JAZZING OVER EUROPE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 11 (Supplement)

JAZZING OVER EUROPE.

VIER COCKTAILS "DRY." PRANCING HORSE RESTAURANT. STORIES BY MRS. JACK HYLTON. Mrs. Jack Hylton has recently returned from a 5,000 miles tour -with 2ier husband and his famous band. Below, she tells of some of -the amusing adventures and episodes in which she took part. On our way across tlie German frontier a Customs official entered our compartment just as we had dealt cards for solo whist. He gabbled a lot of German which none of us understood, and without even looking at our bags or luggage he slowly picked up each hand separately and looked intently at the cards. We thought he was interested in the game and half expected him to call '•'solo," but he finally picked up the hand containing the ace of hearts which he took out and hurriedly left the compartment. We wondered why. In a few minutes he came back with a neat little stamp affixed to the card—for which we had to pay sixty pfennings duty! Some amusing episodes were caused by difficulties with the German language. As every schoolboy knows, the German for four is "vier," and the word corresponding to three is "drei," pronounced like our English word "dry." At an hotel in Cologne I ordered vier cocktails, adding that we should like them dry. "Drei?" the waiter kept asking. I replied "Yes, vier," much to his bewilderment.

One of 'the strangest, yet most pathetic sights in Berlin, is provided by the poor blind beggars, who have large wolfhounds to lead them through the traffic of the streets. These intelligent guides bark their way through the crowd, and when they come to a street crossing they merely sit down and refuse to move until the road is clear. The Lancashire Italian. Strolling along a road at Nice we were accosted by a small bronzed-face man. with a typical Italian moustache, carrying all the usual impedimenta of a travelling photographer. With hands outstretched in Contimental style he inquired if Madame would like "ver good fottograf?" I began to explain, in French, but he suddenly broke into the broadest "Lancashire" I have ever heard. One New Year's Eve we went to a marvellous party at the. house of Andre Citroen, of motor car fame. The staircase he had decorated to resemble the famous Rue Pigale with all its glittering electric signs and nightclubs. One room was like Maxims, a second like the Parroquet, another Imitating the Boeuf sur le Toit, and so on. Although M. Citroen promised Jack one of his new six-cylinder cars we were

obliged to leave Paris in two giant aeroplanes, because we were due to open in Hamburg—6oo miles away—the same night. The aeroplane arrived at 3.45 p.m. arid we started our first performance at 4.45 p.m. In Hamburg we discovered a curious restaurant where the centre of the hall, instead of being arranged as a dance floor, is an arena in which are a number of prancing horses. Guests amuse themselves by riding upon the horses, a trot costing fifty pfennings, while for the sum of one mark you can have a gallop. The band is stationed In a box above evervone'3 heads and so well trained are these horses that they seem to know what the band is playing. When the music is slow the horses trot, but the instant the tempo is accelerated the horses gallop. At Turin the band played a concert attended by Prince Umberto, and as is customary on such occasions that nobody caix leave the building _ before Royalty, a situation arose which, towards "the end, quite alarmed everyone. An Enthusiastic Prince. We finished our usual programme at about 10.30 p.m., but the Prince clapped vigorously and so the band played encore after encore. The curtain was rung down several times, but still the Prince clapped. Now the band never plays on the stage from music but from memory, and as they had long before exhausted their current repertoire, they were finally playing numbers which were three or four years old! Not until after midnight was the Prince satisfied and the audience able to leave.

A laughable incident occurred at Vienna when the xylophone, which is a flat instrument with tripod legs, had not been fixed up properly. ]S T o sooner had our xylophonist, Harry, begun to play his solo than the legs of the instrument slowly began to spread, so that the table-like top upon which he was playing dropped nearer and nearer to the stage. The audience roared. Poor Harry, dismay written all over his face, struggled on gallantly with his solo, until the instrument had descended to the level of the stage, in which position he finished his eolo. Everyone except Harry thought it was a great joke. My husband says the best'story of the tour is one referring to a visit we paid to the Casino at Monte Carlo. Jack was winning and intent upon the play, and in order to obtain a better view I went to the other end of the table. He continued to win, and after a while a dark, handsome Frenchman approached me and whispered in iny ear, "Madame, I must back the same as Monsieur Hylton. He is very lucky." I made some encouraging reply and thereupon the stranger plunged a few thousand francs on the number Jackhad selected. He won, and when he came back to me, a sunny smile lighting his face, I told him who I was. He was the perfect Frenchman, for he replied: Didn't I say Monsieur Hylton was lucky, Madame? (Star and Anglo-American N.'S. Copyright).