Chapter 6

This letter Mr. Toole read to me, exactly mimicking the tone and manner of his old friend whom he still misses. I laughed heartily. "Well, now, Mr. Toole," said I, as we settled down for a conversation on the art he loves so well and has served so faithfully, "has the public taste altered much since you first started in your theatrical career?" "No," he replied, "upon my word I don't think it has very much. My dear old friend Irving, however, has effected as great a change as any man, and his influence has always been for good." "And what of the other Henry?" said I, "Hendrik Ibsen?" "Henry _Gibson_?" said Toole, looking up; "why, I never heard of him." "No! _Ibsen_," I explained, "_Ibsen_," smiling as I mentally contrasted the great Norwegian physiologist and social Reformer, and the simple-minded, homely, old-fashioned Englishman whom we all love so well. "Oh! Ibsen, Ibsen," said Mr. Toole, "I didn't catch what you said; I thought you said Gibson, and I couldn't think who on earth you meant. Well," he said, "I don't like his work myself. It's so unwholesome, you know. It seems to me such a vitiated taste. They put it down to my ignorance; but if you ask me what I think," he went on confidentially, "I should say there are very few who really care about him. He happens to be the fashion just at present. I played _Ibsen_ in 'Ibsen's Ghost,'" he continued, "and they said it was a beautiful make-up. I don't know what the old gentleman would have thought of it himself. Have you seen Irving's _Lear_?" he suddenly remarked, after a moment of silence. "I can remember many _Lears_, but I have never seen anything like his. I have been tremendously moved by it; but it is far too great a strain for him." Mr. Toole then drifted into eulogy of his almost life-long friend, upon whose generosity and the beauty of whose character he never wearies of expatiating. "And how do you think the comedy of to-day compares with that of past years, Mr. Toole?" said I. "Oh, well," he replied; "I don't think things have altered much. It is true that there was a great gap when Keeley, Buxton, Benjamin Webster, Sothern, and Charles Matthews all passed away within a few years of each other. But we've lots of good comedians now, to say nothing of the vast increase in the number of theatres, which, of course, gives far more opportunities to new men than was the case in my early days. For my own part, though I almost invariably play low comedy parts, yet, as a rule, I prefer pathos, I think." And, as he spoke, Mr. Toole handed me a photograph which represented him in that very pathetic character _Caleb Plummer_ in "Dot." "There," said he, "that's one of my favourite characters, but people come to see me for fun, they don't look much for pathos in me, except, perhaps, in the provinces. Ah! I like the provinces," he continued. "I have many friends in them. The Scotch are a splendid people to play to, but then English people, by which I mean English and Scotch alike, are very clannish, and very tender to an old friend. I always feel when I appear upon the stage that I am in the presence of friends. I don't think that French actors are so much regarded as English actors. We feel the affection of our people so much. But, then, we go in and out as private friends amongst the people, more than the Frenchmen do. Their best actors go out to a party, and they act for money, just as they would in the theatre. I think that is very _infra dig._ myself. It seems to me that as soon as the curtain is down the actor's work is over for the night, and when you go out to a man's party you are his guest, but you cease to be so if you take his money. With singers, however, the case is quite different. Some say I am over fastidious, but, mind you," went on Mr. Toole, very earnestly, "I think it would be very snobbish not to join in the fun that is going on as a friend, and help to make everything go pleasantly. As a rule, however, I consider that on this account the English actor's social position is higher than that of a French actor. You ask me about criticism," said Mr. Toole a little later, as we wandered on through different fields of thought, over our wine and cigars. "Well," he continued, "it is very difficult to say whether it has improved or not during late years. In the old days, you know, we had some very good men; there was Oxenford, there was Bayle Bernard, there was Laman Blanchard, all very good men indeed. In the present day, Clement Scott is exceedingly clever, of course; but some of the young men are too much up in the clouds for me--they are very smart, I daresay, but I don't know what they're driving at, you know; all the same, I don't think criticism has any more influence than it had of old, in some cases not so much." And then, branching off on another line, Mr. Toole said--"Did you notice those remarks in the paper the other day about Fanny Kemble's father, and how he came to grief as a theatrical manager? I smiled when I read them. I knew well enough how it was; it was that infamous 'order' system. Kemble actually gave 11,000 orders in one season. It's altogether a rotten, bad system. Hundreds apply to me every week for orders who haven't the slightest claim upon me, and especially wealthy people, who are invariably the greatest offenders in this respect, and yet, when they are refused orders, they at once book seats