“Come now, clear off out of this, you and your jokes,” said the manager. “I’ve been taken in before to-day. You’ll need to get up earlier in the morning if you want to do it again. The Emperor of Brazil indeed! It’ll be the King of the Cannibal Islands next!”
I felt mortified, and so, I fancy, did the manager shortly afterwards.
Happily the hotel is now managed by the railway company, and is one of the best in all Ireland.
I fared better in this matter than the messenger who hurried to the residence of a painter, who is now a member of the Royal Academy, to announce his election as Associate in the days of Sir Francis Grant. It is said that the painter felt himself to be so unworthy of the honour which was being thrust upon him, that believing that he perceived an attempt on the part of some of his brother-artists to make him the victim of a practical joke, he promptly kicked the messenger downstairs.
The manager of the hotel did not quite kick me out when I explained to him that his house was to be honoured by the presence of an Emperor, but he looked as if he would have liked to do so.
Regarding the early rising of the Emperor Dom Pedro II., several amusing anecdotes were in circulation in London upon the occasion of his first visit. One morning he had risen, as usual, about four o’clock, and was taking a stroll through Covent Garden market, when he came face to face with three well-known actors, who were returning to their rooms after a quiet little supper at the Garrick Club. The Emperor inquired who the gentlemen were, and he was told. For years afterwards he was, it is said, accustomed to declare that the only men he met in England who seemed to believe with him that the early morning was the best part of the day, were the actors. The most distinguished members of the profession were, he said, in the habit of rising between the hours of three and four every morning during the summer.
A story which tends to show that in some directions, at any rate, in Ireland the hotel proprietors are by no means wanting in courtesy towards distinguished strangers, even when travelling in an unostentatious way, was told to me by the late Ciro Pinsuti, the well-known song writer, at his house in Mortimer Street. (When he required any changes in the verses of mine which he was setting, he invariably anticipated my objections by a story, told with admirable effect.) It seems that Pinsuti was induced some years before to take a tour to the Killarney Lakes. On arriving at the hotel where he had been advised to put up, he found that the house was so crowded he had to be content with a sort of china closet, into which a sofa-bed had been thrust. The landlord was almost brusque when he ventured to protest against the lack of accommodation, but subsequently a compromise was effected, and Pinsuti strolled away along the lakes.
On returning he found in the hall of the hotel the genial nobleman who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and an old London friend of Pinsuti’s. He was on a visit to the Herberts of Muckross, and attended only by his son and one aide-de-camp.