I thought him jesting, and was about to make some flippant reply, when one of the ladies squeezed my arm and said: "Don't, he will be angry; he is in earnest."
And he was, just as he was in earnest later on when we had become good friends, and I heard him for the first time swear like a trooper because I had been born in Canada. And when I laughed at his anger, he was not far from boxing my ears.
"It's a damn shame!" he declared; "in the first place you are an American to the very marrow of your bones. In the next place you are the only woman I know who has a living, pulsing love of country and flag! Oh, the devil! I won't believe it—you born in a tu'penny ha'penny little Canadian town under that infernal British flag! See here, if you ever tell anyone that—I'll—I'll never forgive you! Have you been telling that to people?"
I answered him: "I have not—but I have permitted the assertion that I was born in Cleveland to go uncorrected," and, with the sweet frankness of friendship, he answered that I had more sense than he had given me credit for. But, small matter that it was, it annoyed him greatly, and I still have notes of his, sent on my birthdays, in which he petulantly refers to my unfortunate birth-place, and warns me to keep silent about it.
Like many other great men—and Mr. Daly was a great man—he often made mountains out of mole-hills, devoting to some trifle an amount of consideration out of all proportion to the thing considered.
On the first night of the season Mr. Daly had said to me: "One word, Miss Morris, that I had forgotten before—Mr. James Fisk, unfortunately, as landlord, has the right of entrance into the green-room. He doesn't often appear there, but should he come in, if you are present I desire you should instantly withdraw. I do not wish you to be introduced to him under any circumstances."
I felt my face flushing red as I answered: "I have no desire to meet either Mr. Fisk or any other gentleman in the green-room!" But Mr. Daly said, hurriedly: "Don't misunderstand me, there's no time for explanations now, only do as I ask you. You will recognize him when I tell you he is very blond and very like his pictures," and away flew Mr. Daly to attend to things enough to drive most men crazy.
Now, that speech did not mean that Mr. Fisk was a monster of ill-breeding or of immorality, but it did mean that that was Mr. Daly's "tat" to Mr. Fisk's "tit" in a very pretty little "tit-for-tat" quarrel between them.
Mr. Daly very seldom tasted defeat—very, very seldom came out second best in an encounter; but there had been a struggle anent the renting of the theatre: Mr. Fisk, as landlord, refusing to renounce his right of entrance by the stage-door to any theatre he owned—nothing could move him, no argument, no entreaty, no threat; not even an offer of more rent than he himself asked. To Mr. Daly the right of entrance of an outsider back of the stage was almost unbearable, even though the privilege was seldom used and never abused. He declared he would not sign any agreement holding such a clause. He gave up the theatre rather than yield, and then, with a large company already engaged, he sought in vain for a house to shelter it. Now, the city is broken out all over, close and fine, with theatres, like a case of well-developed measles; but then 'twas different. Mr. Daly could find no other theatre, and he was compelled to accept the Fifth Avenue with the hated clause compromised thus: Mr. Fisk was to have the right of entrance to the green-room, but was never to go upon the stage or behind the scenes; an ending to the struggle that pleased the company mightily, for they were all very fond of Jimmy Fisk, or "The Prince," as he was called.
He never forgot them on benefit nights; whether the beneficiary was man or woman there was always a gift ready from the "Railroad Prince."