for the play. Of course there are certain people who are thoroughly entitled to orders, and I am only too glad to give them in such cases, but I draw the line at giving them to _any_ one who chooses to ask me. _I_ can't go into a restaurant and get a dinner for nothing--I wish I could; a tailor won't make me a coat for nothing--why should I play to people for nothing? They cannot have any idea how much it costs to keep up a theatre, or perhaps they'd have a little more consideration for one. It's a rotten, bad system, and it ought to be done away with." Later on in the evening Mr. Toole and I drove down to the theatre together, and we resumed our conversation in his very interesting little dressing-room. I congratulated him on the long run which "Walker London" was having; "but don't long runs tend to artificiality?" I asked. "No," said Mr. Toole; "a new audience every evening saves you from that, to a great extent, especially with an earnest man. Earnestness is everything in an actor, but if you're apathetic you're lost. Still, I sometimes look at _Paul Pry's_ umbrella," continued Mr. Toole, pointing to the quaint, queer, green old article that answered to that description, and which stood by itself in a corner of the room, "and wish I could play _Paul Pry_ again, but I don't see much chance of that at present. Why, it will soon be 'Walker's' first birthday. I suppose they'll want me to make a speech. And speech-making always bothers me, for I am very nervous. But I daresay I shall 'gammon' through somehow." I observed, "Well, I must say you 'gammon' through very well, for I always think you are one of the easiest speakers of the day." To which Mr. Toole replied, "Well, for my part, I think repose is everything. Quiet humour is always much more telling than noisy fun, and to feel your part deeply is far more than mere elocution." "Do you think that the training that young people on the stage get, now-a-days, is as thorough as it was in your early days, Mr. Toole?" "Well," he said, "I don't think that young actors get so much practice as they did in the old days when Irving and I used to be for years together on a stock company in Edinburgh. He and I and Helen Faucit have played all the parts in Shakespeare together. But travelling companies have altered all that now-a-days. Still I think I must say that I've got a very fairly good _répertoire_ for my people. Did you ever hear how I took to the stage?" he continued. "I used to be clerk in a wine merchant's office, and I was also a member of the City Histrionic Club. Well, one night I went to the Pavilion; one of the actors who used to give imitations of popular favourites didn't turn up, and so I was persuaded by a man, who knew that I had been in the habit of giving imitations myself to our little club, to take his place. It was then that I first tasted the sweets of an actor's life. It was then I resolved to quit the merchant's desk for the stage. Do you see that playbill?" he continued, pointing up to an old time-stained paper which hung upon the wall. "There," said he, "that's the first time my name ever appeared on a London playbill. I appeared on that occasion for 'one night only' at the Haymarket Theatre, where a benefit was being given for Mr. Fred Webster, in July, 1852." I glanced round the little room, in which are gathered so many memories of the picturesque past, and in which so many of the best known men of the present day are so frequently to be found having a chat with "Dear Old Johnny Toole." There was an amusing photograph of Toole up to his waist in a hot lake in New Zealand surrounded by a number of Maoris. There was a portrait of himself in his first part in "My Friend the Major." Charles Matthews, in "My Awful Dad," smiled across the room at Paul Bedford and Toole, who were standing within a picture frame together. There was a quaint old coloured print representing Grimaldi--for whom Mr. Toole has a great admiration, and whose snuff-box he regards as quite a treasure--in private life, and in his clown's costume. But to enumerate further the interesting pictures that hang upon the walls of his little dressing-room would be to far exceed my allotted space. I happened on the following night to be delivering a lecture at the Playgoers' Club on the Church and Stage, and before I left I asked Mr. Toole his opinion on the subject. "Why," he said, "I think that the Church and the Stage have a great deal in common, and I think that they ought to be great friends, but I don't see that we need reforming any more than any other branches of the community. For my own part, I have the greatest respect for the clergy, and a great many friends amongst them, and I always go to church when I can. I am very fond of going to Westminster Abbey. I like the music; it's so solemn, you know--it always stirs me. I was very much amused at an incident which occurred to me the other day. I was playing in York, so on Sunday I went to the Minster as usual; on the following day, a man I knew came up to me and said, quite in good faith, 'Why, I saw you in church yesterday, and you were behaving quite quietly!' Just as though he had expected me to go in costume, and behave as though I were on the stage. But that is one of the ridiculous ideas that people get into their heads about actors. Still, I think, all that kind of thing is dying down now-a-days."

