ND ORCHESTRAS

My idea of what not to be is Musical Director of a Musical Comedy
playing one-night stands. This is the real thing in the Trouble line.

Max Faetkenheuer was musical director with an opera company that was
playing through the South. They arrived in one town at four in the
afternoon, and Max found the orchestra waiting at the theater. They
looked doubtful; they sounded dreadful. Individually they were bad;
collectively they were worse. During the first number the cornet only
struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped
playing. The clarinet player had been taking lessons from a banjo
teacher for three years and had never made the same noise twice. There
were six French horns, all Dutch. The trap drummer was blind and played
by guess and by gorry.

Max labored and perspired and swore until 7:15; then he had to stop
because the audience wanted to come in and didn't dare to while the
riot was on.

"Now look, Mister Cornet Player," Max said; "I'll tell you what you do;
you keep your mute in all through the show."

"Yes, well, I shan't be here myself, but I will speak to my 'sub' about
it."

"What's the reason you won't be here?" asked Max.

"I play for a dance over to Masonic Hall."

"So do I," said the bass fiddler.

"We all do, but the drummer," said the flute player.

"_You do?_ Then what the devil have you kept me here rehearsing you for
three hours for?" demanded Max.

"Well," said the cornet player, "we knew this was a big show, and we
presumed you would be a good director, and we thought the practice would
do us good."

"It will," said Max.

* * * * *

On another occasion he struggled all the afternoon with a "Glee Club and
Mandolin Serenaders'" orchestra. Finally, by cutting out all solos,
playing all the accompaniments himself, and confining the "Glee Club"
to "um-pahs," he got everything figured out except the cornet player; he
was beyond pardon; so Max said to him,

"I am awful sorry, old man, but you won't do; so you just sit and watch
the show to-night."

"Oh," said the Not-Jule-Levy, "then I don't play, eh?"

"You do not play," said Max.

"All right then; then there'll be no show."

"Why won't there be a show?" asked Max.

"Because I am the Mayor, and I will revoke your license."

He played.

* * * * *

At some Southern town we played once with "The Old Homestead"; the
rehearsal was