MARTIN LEHMAN GOES TO NEW YORK
Martin Lehman is the manager of the Orpheum Theater in Kansas City.
Martin Beck is the general manager of the Orpheum Circuit. Mr. Beck had wired Lehman to come to New York at once. What Mr. Beck said went. So Lehman went.
If there is any one thing on earth that Martin Lehman loves better than another it is _not_ traveling. He is probably the only man on earth who can get seasick anywhere and everywhere. A sprinkling cart will give him symptoms. His son Lawrence says that he always has to stand by and hold his father"s hand when he takes a bath. He always walks to and from the theater because the street car might pa.s.s through a mud puddle and he would get seasick. The next worst thing in the world is a railroad train. He dies twice a mile regularly. _But_--Martin Beck said, "Come at once."
So, with his suit-case full of Green River, Hermitage and other well-known mineral waters, a couple of lemons (who had been playing for Louis Shouse at Convention Hall the previous week), and his Orpheum pa.s.s, poor Lehman boarded the night train for Chicago, hoping for the best but expecting the worst--and getting it.
He got on board early so he could get into his berth before the train started. Lower seven, right in the middle of the car. He placed his bottles of life preservers in the little hammock beside him, punched a little hole in the end of one of the lemons, closed his eyes and said his evening prayer.
The train started. So did his troubles. The train gained headway. Ditto the trouble. But, like his forefathers in far-away Prussia, he fought for freedom. He brought all the strength of his powerful mind to bear.
He tried "The New Thought," "Self-Hypnotism," "Silent Prayer"; he tried every religious belief he could think of except Mormonism. And finally he slept; or died; he was not sure which; and he didn"t mind; he lost consciousness; that was all he cared for.
The next thing he knew somebody was shaking him and telling him to "Change cars!" It seemed that this car had developed a hot box and pa.s.sengers would have to change to the car ahead, taking the same numbered berth in the new car that they had occupied in the first one.
Poor Lehman"s getting up and dressing was absolute proof of the power of mind over matter. But finally, with part of his clothing on his back and the rest over his arm, he managed to stagger into the other car, only to discover that he had lost his berth ticket.
The conductor said that the only thing to do was to wait until the other pa.s.sengers got located, and the berth that was left would naturally be his. It doesn"t take a mind reader to see what he got. Upper number one; right over the wheels: just beside a smoky kerosene lamp.
As in all good novels we will now have a line of stars.
Arriving in Chicago, he varied the misery of the trip by a taxicab trip across the city to catch the New York train: this time drawing lower nine.
"Troubles never come single." In the seat back of him was a woman with a baby. The lady in front of him indulged in perfume of a most violent type. The weather and the porter were warm and humid.
He went up into the smoking room, but some rude drummers were smoking in there so he had to come back to his seat. The lady in front of him said something about people "reeking with tobacco smoke," and took another perfume shower-bath. Then the porter leaned over him to open the window.
So the day pa.s.sed, and the night came; and Lehman went to bed. About two o"clock in the morning the end of the world came. Or so Lehman thought for a moment. It was afterwards discovered that the car he was on had broken a wheel and jumped the track. Upon coming to and taking account of stock, Lehman found that his injuries consisted of one fractured bottle, a dislocated vocabulary and a severe loss of temper.
For the second time on this awful trip he was invited to "change to the car ahead." The first thing he did was to hunt through his clothes for his ticket. No more of that upper number one business for your Uncle Martin! No sir! Having at last found it, he placed it in his mouth, picked up what there was left of his clothes and made his way up ahead to the other car.
"Tickets!" said the conductor.
"You bet!" said Lehman, taking the ticket from his mouth and handing it to the conductor.
The conductor took it, copied the number on to his plan, handed the ticket to the porter and the porter took him in and put him to bed _again_.
Lehman tried to say his evening prayer again, but couldn"t remember it.
While he was thinking it over the door at the ladies" end of the car opened and something came down the aisle. As this "something" came out of the ladies" apartment, it was presumably a woman. But Lehman disputes that fact to this day. She was about six feet long, nine inches wide, all the way, and about the color of a cowhide trunk. Her hair was in curl papers, her teeth in her pocket and her trust in Heaven. Like a grenadier she marched down the aisle until she came to the berth where Lehman was trying to die as painlessly as possible. Upon arriving here she pulled the curtains aside, sat down on the edge of the berth, jabbed Lehman in the stomach with her elbow, and said loudly--
"_Lay over!_"
Lehman groaned, got one look at the female, then placed both feet in the small of her back and shot her out on to the floor, yelling loudly for the police.
The car was in an uproar in an instant. Lehman was lying on his back, shouting "Police!" The female was screaming and hunting for her teeth.
The conductor, the porter and the brakeman came running in to see whether it was a political discussion or just a murder. All the old lady could do was to mumble and hunt for her teeth. A man across the aisle swore that he saw Lehman stab the old lady with a bowie knife and throw her out into the aisle. The woman with the baby corroborated him, excepting that she thought he hit her with a piece of lead pipe.
By this time the old lady had found part of her Fletcherizing outfit and informed the congregation that she was neither struck nor stabbed; but that her husband in the berth there had certainly gone crazy.
There was a sympathetic chorus of "Oh!s" from the other pa.s.sengers and the conductor jerked the curtains aside and asked Lehman what he meant by treating his wife this way.
"_My wife?_" screamed Lehman. "Why you ---- --!$!--&--$&"o$--! Are you calling that old goat face _my wife_?"
"Sure that"s your wife! Don"t you suppose she knows?"
"Well, don"t you suppose _I know_! Do I look as if I would be the husband of anything that looks like _that_?"
The old lady now caught sight of Lehman for the first time.
"Why," she gasped; "that isn"t my husband."
"I know darn well it ain"t," said Lehman.
"Then what are you doing in my berth?" demanded the old lady.
"I am not in your berth!"
"You _are_ in my berth!"
"Let"s see your tickets," said the conductor.
"Here is mine," said the old lady. "Lower seven."
"And here is mine," said Lehman. "Lower seven."
The conductor looked at them closely; then stepped back under a lamp and looked at them closer. Then he handed the old lady"s back to her. Then he turned to Lehman and, handing him his ticket, said,
"That is your yesterday"s ticket from Kansas City to Chicago." Lehman looked at it dazed for a moment, then dressed and went up into the baggage car where he sat on a trunk all the way to New York.
E. M. Chase, a Norfolk (Va.) newspaper man, has for years been collecting newspaper clippings. The following are from some of his rural exchanges:
"The funeral was conducted at the home by the Rev. Mr. Browles and was afterwards buried in the old family burying ground."--_Lebanon (Va.) News._
"Mrs. W. G. Neighbors is suffering with a rising corn on her foot."--_Lebanon News._
"J. N. and Alfred Quillen were grafting in our neighborhood a few days last week."--_Gate City Herald._
"Rev. W. C. Hoover preached an excellent sermon at the Union Chapel on last Sunday, his subject being ent.i.tled, "I go to prepare a place for you." Rev. Hoover and family then spent the rest of the day with Mr.
Luther Armentrout and family."--_Shenendore Valley Newmarket._
"The members of Moore"s Store String Band met Sat.u.r.day evening and rendered some very fine music, as follows: W. E. Lloyd, H. E.
Weatherholtz, V. M. Weatherholtz, B. H. Golliday, C. S. Moore and 26 spectators."--_Shenendore Valley Newmarket._