NOVEL NOTES.

BY JEROME K. JEROME. ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. GÜLICH.

PART XII.

How much more of our--fortunately not very valuable--time we devoted to this wonderful novel of ours I cannot exactly say. Turning the dogs'-eared leaves of the dilapidated diary that lies before me, I find the record of our later gatherings confused and incomplete. For weeks there does not appear a single word. Then comes an alarmingly business-like minute of a meeting at which there were--"Present: Jephson, MacShaugnassy, Brown, and Self"; and at which the "Proceedings commenced at 8.30." At what time the "proceedings" terminated, and what business was done, the chronicle, however, sayeth not; though, faintly pencilled in the margin of the page, I trace these hieroglyphics: "3·14·9--2·6·7," bringing out a result of "1·8·2." Evidently an unremunerative night.

On September thirteenth, we seem to have become suddenly imbued with energy to a quite remarkable degree, for I read that we "Resolved to start the first chapter at once"--"at once" being underlined. After this spurt, we rest until October fourth, when we "Discussed whether it should be a novel of plot or of character," without--so far as the diary affords indication--arriving at any definite decision. I observe that on the same day, "Mac told story about a man who accidentally bought a camel at a sale." Details of the story are, however, wanting, which, perhaps, is fortunate for the reader.

(Copyrighted in the United States of America by Jerome K. Jerome.)

On the sixteenth, we were still debating the character of our hero; and I see that I suggested "a man of the Charley Buswell type."

Poor Charley, I wonder what could have made me think of him in connection with heroes; his lovableness, I suppose--certainly not his heroic qualities. I can recall his boyish face now (it was always a boyish face), the tears streaming down it as he sat in the schoolyard beside a bucket, in which he was drowning three white mice and a tame rat. I sat down opposite and cried too, while helping him to hold a saucepan lid over the poor little creatures, and thus there sprang up a friendship between us, which grew.

Over the grave of these murdered rodents, he took a solemn oath never to break school rules again, by keeping either white mice or tame rats, but to devote the whole of his energies for the future to pleasing his masters, and affording his parents some satisfaction for the money being spent upon his education.

Seven weeks later, the pervadence throughout the dormitory of an atmospheric effect more curious than pleasing led to the discovery that he had converted his box into a rabbit hutch. Confronted with eleven kicking witnesses, and reminded of his former promises, he explained that rabbits were not mice, and seemed to consider that a new and vexatious regulation had been sprung upon him. The rabbits were confiscated. What was their ultimate fate, we never knew with certainty, but three days later we were given rabbit-pie for dinner. To comfort him I endeavoured to assure him that these could not be his rabbits. He, however, convinced that they were, cried steadily into his plate all the time that he was eating them, and afterwards, in the playground, had a stand-up fight with a fourth form boy who had requested a second helping.

That evening he performed another solemn oath-taking, and for the next month was the model boy of the school. He read tracts, sent his spare pocket-money to assist in annoying the heathen, and subscribed to "The Young Christian" and "The Weekly Rambler, an Evangelical Miscellany" (whatever that may mean). An undiluted course of this pernicious literature naturally created in him a desire towards the opposite extreme. He suddenly dropped "The Young Christian" and "The Weekly Rambler," and purchased penny dreadfuls; and, taking no further interest in the welfare of the heathen, saved up and bought a second-hand revolver and a hundred cartridges. His ambition, he confided to me, was to become "a dead shot," and the marvel of it is that he did not succeed.

Of course, there followed the usual discovery and consequent trouble, the usual repentance and reformation, the usual determination to start a new life.

Poor fellow, he lived "starting a new life." Every New Year's Day he would start a new life--on his birthday--on other people's birthdays. I fancy that, later on, when he came to know their importance, he extended the principle to quarter days. "Tidying up, and starting afresh," he always called it.

I think as a young man he was better than most of us. But he lacked that great gift which is the distinguishing feature of the English-speaking race all the world over, the gift of hypocrisy. He seemed incapable of doing the slightest thing without getting found out; a grave misfortune for a man to suffer from, this.

Dear simple-hearted fellow, it never occurred to him that he was as other men--with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he regarded himself as a monster of depravity. One evening I found him in his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of "tidying up." A heap of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him. He was tearing them up and throwing them into the fire.

I came towards him, but he stopped me. "Don't come near me," he cried, "don't touch me. I'm not fit to shake hands with a decent man."

It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable. I did not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being no worse than the average.

"Don't talk like that," he answered excitedly; "you say that to comfort me, I know; but I don't like to hear it. If I thought other men were like me I should be ashamed of being a man. I've been a blackguard, old fellow, but, please God, it's not too late. To-morrow morning I begin a new life."

He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and sent his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.

"My last drink," he said, as we clicked glasses. "Here's to the old life out, and the new life in."

He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire. He was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.

For a long while after that I saw nothing of him. Then, one evening, sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me in company that could hardly be called doubtful.

He flushed and came over to me. "I've been an old woman for nearly six months," he said, with a laugh. "I find I can't stand it any longer.

"After all," he continued, "what is life for but to live? It's only hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not. And do you know"--he leant across the table, speaking earnestly--"honestly and seriously, I'm a better man--I feel it and know it--when I am my natural self than when I am trying to be an impossible saint."

