Mr. Barrington has often come into my room just as I am going on the stage, and chaffingly said, "Why don't you make up?" I regard this rather as a compliment than otherwise.
I want to look like a First Lord, a fleshly poet, Major-General, or Japanese, not to show how I look like one.
The walls of my dressing-room are covered with prints, engravings, and sketches, of no particular value, but of interest to myself and many who visit me.
A capital pen-and-ink sketch, from memory, by Mr. Heather Bigg, of Corney Grain and myself playing a duet on the piano, amuses those who see it. A slight sketch by Frank Holl, R.A. (a great and esteemed friend of mine), of myself, fishing in the daytime and doing the Lord Chancellor's dance at night, is, of course, interesting.
There is also a water-colour sketch of myself in the costume of King Gama, minus the heavy cloak and wig, and the tunic preserved by a lawn-tennis jacket. I used to sit in this comfortable way during a long wait of one hour and forty minutes; and my appearance so tickled the fancy of Viscount Hardinge that he painted his impression of it, and sent it to me.
There is also an admirable sketch, by Alfred Bryan, of John Parry; a signed photograph of Mrs. Howard Paul; full-page drawings in the Graphic, &c., from my brother's pictures exhibited in the Royal Academy; some old playbills, in which my uncle figures prominently; clever sketches of singers, by Harper Pennington; and, what is more useful than any of the above, a comfortable couch, on which I can throw myself after having been encored two or three times in some extravagant dance.
The rules behind the scenes at the Savoy are very strict. No visitors, thank goodness, are allowed to be hanging about the stage or standing at the wings. There are separate staircases for the ladies and gentlemen. We are all a very happy family; jealous feeling and spirit are conspicuous by their absence; and the "understudies" experience no difficulty in getting every help and support, if required, from the principals whose parts are to be played in case of absence or illness.
There are no mashers waiting at the stage-door. Presents and love-letters are few and far between; in fact, during the ten years I have been on the stage I have only received one. I confess I am a little hurt by the notion; but, perhaps it is just as well. The letter referred to was not well worded, and the spelling certainly might have been better. The lady, I am sure, was quite sincere in her expressed adoration of me, and I appreciated her candid confession that she had no prejudice against my "calling"; but the postscript was certainly disappointing. It ran thus:
"P.S.—Next Sunday is my Sunday out."
Before engaging anybody at the theatre, Mr. D'Oyly Carte hears them sing, or "tries their voice." It is a standing joke between him and myself that I never kept the appointments made by him to "hear my voice."