Roamin’ in the gloamin’ (1928)

128 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' sonal characteristics in acquiring and husbanding "the bawbees" ! At first I resented them, then I tolerated them, afterwards I began to invent them myself and encouraged other people to invent them. They made up a battery of the very finest free advertisements any stage personality could have wished for! Yes, all the "Harry Lauder stories" that have winged their way round the globe during the past thirty years have only had the effect of putting more siller into my pouch. Indeed, if I go for a week or two without hearing a new one, or an old one revarnished, I think there must be something wrong with my unpaid publicity staff. But I am wandering, as many of the old Scottish ministers used to do when they became all heated up with their pulpit fervour. Times and customs in the variety world of London have changed since the days I "worked" three and four halls a night for seven pounds a "turn." Nowadays it is the exception for an accepted "star" to play more than one house. Twenty years ago, however, every leading artiste made one West-end appearance per night and filled in the rest of the evening by visiting two, three, or even four suburban halls. Before the days of motor-cars the "top-liner" had a privately hired cab or two-horse brougham to take him or her to the different places of entertainment. It was often touch and go as to whether the driver could make the grade, as my American friends say, between halls widely separated, and often an earlier "turn" had to hold the fort until the belated arrival of the star. Sometimes the latter did not arrive at all but this did not happen often — a tribute to the driving capacities of the old London cabbies. When I bought my first motor-car, a small coupe driven by an engine that "chugged" like a locomotive, Tom was able to take me all over London and its suburbs without ever missing a turn by more than a minute or two. We often played four halls a night, two of them twice