Addressat A dinner after the one
hundredth performance of
“The
taming of the shrew.”
Mr.
Clemens made the following speech, which he incorporated
afterward
in Following the Equator.
I am glad to be here. This is the hardest theatre
in New York to get into, even at the front door.
I never, got in without hard work. I am glad
we have got so far in at last. Two or three years
ago I had an appointment to meet Mr. Daly on the stage
of this theatre at eight o’clock in the evening.
Well, I got on a train at Hartford to come to New
York and keep the appointment. All I had to do
was to come to the back door of the theatre on Sixth
Avenue. I did not believe that; I did not believe
it could be on Sixth Avenue, but that is what Daly’s
note said—come to that door, walk right
in, and keep the appointment. It looked very
easy. It looked easy enough, but I had not much
confidence in the Sixth Avenue door.
Well, I was kind of bored on the train, and I bought
some newspapers—New Haven newspapers—and
there was not much news in them, so I read the advertisements.
There was one advertisement of a bench-show.
I had heard of bench-shows, and I often wondered
what there was about them to interest people.
I had seen bench-shows—lectured to bench-shows,
in fact—but I didn’t want to advertise
them or to brag about them. Well, I read on
a little, and learned that a bench-show was not a bench-show
—but dogs, not benches at all—only
dogs. I began to be interested, and as there
was nothing else to do I read every bit of the advertisement,
and learned that the biggest thing in this show was
a St. Bernard dog that weighed one hundred and forty-five
pounds. Before I got to New York I was so interested
in the bench-shows that I made up my mind to go to
one the first chance I got. Down on Sixth Avenue,
near where that back door might be, I began to take
things leisurely. I did not like to be in too
much of a hurry. There was not anything in sight
that looked like a back door. The nearest approach
to it was a cigar store. So I went in and bought
a cigar, not too expensive, but it cost enough to
pay for any information I might get and leave the dealer
a fair profit. Well, I did not like to be too
abrupt, to make the man think me crazy, by asking
him if that was the way to Daly’s Theatre, so
I started gradually to lead up to the subject, asking
him first if that was the way to Castle Garden.
When I got to the real question, and he said he would
show me the way, I was astonished. He sent me
through a long hallway, and I found myself in a back
yard. Then I went through a long passageway and
into a little room, and there before my eyes was a
big St. Bernard dog lying on a bench. There
was another door beyond and I went there, and was
