story-teller, imitator of celebrated people, and of sleight-of-hand performer, all without the aid of costumes, depending solely on my facial expression to give point to the humor. Nature had certainly tried to make amends for her frowns by giving me facial power,—the power to smile away dull care. There is a niche in life for everyone, a place where one belongs. Society is like a pack of cards. Some members of it are kings and others are knaves, while I,—I discovered that I was the little joker.”

Mr. Wilder is a bubbling fountain of wit, whose whimsicalities are no less entertaining to himself than to his hearers. As he quaintly expresses it, they are “ripples from the ocean of my moods which have touched the shore of my life.” His disposition is so cheery that children and dogs come to him instantly. Eugene Field has the same trait.

HOW HE TOOK JOSEPH JEFFERSON’S LIFE.

His first appearance on any stage was made in “Rip Van Winkle,” when he was a boy. Joseph Jefferson carried him on his back as a dwarf. The great “Rip” has remained his steadfast friend ever since. Only a few years ago, Wilder left New York to fulfil a church entertainment engagement in Utica. He got there at three in the afternoon. Mr. Jefferson’s private car was on the track, containing himself, William J. Florence, Mrs. John Drew, Viola Allen, and Otis Skinner. They hailed him instantly and induced him to pass the afternoon in the car and to take dinner with them. His church engagement was over at half past eight, and at Mr. Jefferson’s invitation he occupied a box at the opera house. The house happened to be a small one, while the church had been crowded to the doors. After the theater, the Jefferson party again entertained the humorist in the car, keeping him until his train left, half an hour after midnight. As Mr. Wilder was leaving, Mr. Jefferson pretended to get very angry and said: “What do you think, my friends? Here we have entertained this ungrateful young scamp all the afternoon, and invited him to dinner. Then he goes up to town and plays to a big audience, leaving me only a very poor house. Then he comes down here, partakes of our hospitality again, and before leaving takes my life!” Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Jefferson handed the young man a copy of his “Life and Recollections.”

His first attempt at wit was at a little church in New York, where he was one of the audience. A tableau was being given of “Mary, Queen of Scots,” and in order to make it realistic they had obtained a genuine butcher’s block and a cleaver. As the executioner stood by, the lights all turned low, and his dreadful work in progress, a shrill voice arose from the darkened house:—

“Save me a spare-rib.”

His readiness in an emergency was shown at Flint, Michigan, when he was before an unresponsive audience. As luck would have it, the gas suddenly went out.

“Never mind the gas,” he called to the stage manager. “They can see the points just as well in the dark.” After that he was en rapport.

The greatest gift God ever made to man, he admitted to me in strict confidence, is the ability to laugh and to make his fellowmen laugh. This more than compensates, he adds, for the reception he gets from some of the cold audiences in New Jersey.

I asked him what was the funniest experience he had ever had.

“In a lodge room one night with Nat Goodwin,” he replied. “It was, or ought to have been, a solemn occasion, but there was a German present who couldn’t repeat the obligation backward. Nat stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth. I bit my lip trying to keep from laughing. I knew what an awful breach of decorum it would be if we ever gave way to our feelings. We had almost gained perfect control of ourselves, and the beautiful and impressive ceremony was half over, when that confounded Dutchman was asked once more to repeat the oath backward. He made such work of it that I yelled right out, while Nat had a spasm and rolled on the floor. Did they put us out? Well, I guess they did. It took seven or eight apologies to get us back into that lodge.”

Equally funny was his experience in London. It was on the occasion of the visit of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, of Boston. A big dinner was to be given, and the American ambassador and the Prince of Wales were to be there. I asked Wilder to tell me the story of his visit.

“I received an invitation,” he began, “through my friend, B. F. Keith, who was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, and who happened to be in London. The uniforms were something gorgeous. The members stood in two long lines, awaiting the coming of the prince, who is always punctual. I was dressed in my usual boy-size clothes, a small American flag stuck in my Tuxedo coat. I walked around restlessly. The major-domo was a very grand personage, with a bearskin hat on one end and long boots on the other. He must have been eight or ten feet high. He chased me to the rear of the room several times,—evidently not knowing who I was,—but every time he turned his back I would bob out again, sometimes between his legs. The prince came, and almost the first thing he did was to walk across the floor to me and say: ‘Hullo, little chap. I am very glad to see you.’ I had met him before. Then Henry Irving bore down on me and shook my hand, and so did Mr. Depew and others. By this time the major-domo had shrunk in size.

“Who the Dickens is that little chap, anyway?” he asked.

“‘Sh! He belongs to the American army,’ was the answer. ‘He’s a great marshal or something over there!’”

Wilder is big-hearted. “The biggest fee I ever received,” he stated in reply to my inquiry, “was the satisfaction I saw depicted on a poor man’s face. It was on a railway train. A life-prisoner was being taken, after a long man-hunt in Europe and America, out to Kansas City. I never saw so dejected a face. I devoted four or five hours to brightening him up, and when I left he was smiling all over. I had succeeded in making him forget his misery for at least four hours!”

A wealthy gentleman of New York pays Mr. Wilder a stated sum every year to “cheer up” the inmates of hospitals and similar institutions.

XXXVIII
Energy and Earnestness Win an Actor Fame.

“WHO will play the part?” asked A. M. Palmer, anxiously, looking over the members of his “Parisian Romance” company one night when the actor who had been playing ‘Baron Cheval’ failed to appear.

“I will,” spoke up an obscure young player, a serious, earnest man who had been “utility” for the company only a short time.

It was Richard Mansfield, and the part was given him. It had not been a conspicuous part up to that hour, but that night Mr. Mansfield made it a leading one. He saw in it opportunities for a deeper dramatic portrayal, for an expression of intense earnestness, and for that finished acting which ennobles any part in a play, however humble. Before the performance was over, he had opened the eyes of the company and the public to the fact that a new actor of great talent had come to the front at a bound.

In his beautiful home in New York, the other day, I found him surrounded by the evidences of wealth and artistic taste.

“So you represent Success,” he exclaimed. “Well, I am pleased to have you call. Success pays few calls, you know. Ordinarily, we have to pursue it and make great efforts to keep it from eluding us.”

Mr.