Free Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx, Rowland Barber Page B

far enough behind so as not to give me away, but close enough to help if I should get in any trouble. The minute I got on the streetcar the fun began. When I hauled up my skirt to get money for the fare (Minnie always kept her change in a bag pinned to her petticoat), the conductor gave me a big wink. I winked back at him. I saw him say something to the brakeman, at the other end of the car. They both looked at me and winked. When I moved down that way to get off, the brakeman sidled over and without looking at me ran his hand down my backsides. I moved away. He followed me and gave me another feel.
    When the car stopped, he said, “how’s about it, girlie?” I fluttered my eyelids and pursed my lips-then threw him a Gookie and swung off the platform. I had never seen such a startled look. Now I had complete confidence in my role.
    A card game was going on in the Baltzers’ living room when I walked in, without knocking. Old man Baltzer was playing with his father, Grandpa Baltzer, Uncle Al, and a friend of Uncle Al’s from Chicago. Sister Emmy was kibitzing from her rocking chair.
    I swished around a little bit, and said somebody told me there were some fellows up here looking to have a little fun. Mr. Baltzer, Uncle Al and the friend were at a loss for anything to say, but Grandpa was at no loss. He reached out and pinched my knee and told me to come sit on his lap.
    Sister Emmy, frozen with horror, started backing away. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” she said in a faint and shaky voice. “I have to get closer to the fire.” There was no fire. She edged over to the door, and escaped through it to go warn Mama and Rosie.
    I heard the women’s voices in the other room, cackling like three seagulls fighting over a dead fish. I was sashaying around, scaring the daylights out of old man Baltzer by threatening to kiss him. He took out his handkerchief and held it to his face. I could imagine what kind of germs he thought I had on me. Uncle Al, who liked to needle his friend about his phobia, kept egging me on.
    I was sitting on Grandpa’s lap when the three dames burst into the room. When they saw where I was they burst right out again. Then they got hysterical. The three of them, Emmy, Rosie and Mama, ran through the house from room to room-everywhere but the living room-slamming doors and screaming, “Get that prostitute out of this house! Get her out! Get her out!”
    The screaming and shrieking were too much for old man Baltzer. He stood up and said, talking through his handkerchief, that he was going to call the police if I didn’t leave. I stuck out my tongue at him and told him to go ahead and call the cops. He ran out of the apartment-and knocked over Groucho, who was watching the scene through a crack in the door.
    At the same time I took off my wig. When they saw it was me, Grandpa Baltzer and Uncle Al started to hoot and howl, and when the womenfolk heard this they screamed and slammed through the house worse than ever.
    Old man Baltzer was a good sport, and thought it was a great joke I had pulled. But it took us two hours to get Mama, Emmy and Rosie quieted down, even after they saw me unwigged. And for two weeks afterwards they were too indisposed, with palpitations and nervous attacks, to leave the house.
    As I said, it was a performance I was proud of. It made me the family character.
    Shortly after my masquerade at the Baltzers’, Groucho made his debut on the stage, singing a solo in the olio at the Star Theatre between shows. (The “olio” was a potpourri in which everybody from fire-eaters and bell-ringers to boy sopranos came on for a quick turn.)
    So Groucho was now a professional. I, having no exploitable talent, still didn’t figure in Minnie’s Master Plan. But that was okay with me. I didn’t have the least desire to go out on a stage and perform in front of eight hundred people. The thought of it gave me the shivers. I was content to play the character I was inventing, at home