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166 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
semblance of a smile on our faces, we heard gasps, titters and "Well, I'm damned !'s" from the astonished Oxhey members and I know for a fact that it took "Jock" Anderson, the popular Scottish captain of Oxhey who was in the know of our prank, quite a long time to prevail on the horrified members that I really put down a clean ball after the first shot !
But to revert back to my stage work. As the months went on I began again to think about America and how nice it would be to get back there again and touch some real money. I had kept in correspondence with Will Morris since my return. Every letter I had from him contained a sentence or two about my great success there and a hint that I had only to say the word and he would fix me up for a much longer tour at a salary which would make my earnings at home look like chickenfeed. Then all at once, without even saying he was coming, Will walked into my dressing-room at Liverpool. We shook hands. Will said, "When shall we sail?" I said, "Just as soon as you can prevail on my British .managers to release me — and that'll be never !" But Morris and George Foster between them managed the apparently impossible — at a price ! I forget just how much "consolation money" we had to pay certain managers for their agreement to release me but I remember that the sum made my blood boil and it was only the thought that I would come out all right on balance that induced me to make the trip.
While saying this I must at the same time admit that the call of America was very strong. There is an electrical something in the air of the United States and the great Dominion of Canada which, once it inoculates one's blood, cannot easily be resisted. Perhaps it is the freshness, the vitality, the Spirit of Youth which animates the peoples of the New World. If it is not these things I cannot define the lure — quite apart, believe me, from monetary considerations— America has always had for me. I have been going