A little later I also yielded to temptation, and bagged a bird for myself. But before I could pick it up, the Chief Constable burst through the undergrowth in a furious rage, and started to tell me off. A lot of the others, attracted by the noise, gathered round, everybody looking daggers at me.
I felt, I must confess, pretty small, though not nearly so small as I should have felt if I had not known what I did.
Finally the Chief Constable, after one violent explosive volley of objurgation, in the course of which he bade me clear off and never let him see my face again, paused for lack of breath.
Then it was my turn. In his heat and excitement his jacket had become slightly disarranged, and I saw, greatly to my delight, two ends of tail feathers peeping out.
Edging closer to him by degrees, and muttering apologies all the while, I suddenly put out my hand, and with an, “Excuse me, sir, but what are these?” I whipped out the dead pheasant.
Never in my life did I see a man more completely taken aback. His face changed from red to white from white to red again. He stamped up and down. Then he essayed to say something, but a roar of laughter drowned his voice.
Finally, putting the best face he could upon it, he picked up both birds, and cried: “Put ’em in the car, and for God’s sake don’t tell anybody anything about it.”
There is in England a theatre proprietor, the owner of several houses, with the same name as myself—Arthur Carlton. One of his theatres is at Worcester, where also his headquarters are.
This doubling of names has been the cause of some confusion. For instance, once while I was at the Palace Theatre, London, I received through the post a cheque—“Pay Arthur Carlton, Esq., £250.” It really ought to have been delivered to him, and after a lapse of three days I received a letter from him beginning “Dear Namesake,” inquiring about it. Needless to say I sent it on to him by return of post.
At this time, and for some time afterwards, I had never met him; but one year, when I was playing in pantomime at Newcastle, he wrote to me saying he would like to make my acquaintance, and if I had a week vacant at the close of the pantomime season, would I come down to Worcester and do a turn at his theatre there?