Idle Ideas in 1905 | Page 6

Dash and--"
The butler did not wait for more--he was a youngish man--but shouted
out:
"Mr. and Mrs. Dash."
"My dear! how very quiet you have kept!" cried our hostess delighted.
"Do let me congratulate you."
The crush was too great and our hostess too distracted at the moment
for any explanations. We were swept away, and both of us spent the
remainder of the evening feebly protesting our singleness.
If it had happened on the stage it would have taken us the whole play to
get out of it. Stage people are not allowed to put things right when
mistakes are made with their identity. If the light comedian is expecting
a plumber, the first man that comes into the drawing-room has got to be
a plumber. He is not allowed to point out that he never was a plumber;
that he doesn't look like a plumber; that no one not an idiot would
mistake him for a plumber. He has got to be shut up in the bath-room
and have water poured over him, just as if he were a plumber--a stage
plumber, that is. Not till right away at the end of the last act is he
permitted to remark that he happens to be the new curate.
I sat out a play once at which most people laughed. It made me sad. A
dear old lady entered towards the end of the first act. We knew she was
the aunt. Nobody can possibly mistake the stage aunt--except the
people on the stage. They, of course, mistook her for a circus rider, and
shut her up in a cupboard. It is what cupboards seem to be reserved for

on the stage. Nothing is ever put in them excepting the hero's relations.
When she wasn't in the cupboard she was in a clothes basket, or tied up
in a curtain. All she need have done was to hold on to something while
remarking to the hero:
"If you'll stop shouting and jumping about for just ten seconds, and
give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from
Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can be avoided."
That would have ended it. As a matter of fact that did end it five
minutes past eleven. It hadn't occurred to her to say it before.
In real life I never knew but of one case where a man suffered in
silence unpleasantness he could have ended with a word; and that was
the case of the late Corney Grain. He had been engaged to give his
entertainment at a country house. The lady was a nouvelle riche of
snobbish instincts. She left instructions that Corney Grain when he
arrived was to dine with the servants. The butler, who knew better,
apologised; but Corney was a man not easily disconcerted. He dined
well, and after dinner rose and addressed the assembled company.
"Well, now, my good friends," said Corney, "if we have all finished,
and if you are all agreeable, I shall be pleased to present to you my
little show."
The servants cheered. The piano was dispensed with. Corney contrived
to amuse his audience very well for half-an-hour without it. At ten
o'clock came down a message: Would Mr. Corney Grain come up into
the drawing-room. Corney went. The company in the drawing- room
were waiting, seated.
"We are ready, Mr. Grain," remarked the hostess.
"Ready for what?" demanded Corney.
"For your entertainment," answered the hostess.
"But I have given it already," explained Corney; "and my engagement
was for one performance only."
"Given it! Where? When?"
"An hour ago, downstairs."
"But this is nonsense," exclaimed the hostess.
"It seemed to me somewhat unusual," Corney replied; "but it has
always been my privilege to dine with the company I am asked to
entertain. I took it you had arranged a little treat for the servants."
And Corney left to catch his train.

Another entertainer told me the following story, although a joke against
himself. He and Corney Grain were sharing a cottage on the river. A
man called early one morning to discuss affairs, and was talking to
Corney in the parlour, which was on the ground floor. The window was
open. The other entertainer--the man who told me the story--was
dressing in the room above. Thinking he recognised the voice of the
visitor below, he leant out of his bedroom window to hear better. He
leant too far, and dived head foremost into a bed of flowers, his bare
legs--and only his bare legs--showing through the open window of the
parlour.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the visitor, turning at the moment and
seeing a pair of wriggling legs above the window sill; "who's that?"
Corney fixed his eyeglass and strolled to the window.
"Oh, it's only What's-his-name," he explained. "Wonderful spirits.