At last another opportunity arrived which enabled me to distinguish myself. I wish it had not. A poor woman was charged with purloining a shirt which was hanging outside a cheap hosier's in Clare Market somewhere. It was a windy day, and the end of the shirt was apparently flapping round the corner of the shop; so the prisoner, unable to resist temptation, filched it after the manner of a clown in a pantomime. Inspired by the punning humour of Tom Hood, I parodied one of his poems for the heading of my police report. The heading was "The Tale of a Shirt." This had a most undesired effect. The serious papers wrote to complain of the flippancy of the title; the refined papers of its vulgarity; while the vulgar papers inserted the title, which they emphasised by printing the word "tale" in italic.
This caused sarcastic paragraphs to appear in other papers directed against my father, who, of course, was the responsible reporter, and who, consequently, wrote me a second letter anent my talents for reporting which differed widely from the first.
Fortunately for all parties, Mr. Courtenay got well and returned to his post, and in 1866 it was decided I should thoroughly learn the business from him, so as to have some remunerative occupation while studying, and eventually following, the profession of the bar. Circumstances, however, ultimately prevented me from doing either. There are several, if not many, barrister-reporters in London; I know my friend Mr. E. T. Besley was one, and so were Mr. Finlayson and Mr. Corrie Grant, and I could mention three or four others.
My parent, with an eye to business, pointed out the absolute advantage that would arise from my being able to support myself by the press during the years I should, in all probability, be waiting for the arrival of a brief. His suggestion was adopted, and for the next three years I stuck entirely to the work, assisting Mr. Courtenay, who, in his turn, often assisted me in revising little occasional articles or verses which I wrote for humorous periodicals, &c., some of which were inserted to my great delight. He used to write prologues for amateur performances in which I took part, and at which he was always present. He was very kind to me, and I became very much attached to him, feeling great grief when he died in October, 1869.
The whole of the work then fell upon my shoulders during the absence of Grossmith, senior; and very hard work it was sometimes. When there was no work to do,—that is, nothing of consequence to report,—then the life of a reporter resembled that of a superior loafer—at least, that was my feeling. A reporter is not considered a sufficiently important person to be allotted a room for his own use. Sir Thomas Henry promised that the gentlemen of the press should have a room to themselves in the new Court, but he was unable to carry his promise out, as he died soon afterwards.
Therefore, when nothing was going on, the reporter became a kind of Micawber hanging about waiting for something to turn up. I used to sit in Court and write the opening chapters of three-volume novels which were never published, or extra verses to comic songs which were never sung.
When tired of this I used to loiter about the passages, or sit in the usher's room in company with solicitors, solicitors' clerks, witnesses with and without babies, detectives, defendants, and equally interesting people. Sometimes I meandered into the gaoler's room and gazed at the police and the prisoners. Sometimes I would go out to lunch and take three or four hours over it, and on returning find a most important murder case had been disposed of in my absence.
On one occasion I returned and found Mr. John Brown giving evidence in a charge against a lad for an attempt upon the life of our Most Gracious Majesty. However, I have managed to write a case just as well when I have not been present as when I have. The Court was a miserable one for sound, but the clerk was close to the witnesses and could hear them; so that his notes, which with courtesy I was permitted to copy, were, at all events, most reliable.
It must not be inferred from my absence that I was not interested in the work. On the contrary, there was so much variety in the important cases that one could not be otherwise than interested: but one never knew when they were coming on. But people of all classes would come day after day, and sit out (especially on a Monday morning) dozens of simple charges of drunk and disorderly, or of fighting and disturbing. This I could not quite understand. The days on which Mr. Flowers sat were certainly the most amusing, and consequently selected by the visitors. Mr. Irving, Mr. Toole, and the late George Belmore have often in bygone days sat by my side watching the more important cases.
Sometimes the monotony of the proceedings would be varied by my seeing one of my own acquaintances in the dock. Then an awkward question of etiquette arose. The dock joined the reporters' box. Now ought I to have shaken hands with him? As a matter of fact I never did, but I do not see why I should not have done so. However, I thought it best to follow the footsteps of the magistrates—they did not shake hands with their friends when charged.