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As soon as I saw that circumstances had organized a pool to corner me and my Christmases, I spent a couple of days sending up rain-making language. Then I settled down to work like a bronco does to harness after kicking off the dashboard and snapping a couple of traces. |
"If I've got to be alone this Christmas," I says to myself, "I'll make it the gol-blamedest, crowdedest solitude ever heard of this side of the River." |
I looked for the biggest place in town under one roof. Madison Square Garden was it. You remember it. We was there to the Horse Show -- so-called. You recollect, I reckon, that the Garden holds right smart of people. At a political meeting once they got 14,000 people into it, and there was still room for Grover Cleveland to stand and make a speech. |
Well, feeling kind o' flush and recklesslike, I decided to go and see the manager, or janitor, or whatever he is. And go I did. I says to him: "Could I rent your cute little shack for one evening -- Christmas night?" |
"Certainly, sir," he says. "There happens to be nothing doing this Christmas." |
"How much would it set me back?" I says very polite. |
"Only one thousand plunks," says he smiling. |
"But, my dear Gaston," I says with a low bow, "I don't want to buy your little Noah's Ark for the baby. I only want to borrow it for one evening." |
"One thou. is our bargain-counter limit," he says. "I couldn't make it less for the poor old Czar of Rooshy." |
I kind o' hesitated, remembering the time when a thousand dollars would have kept me comfortable for about three years. It's hard to get over the habit of counting your change. Then Mr. Janitor, seeing me kind o' groggy, says, a little less polite: |
"If that's more than you care to pay for a single room you can get a cot for five cents on the Bowery; for a quarter you can get a whole suite." |
That riled me. I flashed a wad of bills on him that made his eyes look like two automobile lamps. He could see it wasn't Confederate money, either. Then I shifted my cigar to detract attention while I swallowed my Adam's apple, and I says: |
"I was only hesitating, my boy, because I wondered if your nice young Garden would be big enough. You haven't got a couple more to rent at the same price?" |
He wilted and caved in like a box of ice cream does just before you get home with it. Then he began to bow lower, and we cut for a new deal. He took the lead. |
He says what might I be wanting to use the Garden for? |
"Oh, I won't bulge the walls or strain the floor," I says. "I only want it for a Christmas tree. I am going to invite my friends to a little party." |
"Whew, but you must be popular!" he says. "Who the dickens are you? Brother Teddy, or Mother Eddy?" |
"I'm Colonel D. Austin Crockett, of Waco," I says as meek as I could. |
"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," he says. "What you running for? -- District Attorney? Or are you starting a new Mutual Benefit Life Assassination?" |
"Neither," I says; "I'm a stranger in New York." |
"But these friends of yours?" he gasped. "Is all Waco coming up here on an excursion? Is the town going to move bodily?" |
"Mr. Prosecutor," I says, "if you'll stop cross-examining a minute, and let me tell how it all happened, it will save right smart of time. I am a stranger here to about four million people. They are strangers to me. We ought to know each other. So I'm going to give a little Madison Square Garden warming and invite 'em in." |
"What are you going to sell 'em -- prize poultry, or physical culture?" |
"I've nothing to sell. I'm just going to entertain 'em." |
"Well, I've heard of Southern hospitality," he says, "but this beats me. How much you going to charge a head?" |
"Nothing. Everything is to be free. Admission included." |
"Not on your dear old Lost Cause!" he exclaims. "Leastways not in our little doll's house. Not for ten thousand dollars! Why, man, do you realize that if you offered these New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, Hackensack and Hoboken folks a free show, more'n two thousand women would get trampled to death? Did you ever see a bargain-counter crowd on Twenty-third Street? Well, that's only for a chance to get something they don't want at a fishbait price. But if you offered them a free, 'take-one' chance -- holy keewhiz! -- I can just see it now! The Garden ain't half big enough in the first place. There's enough Take-One'ers in these parts to fill the old Coliseum. And they'd make the wild animals look like a cage of rabbits or white mice." |
Well, the upshot of it was, he persuaded me to charge an admission; so we set it at $1.00 a head "on the hoof." I wrote out a card and sent it to all the papers to print at advertising rates. It cost right smart, but it looked neat: |
To Every Stranger In New York, And His Lady |
If you are not otherwise engaged on Christmas night, the honor of your presence at Madison Square Garden is requested by |
David Austin Crockett |
Colonel Fifth Texas Cavalry, C. S. A. |
Music, Dancing, Refreshments, Souvenirs. For the purpose of keeping out the undesirable element a charge of $1.00 will be made. |
