language, which is very different
from English. So when we go over there, in addition to talking about
things that they do not understand, we are also using a language that
they don't know.

For instance: We opened up in Manchester with a play called _The Wyoming
Whoop_. Now out of that title they understood just one word--"The." They
did not know whether "Wyoming" was a battleship or some patent skin
food. And "Whoop" was still worse.

During the progress of the play one of the characters speaks of having
left the day's ice on the steps all the forenoon; I say--

"Has that piece of ice been out in that Wyoming sun all the forenoon?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you take a sponge and go out and get it."

After two or three shows the manager came to me and asked me what that
line about the ice meant; was it supposed to be funny? I told him it was
in America. He wanted to know why.

"Well," I said, "you know Wyoming is the hottest place in America, don't
you?"

"No; is it?"

"Well then, you know that if you left a piece of ice out in the sun all
the forenoon it would melt, don't you?"

"No; would it?"

Upon investigation I found that there was probably not one person in ten
thousand in those manufacturing towns of England who ever saw a piece of
ice. They didn't know but that you could bake it.

* * * * *

It took me only three days to discover that I was in wrong with _The
Wyoming Whoop_. So the next week in Liverpool I switched to _Bill
Biffin's Baby_. Now we were on the right track. We had a subject,
Babies, that they understood and liked. But on the second show I began
writing it over--into the English language. I found that in twenty-four
minutes I was using thirty-two words that they either knew nothing of,
or else meant something entirely different from what I intended they
should.

For instance: Take the words Trolley Car. An American player spoke of
having seen a lady riding on a trolley, and the audience went into fits.
The player was astounded; he hadn't told his "gag" at all yet--(and, by
the way, it isn't a "gag" there; it is a "wheeze")--and the audience was
laughing. And then when he finally told his "gag" not a soul laughed.
Upon investigation he found that over there what he meant by a trolley
car was "_a tram_." And what they called a "trolley" was the baggage
truck down at the railway station that they hauled trunks around on.

Another of their "gags" was--