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Show I "OVER THE TOP" I By An American ArtfraF Gay Empey Soldier WThlO Went Machine Gunner, Serving in France Copyright 1917, by Arthur Qny Empey EMPEY WRITES AMD STAGES A PLAY BEHIND THE LINES WITH GREAT SUCCESS. Synopsis. Fired by the sinking of the Lusitania, with the loss of American lives, Arthur Guy Empey, an American living in Jersey City, goes to England and enlists as a private in the British army. After a short experience as a recruiting officer in London, he is sent to training train-ing quarters in France, where he first hears the sound of big guns and makes the acquaintance of "cooties." After a brief period of training Empey's company is sent into the front-line trenches, where he takes his first turn on the fire step while the bullets whiz overhead. Empey learns, as comrade falls, that death lurks always in the trenches. Chaplain distinguishes himself by rescuing wounded men under hot fire. With pick and shovel Empey has experience as a trench digger in No Man's Land. After exciting experiences on listening post detail and observation post duty, Empey is picked for patrol duty in No Man's Land and has narrow escape from death. CHAPTER XVI II Continued. 14 While they are talking, an old Jew named Ikey Cohenstein comes along, and Abe engages him for cashier. After engaging Ikey they meet an old Southern negro called Sambo, and upon the suggestion of Ikey he is engaged en-gaged as porter. Then the three of them, arm in arm, leave to take possession pos-session of this wonderful palace which Abe has just paid $6,000 for. (Curtain.) (Cur-tain.) . In the second act the curtain rises on the interior of the Diamond Palace saldon, and the audience gets its first shock. The saloon looks 'like a pigpen, pig-pen, two tramps lying drunk on the floor, and the bartender in a dirty shirt with his sleeves rolled up, asleep with his head on the bar. Enter Abe, Sambo and Ikey, and the fun commences. One of the characters in the second act was named Broadway Kate, and I had an awful job to break in one of the Tommies to act and talk like a woman. Another character was Alkali Ike, an Arizona cowboy, who just before the close of the play comes into the saloon and wrecks it with his revolver. We hud eleven three-hour rehearsals before I thought it advisable to present pre-sent the sketch to the public. The whole brigade was crazy to witness the first performance. This performance was scheduled for Friday night and everyone was full of anticipation; antici-pation; when bang! orders came through that the brigade would move at two that afternoon. Cursing and blinding was the order of things upon the receipt of this order, but we moved. That night we reached the little village vil-lage of S and again went into rest billets. We were to be there two weeks. Our company immediately got busy and scoured the village for u suitable place in which to present our production. Then we received another shock. A rival company was already established estab-lished in the village. They called themselves' "The Bow Bells," and put on a sketch entitled, "Blighty What Hopes?" They were the divisional divi-sional concert party. We hoped they all would be soon In Blighty to give us a chance. This company charged an admission of a franc per head, and that night our company went en masse to see their performance. It really was good. I had a sinking sensation when I thought of running my sketch in opposition op-position to it. In one of their scenes they had a soubrette called Flossie. The soldier that took this part was clever and made a fine-appearing and chic girl. We immediately fell in love with her until two days after, while we were on a march, we passed Flossie with "her" sleeves roiled up and the sweat pouring from "her" face unloading shells from a motor lorry. As our section passed her I yelled out: "Hello, Flossie; Blighty What Hopes?" Her reply made our love die out instantly. "Ah, go to h 1 !" This brought quite a laugh from the marching column directed at me, and I instantly made up my mind that our sketch should immediately run in opposition op-position to "Blighty What Hopes?" When we returned to our billet from the march, Curley Wallace, my theatrical the-atrical partner, came running over to me and said he had found a swanky place in which to produce our show. Af..er taking off my equipment, and followed by the rest of the section, I went over to the building he had picked out. It was a monstrous barn with a platform at one end which would make an ideal stage. The section got right on the job, and before night had that place rigged out in apple-pie order. The next day was Sunday and after church parade we put all our time on a dress rehearsal, and it went fine. I made four or five large signs announcing an-nouncing that our company would open up that evening at the King George the Fifth theater, on the corner of Ammo street and Sandbag terrace. General admission was one-half franc. First ten rows in orchestra one franc, and boxes two francs. By this time our printed programs had returned from London, and I further announced that on the night of the first performance a program would be given free of charge to men holding tickets costing a franc or over. We had an orchestra of seven men and seven different instruments. This orchestra was excellent, while they were not playing. The performance was scheduled to stnrt at 6 p. m. At 5:15 there was a mob in front of our one entrance and it looked like a big night. We had two boxes each accommodating ac-commodating four people, and these we immediately sold out. Then a brilliant idea came to Ikey Cohenstein. ! Why not use the rafters overhead, call them boxes, and charge two francs for a seat on them? The only difficulty wns how were the men to rench these boxes, but to Ikey this was a mere detail. de-tail. He got long ropos and tied one end around each rafter and then tied a lot of knots in the ropes. These ropes would take