The same man, when another of his books had been dramatised, and he was called before the curtain on the first night of its production, informed the audience that it was a very good play, and that it would be a great success when it was decently acted. So complacent was he about it that the friend who tried to pull him back behind the curtain by the tails of his dress-coat failed until he had split the coat up to the collar.
This man has the very best instincts, but he has a genius for poking his finger into people’s eyes.
I once knew the brother of a Bishop, who left the Church of England, and went to America to be a Unitarian clergyman, because he wished to marry a pretty American heiress, and he had a wife already in England. By and by his new sect heard of it, and expelled him with conscious or unconscious humour for “conduct incompatible with membership in the Unitarian Church.” He hired a hall from the piano company opposite, and nearly the whole congregation moved across the street with him. Except in the matter of monogamy, he was a most Christian man, and his congregation had the highest respect and affection for him and his bigamous wife; and this in spite of the fact that he constantly alluded to the Trinity as he warmed to his subject in sermons for the edification of Unitarians. If he noticed it, he corrected himself and said Triad. He was one of the most delightful men I ever met, and his influence on his congregation was of the very best.
In the days when I saw so much of actors at our own flat, and went every Sunday night to the O.P., I was once asked to arbitrate in a dispute between an actor-manager and the critic of a great daily, who had exchanged “words” in the theatre. The critic either dreaded the expense of a lawsuit, or had no desire to make money if he could obtain the amende honorable. I heard all they had to say, and then I turned round and said to the great actor, “Did you say that about Mr. ——?” and he replied with an Irishism which I got accepted as an apology: “I really couldn’t say; I’m such a liar that I never know what I have said and what I haven’t said.”
These are stories to which I could not append the names, but the reader will find as good and better if he turns up the names of S. H. Jeyes, Oscar Wilde and Phil May in the index.
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I | MY LIFE (1856-1886) | [1] |
| II | MY LIFE (1886-1888) | [20] |
| III | I GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA | [26] |
| IV | I GO TO JAPAN | [35] |
| V | BACK TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES | [46] |
| VI | LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS | [52] |
| VII | WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON | [57] |
| VIII | OUR AT-HOMES: YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE NOW GREAT AUTHORS | [73] |
| IX | THE HUMORISTS AT OUR AT-HOMES | [82] |
| X | THE POETS AT OUR AT-HOMES | [103] |
| XI | LADY AUTHORS AT ADDISON MANSIONS | [119] |
| XII | LITERARY CLUBS: MY CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORS’ CLUB | [146] |
| XIII | LITERARY CLUBS: THE IDLERS AND THE VAGABONDS | [162] |
| XIV | LITERARY CLUBS: THE SAVAGE CLUB | [183] |
| XV | MY CONNECTION WITH JOURNALISM | [188] |
| XVI | THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART I | [204] |
| XVII | THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART II | [216] |
| XVIII | THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART III | [223] |
| XIX | HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO” | [233] |
| XX | AUSTRALIANS IN LITERATURE | [240] |
| XXI | MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART I | [251] |
| XXII | MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART II | [279] |
| XXIII | MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART III | [288] |
| XXIV | OTHER AUTHOR FRIENDS | [300] |
| XXV | FRIENDS WHO NEVER CAME TO ADDISON MANSIONS | [307] |
| XXVI | MY TRAVELLER FRIENDS | [312] |
| XXVII | MY ACTOR FRIENDS | [328] |
| XXVIII | MY ARTIST FRIENDS | [346] |