Twenty Years of My Life

by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

Once, at any rate, he was the guest of the Club, and he occupied the chair, I should say, nearly every year during its existence. I wish I had kept a record of the bons mots which never failed to adorn his speeches. One of them comes to my mind as I write these words; he said that the reason why England and the United States were not better friends arose from their inability to understand each other’s humour.

He and Conan Doyle were the mainstays of our chair at the New Vagabonds. Doyle may have taken it even oftener than he did. He was the chairman we instinctively chose for a great occasion, like that on which we had Lord Roberts for our guest, though he did not actually take the chair that night, for we could rely upon him to say the generous and dignified words which would express the feelings of the Club, as he did in proposing the health of Lord Roberts at the Authors’ Society dinner, when he said that Lord Roberts was the one guest who, short of royalty, must always take the first place in any gathering of his countrymen, the first, not only in rank and distinction, but in the grateful love and veneration of Englishmen.

Doyle was in the chair at the farewell dinner which the Club gave in honour of Burgin and myself at the Connaught Rooms, and said just exactly the right things to make us feel very proud, and to voice the regret of the Club at meeting for the last time. The Club did not exactly die, because it was amalgamated with the O.P. Club.

Carl Hentschel was a very prominent member of both clubs, and when Burgin and I were unable to carry on the Vagabonds any longer, he very kindly came forward, and was willing either to take over the honorary secretaryship of the Vagabonds, or to amalgamate the two clubs. Finally, seeing that Bohemians had more dining clubs than they had the leisure to attend, we decided in favour of amalgamation, and there is some talk now of the Playgoers combining with them both.

George Grossmith was one of our best members. We had him as a guest, and he often gave us an entertainment. One of his most felicitous efforts was when he proposed his own health, and was very sarcastic about himself. But that was a favourite vein of humour with him. Those who were at the great party which he and Weedon gave at the Grafton Galleries will remember the story of the clergyman’s wife who was getting up a bazaar, and suggested that they should ask George Grossmith to give them a performance, because he was such a fool—“You can always get him to do things for nothing,” she explained, and added, “The best of him is that he can be humorous without being funny.”

She was right about his being generous; that was always characteristic of George Grossmith.

Bill Nye distinguished himself in an equally original manner when he was the guest of the evening. It was Independence Day, and he had enjoyed such a reception from the American colony that he was sleepy, to say the least of it, before he reached the New Vagabonds. Not one word could the chairman get out of him during the dinner, but no sooner had the chairman said, “Gentlemen, you may smoke,” than Nye got up and returned thanks for all the handsome things which had been said about him. He spoke at great length, and with the greatest fluency, and it was only with considerable difficulty that he could be stopped. He is the only man I ever remember to have come to one of the dinners so tired, though I have seen others unbend as the evening grew old; and it was entirely due to the accident of his arriving in London on Independence Day. And, as poor Phil May said, of course, your tongue does sometimes run away with you, when you are on your legs.

Arthur Diósy (the son of that Martin Diósy who was secretary of the Hungarian Revolution), who was chairman of the Japan Society for years, had talked so learnedly about Japan, and had mouthed the Japanese names so lovingly, that every one imagined that he had been in Japan for at least half his lifetime. Most people went further, and, not knowing that the Hungarians were Mongols who conquered parts of Europe a thousand years ago, imagined, from the Mongolian type in his features, of which, as a Hungarian, he was so proud, that he was a Japanese. Even the name did pretty well if you spelt it wrong. When he did go to Japan for the first time, and received an enormous welcome from the Japanese authorities as the founder of the Japan Society, and the practical originator of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, we, his fellow-members of the Vagabond Club, gave him a dinner in honour of the event.

I am an original member of the Japan Society, and had the honour of giving them their opening address in the season of 1912.

We had a very interesting guest in Sir George Scott Robertson, the doctor who was knighted for his successful defence of Chitral when the combatant officers were all hors de combat. Robertson not only wrote his name on the golden roll of the besieged who have endured to the end and who have prevailed, but he gave us one of the best speeches we had ever heard at the Club. He told us marvels of his other claim on his country—his exploration of Kafiristan, a country which had kept its population pure from other strains, and had preserved unique monuments until, in our own generation, the Afghans began to absorb it, and he proved himself a great orator, with a well of biblical English flowing into his impromptu speech.