“What have you done with it?” I asked.
“I left it in my room at home!”
“Is it put by safely?” I asked again.
“Oh yes!” he added quickly, as though justifying himself. I had an idea that it was not quite safe and went on with my queries:
“Where is it?” He smiled, I thought superiorly, as he answered:
“In my hat-box!”
“You locked it, I hope?” Again the smile:
“What would be the use of that? If I had locked away anything it would only have called attention to it. The hat-box is simply lying there as usual with the lid half off. No one would dream of suspecting it—not in a thousand years!”
This illustrates, I think, in a remarkable way the subtlety of his own character, and the method by which he judged others. He had passed the possibilities “through his mind,” and was so content with his knowledge that he backed it with a fortune. Later on there was a boy who did take things from his rooms. He was, however, found out and the property recovered, all except Edwin Forrest’s watch of which a part had been probably melted down.
That legacy of five thousand pounds was, so far as I know, and had there been other I should certainly have known, the only money which Irving received for which he did not work, through all the long course of his years of much toil. I mention it now specifically because one of the unkindly, presuming that his ignorance of fact was the ignorance of others also, made after the actor’s death a statement that he had been “subsidised.” It ought not to be necessary to contradict such reckless statements—they ought never to have been made; but having been made it is best to let the exact facts be known. The best of all bucklers, for the living or the dead, is simple, honest truth.