 European diplomats argue over who shall ride first on a funeral train. A great popular song hit is discovered by accident. Can you imagine that? Well, friends, this is Lindsay McCarry back with you again to present with the able assistance of my cohorts of the Nimble Tongue, another set of strange facts in this session of Can You Imagine That? After just a minute and a half, we'll be back. So be with us, won't you? Try at astounding you in this broadcast of Can You Imagine That. It's seldom that we have the dubious pleasure of receiving advice from a burglar for which may I add, let us be duly grateful, but here's once it happened. On the last day of May, 1911, the chief of police of Jersey City received the following letter. The police buttoning and annoying me greatly and have prevented me from making a successful haul. So far, I have been unable to get away with anything white-wired. In all the houses I have visited in the last three months, I have not gathered up enough to pay me for my energy. I am beginning to think that Jersey City is a collection of tight watts, signed, the slippery kit. The police buttoning in annoy me greatly. Fine thing. Well, now let's see what the next item is. To most of us today, probably the archaic purple pageantry and pomp attended upon state affairs and some of the older kingdoms and empires of Europe seem a little out of key, as it were, with modern progressive civilization. For instance, well, Theodore Roosevelt used to tell a story which aptly illustrates this. While he was traveling abroad after his second term as President of the United States, beloved King Edward VII of Great Britain passed away. President Taft cabled TR and asked him to represent his nation at the funeral ceremonies. Roosevelt at that moment was in Vienna, but promptly cabled his acceptance and soon after discovered that a special train was being made up in the Austrian capital to carry the various monarchs and other emissaries and their parties from southeastern Europe to Windsor. Among these were two personages who were soon to find themselves embroiled in a question serious to them and of great pith and moment to their countries. It's our of Bulgaria and the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Just as the special train was about to pull out. Pardon me. Are you a member of the party of His Excellency Archduke Ferdinand? I am his special representative. And I hold the same honoured position in the entourage of His Imperial Majesty, the sir of Bulgaria. Manuel, you're vicious. His Imperial Majesty desires to inform His Excellency that His Imperial Majesty with his party will occupy the coach immediately following the engine. But the sir of Bulgaria riding in front of a representative of the ancient house of Habsburg recently. Well, well, of course. One moment, please. Manuel, you will please inform His Majesty that His Excellency the Archduke representing the Emperor of Austria will occupy the coach immediately following the engine. You insist upon this? Positively. The order of coaches will be, first, the coach of His Excellency, the Archduke. Second, the coach of His Majesty, the sir of Bulgaria. Next, a dining car. After all, my dear, Austria is centuries old, I'll tell you. Release, my apologies. I shall communicate your desires to His Majesty. And so Archduke Ferdinand did occupy the first car immediately behind the engine, and as a consequence, the car into which sifted the largest quota of certain cinders. But this international affair wasn't over yet. Not by any means. A few hours later, as the train rolled along over the picturesque countryside, the Archduke became aware of a gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He was hungry. So, he dispatched his emissary to the next car to contact the representative of the monarch of the Balkan state. Manuel, Manuel, please, you wish to speak with me? Yes, sir. You see, His Excellency the Archduke wishes to gain permission of His Majesty to pass to His Majesty's coach on His Excellency's way to the dining car. Wait here, please. His Majesty regrets that there are so many problems of international consequence involved in His Excellency's request, and there are being no precedents upon which His Majesty can possibly make a decision without the assistance of His legal and diplomatic advisors. And inasmuch as His Majesty's legal and diplomatic staffs are a great number of miles away in the capital of Bulgaria and inasmuch as this coach must be concluded to be for the time titular of Bulgarian property, it is deemed unwise to grant His Excellency the Archduke of Austria a visa to pass through His Majesty's coach. What do you mean to say that you mean that? Unfortunately, His Excellency regretfully must wait until the train stops in order to pass around His Majesty's coach to the dining car. Bah! Yes, indeed. And the Archduke of Austria did wait until the train stopped at the next town before he could go around the Bulgarian coach on the station platform and into the dining car. And then, after he had finished his meal, the train was again on its way and he had to wait in the dining car for another stop so that he could re-enter his own coach next to the engine. Can you imagine that? And we wonder whether or not in the following few years such incidents as this