Harry Newton – Some Vaudeville Monologues

People I Have Met

Some Vaudeville Monologues, by Harry L. Newton

Yes, it’s tough to pay 40 cents for steak,
but I suppose it’s tougher if you pay 20
cents.

But here’s the first friend I want you
to meet.

He got married a few weeks ago. This
was his second offense. He lost his first
wife in a crowd, and never went back to
look for her.

She had been married three times.
Once for love and twice for general house-
work.

I was his best man. He asked me to
give the bride away. I refused. Of
course I could have given her away, but
I kept my mouth shut.

You know most everybody thought that
my friend was about to become a sea cap-
tain because he picked out a second mate.

But they were wrong. So was he, only
it took him longer to find it out.

He asked me if I believed in the old
saying that a man’s wife is his better half.
I told him I did. He says, “Well, then,
if a man marries twice, there isn’t any-
thing left of him.”

But his idea in getting married was
this:

He; figured that there was no telling

when this country might call on him to
take up arms in its defense.

Military camps were all right, but he
was strong for home study, and he could
learn all about fighting after he was mar-
ried.

A few days after the marriage cere-
mony had been performed I met him and
he said everything was going along fine.
His home had already taken on the ap-
pearance and environment of a miUta^
encampment. His wife had appointed
herself commander-in-chief and had made
him paymaster.

A little later I met him again and he
told me that he thought he was doing a
little better than holding his own. His
wife had wired for reinforcements. Her
mother was coming the next day.

Naturally I sympathized with him and
suggested that we go have a nice little
dinner. He consented. After we had
eaten our table d*hote, I said, “What do
you say if we have a couple of demi
lasses?*’ He said, “I’d like to, old chap,
but the wife might pop in while we were
talking to them/’

The next week, to cheer him up, I took
him out to a ball game. The fiirst man

to bat knocked a hot liner to right field,
and the fielder caught it. Everybody got
up and cheered. George didn’t move. I
asked him why he didn’t join in the ap-
plause. He says, “Why i^ould anybody
cheer that fielder for catching that ball?
That’s what he’s out there for.”

I have another friend I’d like you to
meet. He’s rather inclined to stick up
his nose at things American and to favor
things European.

The other day he started in on his
hobby.

He said, ”America is away behind
Europe in watering places. Take Eng-
land. England has her Bath; France has
her French Lick; Germany has her Baden
Baden. What’s the United States got?”

I says, “What’s the matter with Sat-
urday ii^tr

Here’s another friend. He’s known as
a desperate flirt. He never married and
everybody wondered why. I alone hold
his secret.

He thought he loved Mary. She was
a telephone operator. She had his num-
ber.

He lived at 624 and MoUie at 626. She
was next to him.

He got stuck on Katy. She drove a
jitney bus and told him where he got
off at.

He was crazy over Jennie. She owned
an aeroplane, took him up one day and
then dropped him.

He went to the hospital, fell in love
with his nurse, she put him under an
X-ray and saw right through him.

He got a job in a department store.
He worked in the basement while Sophie
worked on the ninth floor. He proposed
to her, but she felt that he was beneath
her.

He was crazy for riddles. He kept
Alice waiting so long that she finally mar-
ried his rivaL

Lillian was a most fastidious girl. She
didn’t like the way he pressed his suit.

Kate threw him down. She had been
wrestUn^ diampion at Vassar.

Now just a few words about myself.
It may soimd strange to you but at one
time I was a moving picture actor.

Acting in pictures is a cindi.

It was for me.

Any time they wanted anybody thrown
off a cliff or run over by a train of cars,
they sent for me.

They said that if I lost a leg it didn’t
matter. I had two legs, so if one was
gone I coidd still use the other.

I remember one picture where I was
captured by Indians.

That is,’ the director called them In-
dians. I called them everything else be-
sides Indians.

Well, anyhow, they tied me to a tree
and built a fire under my feet.

Then they all sat down and began to
play pinochle.

German Indians.

Then they forgot all about me. But I
wasn’t forgetting.

I distinctly remembered that fire.

I remembered it because it nearly
burned off my feet.

Did the director scold the Indians?

Nixl

He fined me for spoiling 100 feet of
film.

He cared more for the 100 feet of film
than he did for my two feet.

The next day I had to dive off a cliff
into a river.

That was a cinch the director told me.
It was only 85 feet. Great I I dove.
Just as I came to the surface, a rube con-

stable on the bank yelled: “Hey, you,
you ain’t allowed to go in bathing in this
river I

I gently but firmly told him that I
wasn’t bathing. I was merely drowning.

Then he yelled for somebody to bring
me a glass of water.

If you ask me that was surely rubbing
it in.

They didn’t want me to drown in peace.
They even wanted me to swallow water
while I was doing the drowning stuff.

Did the director sympathize with me
because I had nearly drowned?

Nix I

He roasted me to a fare thee well.

He said that I was no comedian. That
I was far from being funny while I was
drowning.

He said that (noted film comedian)
would have made that scene a scream.

Then I said that I had but one wish. I
wished that I was getting said film come-
dian’s pay envelope and that he was get-
ting mine.

I knew that he wouldn’t be so f imny if
he were getting mine.

The very next day I was supposed to
let a tiger carry me three or four miles

into a desert. There I was to wait pa-
tiently until somebody came and rescued
me.

Did I do it?

Nixl

Why, that tiger was a total stranger
to me. They claimed, however, that he
was a trained tiger. Personally I was
full of keen suspicion.

He didn’t look trained to me. He
looked hungry.

He looked like he’d graft his breakfast
off of me.

Nothing doing.

I wasn^t supplying any tiger with a
breakfast. I had enough to do to get my
own breakfast.

One more friend I’d like to have you
meet. He is an inmate of an insane asy-
lum. I went out to visit him last week,
and was told that he was given to the
habit of tearing off his clothes and then
tearing them into excellent imitations of
carpet rags. His habit was not only ex-
pensive but likewise immodest.

So I remonstrated with him.

I said, “See here, old man; you’re mak-
ing a lot of trouble for everybody around

here. It isn’t fair. Now wouldn’t you
like to make some money?”

He declared he’d be tickled to death to
earn some money.

So I said, “I’U teU you what I’ll do.
I’ll give you twenty-five cents for every
day you don’t tear oiF your clothes.”

He eagerly accepted my offer.

Tuesday his clothes remained intact.
Wednesday ditto ; Thursday, Friday and
Saturday the same. His reformation was
the talk of the institution. But on Sun-
day morning the garments of the insane
man that he had worn all week were torn
into a thousand pieces and thrown to the
four winds.

They called me.

I said, “See here. What ^ does this
mean? I thought I had hired you to keep
your clothes on and be good.”

“Well,” replied my nut friend, “you
didn’t suppose I was going to work on
Sunday, did you?”