‘No,’ I laughed, ‘I think I’ll leave well enough alone.’
In Salt Lake City, the newspapers were full of hold-ups and bank robberies. Customers in night-clubs and cafés were being lined up against the wall and robbed by masked bandits with stockings over their faces. There were three robberies in one night and they were terrorizing the whole city.
After the show we usually went to a nearby saloon for a drink, occasionally getting acquainted with the customers. One evening a fat, jovial round-faced man came in with two other men. The fat one, the oldest of the three, came over. ‘Aren’t you fellows playing the Empress in that English act?’
We nodded smilingly.
‘I thought I recognized you! Hey, fellows! Come on over.’ He hailed his two companions and after introducing them asked us to have a drink.
The fat one was an Englishman, although little trace of the accent was left; a man about fifty, good-natured, with small twinkling eyes and a florid face.
As the night wore on his two friends and members of our company drifted away from us towards the bar, and I found myself alone with ‘Fat’, as his young friends called him.
He became confidential. ‘I was back in the old country three years ago,’ he said, ‘but it ain’t the same – this here’s the place. Came here thirty years ago, a sucker, working my arse off in them Montana copperfields – then I got wise to myself. “That’s a mug’s game,” I says. Now I’ve got chumps working for me.’ He pulled out an enormous wad of bills. ‘Let’s have another drink.’
‘Be careful,’ I said, jokingly. ‘You might get held up!’
He looked at me with a most evil, knowing smile, then winked. ‘Not this baby!’
A terrifying feeling came over me after that wink. It had implied a great deal. He continued smiling, without taking his eyes from me. ‘Catch on?’ he said.
I nodded wisely.
Then he spoke confidentially, bringing his face close to my ear. ‘See those two guys?’ he whispered, referring to his friends. ‘That’s my outfit, two dumb clucks – no brains but plenty O’ guts.’
I put a finger to my lips cautiously, indicating that he might be overheard.
‘We’re O.K., brother, we’re shipping out tonight.’ He continued: ‘Listen, we’re limeys, ain’t we – from the old smoke? I seen you at the Islington Empire many a time, falling in and out of that box.’ He grimaced. ‘That’s a tough racket, brother.’
I laughed.
As he grew more confidential, he wanted to make a lifelong friend of me and to know my address in New York. ‘I’ll drop you a line just for old times’ sake,’ he said. Fortunately, I never heard from him again.
nine
I WAS not too upset at leaving the States, for I had made up my mind to return; how or when I did not know. Nevertheless, I looked forward to returning to London and our comfortable little flat. Since I had toured the States it had become a sort of shrine.
I had not heard from Sydney in a long time. His last letter stated that Grandfather was living in the flat. But on my arrival in London, Sydney met me at the station and told me that he had given up the flat, that he had married and was living in furnished rooms along the Brixton Road. This was a severe blow to me – to think that that cheerful little haven that had given substance to my sense of living, a pride in a home, was no more.… I was homeless. I rented a back room in the Brixton Road. It was so dismal that I resolved to return to the United States as soon as possible. That first night, London seemed as indifferent to my return as an empty slot machine when one had put a coin in it.
As Sydney was married and working every evening, I saw little of him; but on Sunday we both went to see Mother. It was a depressing day, for she was not well. She had just got over an obstreperous phase of singing hymns, and had been confined to a padded room. The nurse had warned us of this beforehand. Sydney saw her, but I had not the courage, so I waited. He came back upset, and said that she had been given shock treatment of icy cold showers and that her face was quite blue. This made us decide to put her into a private institution – we could afford it now – so we had her transferred to the same institution in which England’s great comedian, the late Dan Leno, had been confined.
Each day I felt more of a nondescript and completely uprooted. I suppose had I returned to our little flat, my feelings might have been different. Naturally, gloom did not completely take over. Familiarity, custom and my kinship with England were deeply moving to me after arriving from the States. It was an ideal English summer and its romantic loveliness was unlike anything I had known elsewhere.
Mr Karno, the boss, invited me down to Tagg’s Island for a week-end on his house-boat. It was rather an elaborate affair, with mahogany panelling and state-rooms for guests. At night it was lit up with festoons of coloured lights all round the boat, gay and charming, I thought. It was a beautiful warm evening, and after dinner we sat out on the upper deck under the
