In another American town I was advertised as "the best paying platform celebrity in the world." In another, in the following way: "If you would grow fat and happy, go and hear Max O'Rell to-night."
One of my Chicago lectures was advertised thus: "Laughter is restful. If you desire to feel as though you had a vacation for a week, do not fail to attend this lecture."
I was once fortunate enough to deal with a local manager who, before sending it to the newspapers, submitted to my approbation the following advertisement, of which he was very proud. I don't know whether it was his own literary production, or whether he had borrowed it of a showman friend. Here it is:
Will put two inches of solid fat even upon the ribs of the most cadaverous old miser. Everybody shouts peals of laughter as the rays of fun are emitted from this famous son of merry-makers.
I threatened to refuse to appear if the advertisement was inserted in the papers. This manager later gave his opinion that, as a lecturer, I was good, but that as a man, I was a little bit "stuck-up."
When you arrive in an American town to lecture, you find the place flooded with your pictures, huge lithographs stuck on the walls, on the shop windows, in your very hotel entrance hall. Your own face stares at you everywhere, you are recognized by everybody. You have to put up with it. If you love privacy, peace, and quiet, don't go to America on a lecturing tour. That is what your impresario will tell you.
In each town where you go, you have a local manager to "boss the show"; as he has to pay you a certain fee, which he guarantees, you cannot find fault with him for doing his best to have a large audience. He runs risks; you do not. Suppose, for instance, you are engaged, not by a society for a fee, but by a manager on sharing terms, say sixty per cent. of the gross receipts for you and forty for himself. Suppose his local expenses amount to $200; he has to bring $500 into the house before there is a cent for himself. You must forgive him if he goes about the place beating the big drum. If you do not like it, there is a place where you can stay--home.
An impresario once asked me if I required a piano, and if I would bring my own accompanist. Another wrote to ask the subject of my "entertainment."