But as we travelled on to Toronto, the country became increasingly beautiful in autumnal colours and I became more hopeful. In Toronto we changed trains and went through the American Immigration. At ten o’clock on a Sunday morning we at last arrived in New York. When we got off the street-car at Times Square, it was somewhat of a let-down. Newspapers were blowing about the road and pavement, and Broadway looked seedy, like a slovenly woman just out of bed. On almost every street corner there were elevated chairs with shoe-lasts sticking up and people sitting comfortably in shirt-sleeves getting their shoes shined. They gave one the impression of finishing their toilet on the street. Many looked like strangers, standing aimlessly about the