That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes. He thought that an oath, if it were only big enough, would frighten away Human Nature, instead of serving only as a challenge to it. Accordingly, each reformation was more intemperate than the last, to be duly followed by a greater swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction.

Being now in a thoroughly reckless mood, he went the pace rather hotly. Then, one evening, without any previous warning, I had a note from him. "Come round and see me on Thursday. It is my wedding eve."

I went. He was once more "tidying up." All his drawers were open, and on the table were piled packs of cards, betting books, and much written paper, as before, all in course of demolition.

I smiled; I could not help it, and, no way abashed, he laughed his usual hearty, honest laugh.

"I know," he exclaimed gaily, "but this is not the same as the others."

Then, laying his hand on my shoulder, and speaking with the sudden seriousness that comes so readily to shallow natures, he said, "God has heard my prayer, old friend. He knows I am weak. He has sent down an angel out of heaven to help me."

He took her portrait from the mantelpiece and handed it me. It seemed to me the face of a hard, narrow woman, but, of course, he raved about her.

As he talked, there fluttered to the ground from the heap before him an old restaurant bill, and, stooping, he picked it up and held it in his hand, musing.

"Have you ever noticed how the scent of the champagne and the candles seems to cling to these things?" he said lightly, sniffing carelessly at it. "I wonder what's become of her?"

"I think I wouldn't think about her at all to-night," I answered.

He loosened his hand, letting the paper fall into the fire.

"My God!" he cried, vehemently, "when I think of all the wrong I have done--the irreparable, ever-widening ruin I have perhaps brought into the world--O God! spare me a long life that I may make amends. Every hour, every minute of it shall be devoted to your service."

As he stood there, with his eager boyish eyes upraised, a light seemed to fall upon his face and illumine it. I had pushed the photograph back to him, and it lay upon the table before him. He knelt and pressed his lips to it.

"With your help, my darling; and His," he murmured.

The next morning he was married. She was a well-meaning girl, though her piety, as with most people, was of the negative order; and her antipathy to things evil much stronger than her sympathy with things good. For a much longer time than I had expected she kept him straight--perhaps, a little too straight. But at last there came the inevitable relapse.

I called upon him, in answer to an excited message, and found him in the depths of despair. It was the old story, human weakness, combined with lamentable lack of the most ordinary precautions against being found out. He gave me details, interspersed with exuberant denunciations of himself, and I undertook the delicate task of peacemaker.

It was a weary work, but eventually she consented to forgive him. His joy, when I told him, was boundless.

"How good women are," he said, while the tears came into his eyes. "But she shall not repent it. Please God, from this day forth, I'll----"

He stopped, and for the first time in his life the doubt of himself crossed his mind. As I sat watching him, the joy died out of his face, and the first hint of age passed over it.

"I seem to have been 'tidying up and starting afresh' all my life," he said, wearily; "I'm beginning to see where the untidiness lies, and the only way to get rid of it."

I did not understand the meaning of his words at the time, but learnt it later on.

He strove according to his strength, and fell. By a miracle his transgression was not discovered. The facts came to light long afterwards, but at the time there were only two who knew.

It was his last failure. Late one evening I received a hurriedly scrawled note from his wife begging me to come round.

"A terrible thing has happened," it ran; "Charley went up to his study after dinner, saying he had some 'tidying up,' as he calls it, to do, and did not wish to be disturbed. In clearing out his desk he must have handled carelessly the revolver that he always keeps there, not remembering, I suppose, that it was loaded. We heard a report, and on rushing into the room found him lying dead on the floor. The bullet had passed right through his heart."

Hardly the type of man for a hero! And yet I do not know. Perhaps he fought harder than many a man who conquers. In the world's courts, we are compelled to judge on circumstantial evidence only, and the chief witness, the man's soul, cannot very well be called.

I remember the subject of bravery being discussed one evening at a dinner party, when a German gentleman present related an anecdote, the hero of which was a young Prussian officer.

"I cannot give you his name," our German friend explained--"the man himself told me the story in confidence; and though he personally, by virtue of his after record, could afford to have it known, there are other reasons why it should not be bruited about.

"How I learnt it was in this way. For a dashing exploit performed during the brief war against Austria he had been presented with the Iron Cross. This, as you are well aware, is the most highly-prized decoration in the German Army; men who have earned it are usually conceited about it, and, indeed, have some excuse for being so. He, on the contrary, kept his locked in a drawer of his desk, and never wore it except when compelled by official etiquette. The mere sight of it seemed to be painful to him. One day I asked him the reason. We are very old and close friends, and he told me.