From the Angle of Seventeen

by Eden Phillpotts

I was, of course, greatly surprised at such unexpected kindness, but there was more to come.

“When I find a young and promising man studying the books upon this stall between the hours of one and two o’clock,” said Mr. Tupper, “my custom is to ask him to join me at a modest meal—luncheon, in fact. Now do not say that you have lunched, or you will greatly disappoint me.”

Of course I had lunched, and yet, in a manner of speaking, I hadn’t—not as a man of world-wide fame would understand the word. To tell the truth, I had felt from the first that it was rather sad in a way—having to subsist on a Bath bun and a glass of milk for so many hours; and I knew that I never should get to feel it was a complete meal. So when this good and celebrated man offered me a luncheon, I felt, if not perfectly true, yet it was true enough and not really dishonest to say that I had not lunched. So I said it, and he was evidently very glad.

“We will go to the ‘Cat on Hot Bricks,’” he told me. “It is an eating-house of no pretension, but I prefer the greatest simplicity in all my ways, including my food and drink. At the big restaurants I should be recognised, which is a source of annoyance to me; but I am unknown at the ‘Cat on Hot Bricks,’ and I often take my steak or chop and a pint of light ale there, with other celebrities, and study life. Ah! the study of life, my young friend, is the prince of pursuits! The name that I have made is based entirely upon that study. Long practice has enabled me to see in a moment the constituents of every character and know at a glance with whom I have to deal.”

I told him my name, and he said that he had had the pleasure to meet some of the elder members of my family in the far past. I ventured to tell him about Aunt Augusta and her paintings, and he said that they were well known to him and that he possessed a good example of her genius. He even promised to call upon her when next in that part of London. He was immensely interested in my work and asked me many questions concerning fire insurance. And then I told him that I hoped in course of time to be an actor, and he said that, next to the poet, the actor was often the greatest influence for good. He himself had written a play, but he shrank from submitting it to a theatrical manager for production. It was a highly poetical play and made of the purest poetry, and so delicate that he feared that actors and actresses, unless they were the most famous in London, might go and rub the bloom off it and spoil it.

He let me choose what I liked for luncheon, and I chose steak-and-kidney pie and ginger beer. He then told me that the steak-and-kidney pie was all right, but that the only profits made at the “Cat on Hot Bricks” arose from the liquid refreshment, and that it would not be kind or considerate to drink so cheap a drink as ginger beer. So he ordered two bottles of proper beer, and then he told me about the place and its ways.

“The Bishop of London often comes here—just for quiet,” he said. “Of course I know him, and we have a chat sometimes, about religion and poetry and so on. And the Dean of St. Paul’s will drop in now and then. He has a weakness for ‘lark pudding’—a very famous dish here. They have it on Wednesdays only. Now tell me about your theatrical ambitions, for I may be able to help you in that matter.”

I told him all about my hopes, and he said that one of his few personal friends was Mr. Wilson Barrett, of the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street.

“That great genius, Mr. Booth, from America, has been acting Shakespeare there lately,” I said.

“He has,” answered Mr. Tupper; “his ‘Lear’ is stupendous. I know him well, for he often recites my poems at benefit matinees. But Wilson” (in this amazingly familiar way he referred to the great Mr. Wilson Barrett) “is always on the lookout for promising young fellows to join his company, and walk on with the crowds, and so learn the rudiments of stage education and become familiar with the boards. He is anxious to get a superior set of young fellows on to the stage, and he often comes to me, because he knows that in the circles wherein I move the young men are intellectual and have high opinions about the honour of the actor’s calling.”