I knew that them magic words, "Refreshments" and "Souvenirs," would hit 'em hard. In order to whet the public interest, I asked the papers where I advertised to give the thing some editorial or other reference. But they was very cold and said the best they could do was to send their dramatic critics to criticise the show afterward. A lot of good that would do me! So I took more space in advertising. |
In a day or two I was visited at the hotel by one of the most imperent young fellows I ever met up with. He sent up a card, "James J. James, Publicity Expert." I said to show him in, and he sort of oozed through the door -- he was that oily. He looked about to see if we was alone; then winked slow and important, and says: |
"What's your game, Colonel? It looks pretty slick, but I can't quite make it out. It's a new bunco, all right, but slick as it looks, it ain't quite so slick as it ought to be." |
"Look here, you cub," I roared, "if you imply that I have any evil motives in this, I'll shoot you so full of holes you'll look like a mosquito net!" |
He wasn't a bit scared; he simply winked the other eye, and said in a kind of foreign-sounding language: |
"Forget it, Colonel! Cut it out! Back to the alfalfa with your Buffalo Bill vocabulary! If you are really on the level, you don't need to prove it with artillery. But it makes no diff. to me about that. My business is producing fame, not merit. Once more I ask, what's your lay?" |
I overcame a desire to kick him through the ceiling, and told him I proposed to entertain the strangers in New York. |
"Strangers in New York? -- Why, that means everybody! There's been only one man born in New York since the war, and he's kept in alcohol at a dime muzhum. Your idea is really to give old New York a Christmas party, eh? Very pretty! Very pretty, indeed! But if you insist on exploding money all over the place, I don't see why you shouldn't get a run for it. Besides, I need a bit of it myself. What you want is a press agent. You're starting all wrong. People in New York can't understand or believe anything except through the language of the press agent. You take one on your staff, and in three days you'll be so famous that, if a child in a kindergarten is asked who is the Queen of Holland, it will answer: 'Colonel Crockett, of Waco.'" |
Well, he poured out the most remarkable string of talk I ever heard, and before I knew it he had made me promise to trust my soul and my scheme to him; to be surprised at nothing that might appear in the papers, and to refer all reporters to him. The next morning I found my name on the front page of every journal, with my picture in most of them. It seems I had held at bay two hundred angry Italians who were trying to mob a Chinese laundryman. The evening papers said that I had stopped a runaway coach-and-four on Fifth Avenue, that morning, by lassoing the leader. On the coach were Mrs. Aster, Mrs. Fitch, Reggie Vanderbuilt, George Goold, Harry Leer and a passel of other "Among those presents." That night I went to a music-hall -- according to the next morning's papers -- and broke up the show by throwing a pocketful of solitaires to the chorus girls. The next day three burglars got into my room; I held them up in a corner, took away their masks, spanked them, and gave them each a hundred-dollar bill to help them to avoid temptation. That afternoon the three big life-insurance companies asked me to be president. And so on -- you can read for yourself in the clippings -- only for Heaven's sake don't believe any of it. In every article was a neat allusion to my Christmas party. |
I wanted to kill James J. James, and I scoured the town for him, but he dodged me. He kept his word, though. For the last few days I've been the most talked-of man in town. Looks like I'd been the Only man in New York. |
And now to tell about my little party. For two days a regiment of men was working in the Garden under my direction -- and at my expense. It was like paying the war appropriation of Russia. But it was worth it. |
At six o'clock Christmas night the crowd began to line up at the Garden doors. At 6:30 a platoon of police arrived. At 6:40 the line reached twice around the Garden. At 6:45 they sent for more police. At 7:15 every street was solid with people. They called out the police reserves and clubbed about four hundred innocent bystanders insensible. At 7:45 the fire department was called and played the hose on the crowd. |
This thinned 'em off a bit on the outsquirts. Then the ambulances give out and the fainting women was carried home in express wagons and wheelbarrows. The subway was the only line that could run cars. |
At 8:30 the doors opened. You should of seen the rush. The Galveston flood wasn't in it. At 8:45 the Garden was so full they closed the doors. That sent some of the outside crowd home. |
The Garden was a beautiful sight. On the tower outside, in big electric letters, there was a sign, "Merry Christmas to you and yours." |
Inside it was decorated with holly leaves and berries -- tons and tons of it. At one end was built a big house with a chimbly and an old-fashioned fireplace. The roof of the house was covered with snow (cotton), and the sky back of it was full of electric stars that twinkled something beautiful. And there was a moon that looked like the real thing. |
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