Another rather “trying time” was many years later when I appeared “on the halls”. Let me say here that I have played the halls since, and found everyone—staff, manager, and other artists—very kind; but at that time “sketches had been doing badly”, and when the date approached on which I was to play at the—no, on second thoughts I won’t give the name of the hall—the management asked me either to cancel or postpone the date. I refused. I had engaged my company, which included Ernest Thesiger, Bassett Roe, and several other excellent artists, for a month, and the production had been costly, so I protested that they must either “play me or pay me”. They did the latter, in two ways—one in cash, the other in rudeness. How I hated that engagement! But even that had its bright spot, and I look back and remember the kindness of the “Prime Minister of Mirth”, Mr. George Robey, who was appearing at that particular hall at the time. He did everything that could be done to smooth the way for me.
I seem to have been unlucky with “sketches” at that time. I had a one-act comedy—and a very amusing comedy too; my son later used it as a curtain-raiser, and I played it at several of the big halls: as the Americans say, “It went big.”
I thought I would strike out on my own and see an agent myself, without saying anything to anybody. This is what happened. (I should say that this is only a few years ago, when I had thought for some time that as an actress I was fairly well known.)
I called on the agent in question; he was established in large and most comfortable offices in the West End. I was ushered into the Presence! He was a very elegant gentleman, rather too stout perhaps. He sat at a perfectly enormous desk, swinging about in a swivel chair, and, without rising or asking me to sit down (which I promptly did), he opened the interview:
“Who are you?” I supplied the information.
“Don’t know you,” he replied. “What d’you want?” I told him, as briefly as possible. At the word “sketch” he stopped me, and with a plump hand he pounded some letters that lay on his desk. “Sketches,” he repeated solemnly, “I can get sketches three-a-penny, and good people to play ’em. Nothing doing.”
I stood up and walked to the door, then perhaps he remembered that he had seen me in a play or something—I don’t know; anyway, he called after me, “Here, who did you say you were?” “Still Eva Moore,” I said calmly, and made my exit.
All agents may not be like that; I hope they are not; but I fancy he is one of the really successful ones. Perhaps their manners are in inverse ratio to their bank balances.
Talking of agents, I heard of one who was listening to a patriotic ballad being sung at the Empire during the war. A man who was with him did not like it, and said, “You know, that kind of stuff doesn’t do any good to the Empire”—meaning the British Empire. “No,” was the reply; “they don’t go well at the Alhambra, for that matter, either.”