might not have lost their extreme significance for Ferdinand of Hapsburg, particularly on that day in 1914 when he and his wife gazed into the muzzle of a student's revolver at Sarajevo, the revolver that was to end their lives and touch off the tender of the Great World War. You know, chance remarks have often been the inspiration for some of our most successful popular songs. I'm sure that you've heard of many of them, but I always find it interesting to trace some of these stories down to their original source. Here's one which resulted in the composition of an old-time number you all know. A number of years ago, a young actor named John F. Palmer had just completed the current theatrical season in a tour of the play The Two Orphans, starring Kate Claxton. He returned to his home in the Harlem section of New York City, maintained in his absence by his sister Pauline, to await his next call to the boards. One day, Pauline and her usual morning routine went to the door of John's room and in the midst of a din created by an old-fashioned German band playing nearby, called to her brother. John! John, breakfast is ready! John! John, do you hear me? Breakfast! Oh, dear, that old band. John, breakfast! Just a moment. All right, all right, let the band play on. Subsequently, John Palmer, satisfied that he'd heard enough band music for the moment, joined his sister to breakfast. As Pauline was clearing away the breakfast dishes, he turned to her brother. John, that remark you made a while ago. Remark? What remark? When you said, let the band play on. What about it? That's a good title for a song. A title for a song? What are you talking about? Yes, the band played on. Huh, the band played on. That's not bad, sis. Not bad at all. All right, then, get busy. All right, slave driver, give me some paper and a pencil. In a short time, John Palmer had penned the lyrics of a popular song telling the exploits of one Matt Casey who exhibited the uncontrollable desire to waltz with a certain luxurious strawberry blonde during certain provocative moments while the band played on. Palmer concocted a melody to fit the verses in chorus, but like so many of us whose heads ring with the greatest song of all, he didn't possess the necessary education to place the musical notes on manuscript paper. But with the help of a trap drummer in the orchestra of the Old Third Avenue Theater, John finally was able to present his song to a music publisher. A music publisher? I should have said many music publishers for John Palmer made many futile journeys to publishers' offices trying to sell his song until at last he abandoned hope of disposing of his masterpiece and turned to writing for the stage. One day while sitting in the office of a friend, borrowing the use of a typewriter to type a play manuscript, John unconsciously hummed the chorus of his song. Come in. Yes, sir. My name is Ward, Charles B. Ward. Oh, yes, Mr. Ward, of course. I remember seeing you on the stage several times. And your name? John Palmer. Yes, Mr. Palmer, who was humming in here a moment ago? I guess I was. Oh, and what was the name of the song you were humming? Oh, it was Little Diddy I wrote some time ago. I never sold it. It was called The Band Played On. The Band Played On? Mm-hmm. And you never sold it, eh? No, sir. Now, Mr. Palmer, I have recently turned to publishing music on a rather small scale. I like your song. How would you like to sell it to me? Sell it to you? Sure. Let me buy it from you, and I'll publish it. Yeah, yes, of course, I'll sell it to you. Sure, I will. Well, good. Drop over to my office when you're finished here and we'll talk turkey. And so because of two elements of chance, John Palmer's chance remark to his sister and his chance humming of his song, he was able to dispose of it to Charles Ward. Ward made several changes in the melody, placing the melodic pattern on the accent of notes upward instead of downward as in Palmer's original melody, and thus came to be known as the writer of the song. Yes, it's a great idea to possess tenacity of purpose, courage, ambition, and all the other attributes of normal success, but every once in a while, chance does play a part in winning a goal in the game of life. Matt Casey formed a social club that beat the town for style and hired for a meeting place or hall. When payday came around each week, they greased the floor with wax and danced with noise and vigor at the ball. Each Saturday, you'd see them dressed up in Sunday clothes. Each lad would have his sweetheart by his side. When Casey led the first grand-mama when Casey led the first grand-mars, they all would fall in line behind the man who was their joy and pride. For then, man, he would waltz with the strawberry one and the man play. He'd glide across the floor with a girl he adored and the man play. His brain was so loaded, it nearly exploded. The poor girl would shake with alarm. He'd marry the girl with a strawberry curl and the man waltz with a strawberry blund and the man play. He'd glide across the floor with a girl he adored and the man play. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, another session of Can You Imagine That? This is Lindsay McCarrie inviting you very cordially to be back with us when we visit your station again. And until then, goodbye now.