Showman (1937)

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SHOWMAN Ward McAllister, John Morrisey, the celebrated pugilist-politician-publican. After a month on that job I'd just have yawned at seeing Julius Caesar having a couple of drinks with Alexander the Great. Cleveland almost got me fired off my job early one morning, turning up after getting off a train. "Hello, Willie," he said, "nobody here?" I said, "No, sir." "Then," says he, "I'd like to kill a little time with billiards if you'll play with me." We were hard at it when another member walked in, a mortal enemy of mine named Doyle, who always arrived early in the morning to make sure I wasn't soldiering on the job— which I usually was. He was outraged at the spectacle of the steward playing billiards with a distinguished member, and it was only the distinguished member's spirited defense that saved my neck. It wasn't difficult to get your tail in a crack on that job. One rainy night, when I ran out to hold an umbrella over Chester A. Arthur as he stepped from his cab, he gave me a fivedollar bill. I bragged about it to the club-manager, who insisted on asking the great man if there hadn't been some mistake. "There certainly is," said Mr. Arthur. "That wasn't a tip— it was to get a new umbrella with. The one he has leaks like a sieve." But I didn't miss the five. Smaller tips came along in flocks, and I was branching out into profitable sidelines—rushing copy to newspaper offices, for instance, at four bits a trip. Presently that developed into an informal messenger service between Gilmore's Garden, 24