Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
"TV Hi
Type."
RUSSELL
An Actor's Story.
5}|j HE place was a cosy room in a cosy house in
-£> a quiet street off the Strand, London ; the
time was Saturday; the hour midnight. A
company of professional men, composed of some
of the lawyers, doctors, newspaper men and
actors whose names are famous on both sides ot
the Atlantic, were scattered in groups about the
room smoking and chatting after the Saturday
night supper, which had become a standard in-
stitution with them. In a sheltered corner over
by the fireplace sat a small knot of men, every
one of whom had reached the top, or at least the
front rank, of his profession. The talk, drifting
into a smooth, desultory, half-sleepy way from
phase to phase, had gradually assumed a retro-
spective hue. From one to another the story
had passed, each telling the tale of an empty
stomach, or an empty pocket, or a hopeless
tramp of thirty miles or so in thin shoes along
a snow-bound road in search of employment.
Henry Irving, thoughtfully smoking with an
air of deep attention, had not spoken, and did
not speak until the others, having exhausted
their stock, turned to him. He had experi-
enced harder luck than any of them, and they
knew it. He looked up at them for a moment,
and then, after a pause, said :
" The recollection uppermost in my mind just
now, while you boys have been talking about
tramping and winter roads and all that, is of a
certain Christmas dinner at which I was pre-
sent. I wonder whether any of you remember
a poor fellow, long since dead—Joe Robins—
who played small parts in London and outside
it, and who made the one big mistake of his life
when he entered the profession. Joe had been
in the men "s underwear business, and was doing
well, when an amateur performance for a chari-
table object was organized, and he was cast for
the part of the clown in a burlesqne of ' Guy
Fawkes.' Joe belonged to one of the Bohemian
clubs, and on the night of the show his friends
among the actors and journalists attended in a
body to give him a ' send-off.' He played that
part capitally, and the mischief might have
ended there, but someone compared him to
Grimaldi. His fate was sealed. He sold his
stock, went on the stage, and a few months
later I came upon him playing general utility
on a small salary in a small theatre in Man-
chester. One relic of his happy days still re-
mained to him. He had retained shirts, collars
and underwear sufficitnt to last him for a gene-
ration.
" But if Joe lacked ability as an actor, he had
a heart of gold. He would lend or give his last
shilling to a friend, and piece by piece his stock
of underwear diminished.
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"The Christmas of that year—the year in
which we played together—was perhaps the
bitterest I ever knew. Joe had a part in the
pantomine. When the men with whom he
dressed took ofT their street clothes he saw with
a pang at his kind heart how poorly some of
them were clad. x One poor fellow, without an
overcoat, shivtred and shook with every breath
of the wind that whistled through the cracked
door, and as he dressed there was disclosed a
suit of the lightest summer gause underwear
which he was wearing in the depth of that
dreadful winter. Poor as Joe was, he was de-
termined to keep up his annual custom of giv-
ing his comrades a Christmas dinner. Perhaps
all that remained of his stock of underclothing
went to the pawnbroker, but that is neither here
nor there. Joe raised the money somehow, and
on the Christmas Day was ready to meet his
guests.
" Among the crowd that filed into the room
was his friend with the gause underclothing.
Joe beckoned him into an adjoining bedroom,
and, pointing to a chair, silently walked out.
On that chair hung a suit of underwear. It
was of a comfortable scarlet color ; it was of silk
and wool ; it was thick and warm, and it clung
around the actor as if it had been built for him.
As the shirt fell over his head there was suf-
fused through his frame a gentle, delicious glow
that thrilled every fibre of his body. His heart
swelled almost to bursting. He seemed to be
walking on air. He saw all things through a
mist of tears. The faces around him, the voices
in his ears, the familiar objects in his sight, the
very snow falling gently outside the windows
seemed as the shadows of a dream, with but one
reality—the suit of underwear.''
'' His feelings seem to have entered your
heart, " said one of the listeners.
"They might well do so," replied Mr. Irving,
1
' for I was that poor actor. "
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