AMONG THE BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1928, 2 November 1888, Page 35

AMONG THE BOOKS.

"CORNEY GRAIN," BY HIMSELF. The Vell;known entertainer, Mr Richard Oorney Grain, who carries on with so much • spirit and ability the entertainments with which the names of Mr and Mrs German Reed were so long identified, has in this amusing and sprightly little book " interviewed" "himself, as he" terms it, and we may perhaps add, judiciously advertised himself. Mr Grain, it seems, was brought up in ' a farmhouse in a Cambridgeshire village. At ! the age of li he went to Germany and continued to study music, which he had com- ! menced at home. After reading for the Bar for three years, he heard Mr John Parry, "and the seeds were sown." Law was abandoned for comic singing. Some of his .early adventures as an entertainer are amusing enough, Mr Grain has not only travelled professionally throughout the United Kingdom, but has also been a good deal abroad, and on his foreign tours seems to .have been fortunate enough to have met with characters who must, we imagine, have helped him not a little in composing his comic sketches. Take the following; for instance :— American Ladles. I met a very old and very quaint American lady in Venice once. She came np to me and said, " I know whatjyou are and what you do. I hope you'll give some of your funny things to* night." I explained that I was holiday-making, and I was going to meander lazily in a gondola that night. Apparently resenting my refusal to sing, she retorted : " Wall, I think you're the least funny-looking man I ever met ! " There was another American lady on board a BritishIndia steamer when I went to Cairo in 1884. She was piling up large heaps of i'am and buttered toast on a plate. " What; are you going to do with that, madam ? " said an astonished old gentleman. " Sir," she eaid " I am doing unto others as I would be done by ; lam taking this to a sick friend on deck ! " If anybody, friend or otherwise, over brings me jam and buttered toast when I'm sea-sick, I'll fall on them and crush them ! This charitable American lady was the wife of a missionary on board. There were some six or seven of them, and they sang such doleful hymns— vulgar sugar-and-watery sort of negrominstrel melodies with sacred words adapted to them. There is nothing to my mind so uncongenial as the common-place hymn tune— the hymn tune that smacks of the bones, banjo, and tambourine. Still, on Sunday evenings up and down they paced, singing these clap-trap tunes in strong and vigorous tones. At last they began "God Save the Queen." "Ha!" we exclaimed, "at last there is a straightforward, simple melody, and, moreover, it shows that the end is at hand." Not a bit of it. They had adapted words to it of their owD f and the end was as far off as ever. There was a silent but humorous Scotchman on board, and never a word spake he, but he silently went to bis cabin. Still on and on went our loud-voiced minstrels, up and down, up and down regardless of the feelings of quiet elderly ladies in the saloon, writing letters to the friends to whom they had said good-bye for years or for ever, regardless of the sick people moaning in their berths. Suddenly there stole on our ears a faint, weird sound. Not pig-killing on Sunday. No ! nearer and nearer it came. The relief of Lucknow ! 'Twas the bagpipes ! ! Blessings on your head, my bonnie Scotch laddie ! Blaw your pipes ! ! Hoot awa' ! ! ! That " Hieland j lament " did it. We saw our American cousins ! no more' for 24 hours. It is pleasant at times to meet with sympathy in one's work. I know 'nothing so cheering as the kindly meant— kindly spoken word of en* conragement from the really sympathetic i listener; it cheers one up and incites to renewed efforts, and you feel you bare not lived in vain. I myself felt I had not lived in vain when a gentleman said to me at the end of a rather trying sketch : " That must be hard work, Mr Grain ; almost as bad as selling cards oh a racecourse." ' On one ocoasion, after singing before a bishop, Mr Grain was introduced to the right rev. prelate, who remarked in the kindliest tones : " Thank you, Mr Grain ; I have been not only amused, but edified ! On another, singing at a private house, he began a song called " The old gown," which contained towards the finish a paraphrase (or parody) of two well-known lines by Lord Tennyson ; but the Poet Laureate was himself sitting on the front row of the chairs, and recollecting this fact, Mr Grain never finished the song. But here are some other Awkward Incidents, Sometimes I have come across very neat "sayings one would rather have left unsaid." I was singing at an afternoon party, and I was the only " professional " there. A little boy played the violin. I remarked to my hostess that the boy showed signs of great promise. "Ishe a professional ? " I asked. " Oh, no," said my hostess ; " he's the son of a gentleman ! " The dear lady meant no offence; she only meant .that the father was a man of means ; but that she should have put it in the way she did, and made the remark to the only professional in the room, was perhaps unfortunate. Nervousness sometimes causes people to blurt out most inconvenient truths. I arrived once at a large house to ping at au "At Home." My host was a very nervous, shy man. I remarked, " You have two grand pianos in your drawing roorcp, I see." " Oh ! — oh — ye— yes," said my host. "We hired the one that's open for this afternoon. My wife said, •We can't let Corney Grain play on our best piano.' Ha I Ha ! Ha ! " I laughed a hollow « Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " and went meekly to my hired companion for the afternoon. Some ladies sidle up and say in an undertone, "Be merciful, Mr Grain. Our piano is a new one." » " Oh, pray don't apologise," I reply ; " it'll do well enough for my work." One of the most awkward 'incidents that occurred to me was when a gentleman said " Oh, yes, we'll get him to sing that. Mr Grain, do. give us your sketch of " The Drinking Fountain." I think it's quite your best," • - I said I would with pleasure, but for the fact that I didn't know it, as it was MrGrossmith's sketch; • '."'.'.'••" „!,!< Then ensued an embarassiog sijence r andthe company in desperation rushed at, -the weather as a conversational relief. Many years ago I was asked to sing lat a lady's house. The lady was an excellent per: son, of very Low Church views, and bad doubts as to the wickedness of the comic, song generally; but I believe her sons overcame her scruples, and she reluctantly consented to engage my services. But the morning of the party she had misgivings, and I received a note from her hoping I would make no Saiptuml allusions in my songs. I remember I was very hurt and angry at the \\mi \ jmt Iww young Uneoi wd eeuVitiye, . L '

_ What agonies I endured when I first began to sing at private parlies. How hot and uncomfortable I felt when, having just concluded a medley song entitled " Romeo and Juliet," a lady asked me if that was " my charming sketch called ' Five o'clock Tea ' " ; and when an old lady was put close to me with a large ear trumpet, I thought I should have run away. It was, perhaps, a little embarassiDg to a young singer when a well-known lady of title said, " I should like you to come to my house at 4.30. How long can you go on ? For two hours at a stretch ? I humbly submitted that a little break of five minutes or so would be pleasing, both to audience and singer. " Oh," 6he said,, " I didn't know. I thought you could. We had a conjuror last year who did." It is embarrassing, also, when you have sung what you fondly imagine are the best things you do, and the non of tho house comes up and says, "I- say, fiiug usa real comic song— something funny." Perhaps the most depressing thing is when you are called a " funny mau " ; you are expected to be " funny " at all times and seasons, even at breakfast. A man who is funny at breakfast must; be peculiarly constituted. A friend of mine, a well-known actor and humourist, went to stay in a country house. The children had evidently heard that ho was a " funny man," for they rushed up to him on his arrival, and said, " Oh, Mr So-and-So, do be funny." He said he was tired with travelling, and dusty, and generally uncomfortable. " Ob. but," they said "do cay just one word of funniness," Altogether Mr Grain has "interviewed" himself in a fashion which will prove as amusing to his readers as it has been evidently agreeable to himself.

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