the place of stairways. We figured out that the rafters would seat about forty men and sold - i I ?r. If A ; f ".1 K ' r; WWW l"j Preparing the "Chow." that number of tickets accordingly. When the ticketholders for the boxes got a glimpse of the rafters and were informed that they had to use the rope stairway, there was a howl of indignation, indigna-tion, but we had their money and told them that if they did not like it they could write to the management later and their money would be refunded ; but under these conditions they would not be allowed to witness the performance perform-ance that night. After a little grousing they accepted the situation with the promise that If the show was rotten they certainly would let us know about it during the performance. Everything went lovely and it was a howling success, until Alkali Ike appeared ap-peared on the scene with his revolver loaded with blank cartridges. Behind the bar on a shelf was a long line of bottles. Alkali Ike was supposed to start on the left of this line and break six of the bottles by firing at them with his revolver. Behind these bottles a piece of painted canvas was supposed to represent the back of the bar, at each shot from Alkali's pistol a man behind the scenes would hit one of the bottles with his entrenching tool handle and smash it, to give the impression im-pression that Alkali was a good shot. Alkaii Ike started In and aimed at the right of the line of bottles instead of the left, and the poor boob behind the scenes started breaking the bottles on the left, and then the boxholders turned loose; but outside of this little fiasco the performance was a huge success, suc-cess, and we decided to run it for a week. New troops were constantly coming through, and for six performances we had the "S. It. O." sign suspended outside. out-side. CHAPTER XIX. On His Own. Of course Tommy cannot always be producing plays under fire but while in rest billets he has numerous other ways of amusing himselfj He is a great gambler, but never plays for large stakes. Generally, in each company, com-pany, you will find a regular Canfield. This man banks nearly all the games of chance and is an undisputed authority author-ity on the rules of gambling. Whenever When-ever there is an argument among the Tommies about some uncertain point as to whether Houghton is entitled to Watkins' sixpence, the matter is taken to the recognized authority and his decision de-cision is final. The two most popular games are "Crown and Anchor" and "House." The paraphernalia used in "Crown and Anchor" consists of a piece of canvas can-vas two feet by three feet. This is divided into six equal squares. In these squares are painted a club, diamond, heart, spade, crown, and an anchor, one device to a square. There are three dice used, each dice marked the same as the canvas. The banker sets up his gambling outfit in the corner ot a billet and starts bally-hooing until a crowd of Tommies gathers around ; then the game starts. The Tommies place bets on the squares, the crown or anchor being played the most. The banker then rolls his three dice aud collects or pays out as the case may be. If you play the crown and one shows up on the dice, you get even money, if two show up, you receive two to one, and if three, three to one. If the crown does not appear ap-pear and you have bet on it, you lose, and so on. The percentage fur the banker is large if every square is played, but if the crowd is partial to, say two squares, he has to trust to luck. The banker generally wins. The game of "House" is very popular also. It takes two men to run it. Tills game consists of numerous squares of cardboard containing three rows of numbers, five numbers to a row. The numbers run from one to ninety. Each card has a different combination. The French "estaminets" in the villages vil-lages are open from eleven in (he morning morn-ing until one in the afternoon in accordance ac-cordance with army orders. After dinner the Tommies congregate congre-gate at these places to drink French beer at u penny a glass and play "House." As soon as the estaminet is sufficiently suffi-ciently crowded the proprietors of the "House" game get busy and, as they term it, "form a school." This consists of going around and selling cards at a franc each. If they have ten In the school, the bnckers of the game deduct de-duct two francs for their trouble and the winner gets eight francs. Then the game starts. Each buyer places his card before him on the table, ta-ble, first breaking up matches into fifteen fif-teen pieces. One of the backers of the game has a small cloth bag In which are ninety cardboard squares, each with a number num-ber printed thereon, from one to ninety. nine-ty. He raps on the table and cries out: "Eyes down, my lucky lads." All noise ceases and every one is attention. at-tention. The croupier places his hand in the bag and draws forth a numbered square and immediately calls out the number. The man who owns the card with that particular number on It, covers the square with a match. The one who covers the fifteen numbers on his card first shouts "House." The other backer immediately comes over to him and verifies the card by calling out the numbers thereon to the man with the bag. As each number is called he picks it out of the ones picked from the bag and says, "Right." If the count is right he shouts, "House correct, pay the lucky gentleman, and sell him a card for the next school." The "lucky gentleman" generally buys one unless he has a miser trace in his veins. Then another collection is made, a school formed, and they carry on with the game. The caller-out has many nicknames for the numbers such as "Kelly's Eye" for one, "Leg's Eleven" for eleven, "Clickety-click" for sixty-six, or "Top of the house" meaning ninety. Empey tells in the next installment install-ment how the war is crumbling the British wall of caste, which once was insurmountable. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |