XXV
“BILL” NYE
A Humorist of the Best Sort.—Not True to His Own Description of Himself.—Everybody’s Friend.—His Dog “Entomologist” and the Dog’s Companions.—A Man With the Right Word for Every Occasion.—His Pen-Name was His Own.—Often Mistaken for a Distinguished Clergyman.—Killed by a Published Falsehood.
In one respect entertainers closely resemble preachers;—they greatly enjoy listening to the greater members of their own profession. Consequently, I never lost a chance to listen to Bill Nye, and I worship the memory of him as he was—a gentle yet sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort, that he never could help being humorous, no matter how uncongenial the surroundings. Although he saw hundreds and thousands of chances of hitting other men so hard that the hurt would last forever, he dropped every one of them and trampled them so hard that they never dared show their faces again. He was an apostle of the Golden Rule, which he exemplified in himself, so there never was a sting in his jokes; gentle raillery was the sweetest thing he ever attempted, and even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word of his friendly chaffing was worth more than a cart-load of formal praise.
I speak what I do know, for he and I were close friends for many years before his untimely death, and he was so solicitous for my welfare and comfort, that after he had played father and mother to me successfully, he couldn’t help going on till he had become my grandfather and grandmother, as well as a number of sisters and cousins and aunts.
I don’t believe he ever had an enemy but himself, and he injured himself only by his peculiarities of self-description. Any one reading his humorous articles would imagine him an undersized scrawny backwoods invalid with an irritable disposition and an unquenchable thirst for something else than water. In reality he was a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, healthy, genial chap so in love with the mere fact of living, that he took scrupulous care of himself in every way. He was as abstemious as any clergyman who is not a total abstainer, and he never lost his temper except when some deliberate scoundrelism was inflicted upon him. He would go out of his way—a whole day’s journey out of his way, with all the railway fares and other discomforts in such cases made and provided,—to help a friend out of a sick bed or other trouble, and he endured all the torments of a busy entertainer’s season on the road as cheerfully, as if he were perpetual holder of the record for patience.
People often wondered how he could go on year after year digging the same kind of fun out the same old vein, but the secret was that he lived right in the centre of that vein and was merely digging his way out of it. He had a full assortment of polite commonplaces, and carried them as gracefully as he did his full-dress clothes, but as soon as he got well acquainted with a man—and it didn’t take him long to get inside of any decent fellow’s waistcoat—he would talk in his characteristic droll manner all day and seven days a week, and as much longer as they two traveled together.
As seriously as if he were talking of audiences or hotel tables or railway nuisances, he told me a story of a dog he had owned. It was a Dachshund, and Nye described him as two and a-half dogs long by one dog high. He had named the animal “Entomologist,” because it was a collector of insects. In fact, the dog lived up to his name so strenuously that something had to be done. A friend suggested soaking the dog in kerosene, saying,
“If it doesn’t rid the dog of fleas, it will rid you of the dog.”
So kerosene was tried and the dog passed away. After all was over Bill felt so bad that he went out for a walk, which did him no good. Returning home with dejected spirits and a sorrowing soul, he was smitten afresh with remorse when he realized that there would be no little dog awaiting him. But yes, surely there was something on the steps. Looking closer he saw seven hundred fleas sitting there, and they all looked up into his face as if to say,
“He has named the animal ‘Entomologist.’”
“When are you going to get us another dog?”
Few of the great world’s great dispatches contained so much wisdom in so few words as Nye’s historic wire from Washington—
“My friends and money gave out at 3 A. M.”
He had an enviable faculty for suppressing annoyances in the course of an entertainment—something more dreaded by any entertainer than a thin house. In the course of one of his lectures in Minneapolis a late-comer had some difficulty about his seat, and lingered inside the inner door to voice some loud protestations. Of course every head in the audience turned toward the door;—anything for a change, no matter how good a thing has been provided.
Lingered inside the inner door to voice some loud protestations.
Nye endured the disturbance for some time; then he said politely but icily,
“This is a large auditorium, and a difficult one in which to hear, but fortunately we are provided with a speaker at each end of the house.” It is needless to say which speaker received attention after that.
Mr. Nye was engaged to speak at Columbus, Ohio, in a newly-finished church with which the minister and his flock were as well pleased as a small boy with his first pair of trousers. So, in a short preliminary and self-congratulatory address the minister referred to the church edifice, called attention to its many details of architectural beauty and convenience, and laid special stress on its new and improved system of exits.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” drawled Nye a moment later, “I have appeared in a great many cities, but this is the first time I have been preceded by any one instructing the audience how to get out.”
Every man has his special trouble, but Nye had two; one was the reluctance of the public to believe that his pen name was his real name, and the other was the persistency of some people at mistaking for another fine fellow in a somewhat different public position—The Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D., LL. D., Rector of Trinity Parish, New York. Mr. Dix’s stories are as good as his sermons, which is saying a great deal, and Nye’s face when in repose suggested a man who could preach a strong sermon of his own. Nevertheless, it is awkward to be mistaken for any one but yourself. As to his name, every one who heard of Bill Nye associated him mentally with the oft-quoted person of the same name who first appeared in Bret Harte’s poem “The Heathen Chinee,” and assumed that the humorist’s professional name was assumed. The poor chap explained at length, through a popular magazine, that he came honestly by his name, having been christened Edgar William Nye and nicknamed “Bill” from his cradle, but to his latest days he was besieged by autograph-hunters who asked for his signature—“your real name, too, please.”
This genial man of cleanly life and good habits was brutally slaughtered by the public to whom for years he had given laughter and sunshine. People throughout the country turned against him when they heard the first breath of calumny. Without waiting to hear whether the story told of him was true or false, “The Dear Public” treated him so meanly that it crushed his spirit, sturdy, honest man though he was, broke his heart, and caused his death within a year.
It came about at Paterson, New Jersey, where he had been engaged to deliver a lecture. He had been suffering greatly from insomnia, for which expert medical direction he had taken a certain anodyne (non-alcoholic). Before his evening nap preceding the lecture he may have taken an overdose, or it may have worked slower than usual. Whatever the medical cause—for he had taken nothing else, he was drowsy and slow of speech on the platform. To make matters worse from the start, he tumbled over a loose edge of carpet as he came before the audience; although very near sighted, he had good professional precedents for disliking to wear glasses on the platform, otherwise his eyes might have saved his feet. But the succession of accident and manner impressed the audience wrongly. When the lecture was over some rough characters who had been in the audience followed Nye’s carriage to the railway, throwing eggs at it and whooping like demons.
Next morning almost all the New York papers published the report that Mr. Nye had appeared before an audience the night before in an outrageously intoxicated condition, and had been egged off the platform! Newspapers are entirely at the mercy of the men whom they employ to collect news for them; some which used the Paterson story were honest enough to publish corrections afterward, but no correction is ever strong and swift enough to catch up with a lie. What I have said regarding the causeless cause of the untimely death of a humorist who can never be replaced is of my own knowledge; I was very close to Mr. Nye in the last year of his life and know what he thought and said.
I also had a strange reminder of the night on which the story started. Some of the audience had complained to the lecture committee that they had not received their money’s worth, so it was decided to give another lecture without charge, to make amends for the disappointment. I chanced to be the man chosen to give the entertainment which was to apply salve to the wounded pockets of that audience, though I did not know it at the time. I did notice however, that the committee seemed to be “in a state of mind” and urged me to do my best. It also seemed to me that, metaphorically speaking, the entire audience had a chip on its shoulder; still, I succeeded in pleasing it.
After I had finished I learned that I had been selected to pacify the very people whose ignorance, stupidity and folly had caused the death of a good man who had been my friend. By a sad coincidence, it was on that very day that dear Bill Nye was buried!