CHAPTER X 



HOLIDAY INCIDENTS 



My Aunts visit me — At the Races — " When do you perform ? '' — At 

 the Grand Hotel, Paris — Cost of an Illumination — Winning 

 Si 2,000 at Monte Carlo — My Present of Pointers 



The incident I told just now about Molly Plumb and 

 her absolute ignorance of the race-course reminds me 

 of how I once gave an invitation to my aunts Lib and 

 Min — two sisters — to come and spend a week or ten 

 days as my guests in New York. They knew of my 

 fame at the time, and were tickled to death at the 

 idea of visiting me. Aunt Lib was really my adopted 

 mother, but I called each of them aunt, and Aunt Lib's 

 husband, Dan Blauser — a man of Dutch extraction — 

 Uncle Dan. I believe Aunt Min had once been as 

 far as Cincinnati, but the other had never journeyed 

 more than sixty miles away from home. They were 

 types of real good country people when they arrived 

 at the old Pennsylvania station on the New Jersey 

 shore. I had taken a nice suite for them in the 

 Imperial Hotel, great big rooms where they could 

 roam about and admire everything — and themselves 

 too if they wanted to, for there were plenty of mirrors 

 and decorations. 



They spent their time running about New York, 

 and I did the best I could to entertain them, taking 

 seats for theatres and vaudeville shows galore. They 

 were peacefully happy. 



Then came the races at Sheepshead Bay, close to 



1Z 



