Burned Hare Soup and Camphor Pudding in Pittsburg
It never does to repeat an experiment. Next year at Pittsburg my little son Teddy brought me out another pudding from England. For once we were in an uncomfortable hotel, and the Christmas dinner was deplorable. It began with burned hare soup.
"It seems to me," said Henry, "that we aren't going to get anything to eat, but we'll make up for it by drinking!"
He had brought his own wine out with him from England, and the company took him at his word and did make up for it.
"Never mind!" I said, as the soup was followed by worse and worse. "There's my pudding!"
It came on blazing and looked superb. Henry tasted a mouthful.
"Very odd," he said, "but I think this is a camphor pudding."
He said it so politely—as if he might easily be mistaken. My maid in England had packed the pudding with my furs! It simply reeked of camphor.
So we had to dine on Henry's wine and L. F. Austin's wit. This dear, brilliant man, now dead, acted for many years as Henry's secretary, and one of his gifts was the happy knack of hitting off people's peculiarities in rhyme. This dreadful Christmas dinner at Pittsburg was enlivened by a collection of such rhymes, which Austin called a "Lyceum Christmas Play."
Everyone roared with laughter until it came to the verse of which he was the victim, when suddenly he found the fun rather laboured.
The first verse was spoken by Loveday, who announces that the "Governor" has a new play which is "wonderful"—a great word of Loveday's.
George Alexander replies:
But I say, Loveday, have I got a part in it,
That I can wear a cloak in and look smart in it?
Not that I care a fig for gaudy show, dear boy—
But juveniles must look well, don't you know, dear boy;
And shall I lordly hall and tuns of claret own?
And may I murmur love in dulcet baritone?
Tell me, at least, this simple fact of it—
Can I beat Terriss hollow in one act of it?[1]
Norman Forbes:
Pooh for Wenman's[2] bass! Why should he make a boast of it?
If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it!
When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is,
When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is!
But I never mind; for what does it signify?
See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify:
All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness—
Have I not played with Phelps?
(To Wenman) I'll teach you all the business!
T. Mead (of whom much has already been written in these pages):
What's this about a voice? Surely you forget it, or
Wilfully conceal that I have no competitor!
I do not know the play, or even what the title is,
But safe to make success a charnel house recital is!
So please to bear in mind, if I am not to fail in it
That Hamlet's father's ghost must rob the Lyons Mail in it!
No! that's not correct! But you may spare your charity—
A good sepulchral groan's the thing for popularity!
