§ 194 The Fate of Poor Harry
A cockney music-hall performer, to a congenial group of performers in London, was describing what had happened the night before to a brother actor whom he spoke of affectionately as “’Arry.”
“Poor old ’Arry, ’e ’ad a most awful time. They wouldn’t even let ’im finish. Before ’e was ’arf through with the first verse of ’is opening song they began giving ’im the rarsberry proper. And w’en ’e quit, them blokes in the gallery ’issed ’im right off the stage. They ’issed and ’issed and kept on ’issing even after ’e was out of sight. Right after ’im I ’ad to go on.”
“How did your act go?” inquired one of the listeners.
“’Ow, I got over fine,” said the modest vaudevillian. “But right in the middle of my act they starts ’issing ’Arry again.”