My entertainments in private are capital scope for the smaller journalists; and journalists, like other people, can be very small sometimes. I read accounts of my own indignation at having been told to go round to the servants' entrance; how a duchess was horrified at discovering she was dancing with me instead of Lord Adolphus; my injured feelings because a hostess did not shake hands with me; and my having called upon the butler at Marlborough House, and spreading the report that I had visited the Prince of Wales. These paragraphs, though absolutely untrue, are inoffensive, and do good, inasmuch as they do not hurt me, but supply the author with a few hard and honestly-earned shillings.
Spiteful and really offensive paragraphs are regarded by me in a different light. An offensive paragraph has the same effect upon me as an anonymous letter. I feel the same sort of pity for the writer as I do for the poor "Norfolk Howard," who can only do its work in the dark, and cuts such a terrified figure when the light is suddenly flashed upon it. The anonymous letter-writer is, perhaps, the worst of the three; for his action is nearly always dictated by a feeling of spite; whereas the "Norfolk Howard" and the "offensive paragraphist" are actuated by a feeling of hunger: and necessitas non habet leges.
There are exceptions to every rule, and I soon ascertained that hunger was not the raison d'etre of the following exceptional notice in reference to my debut in a weekly paper:
"* * * * * * * * * And something which was called an 'entertainment' by a beardless boy, whose tones betokened his Cockney birth, and whose sole ideas of humour seemed to be derived from an excessive abuse of vulgar gesture, and the constant employment of such slang terms as are heard in police-courts and penny gaffs. When Master Grossmith was not vulgar, he was simply stupid; for which reason his attempts at amusing an intelligent audience by a wretched imitation of the Christy Minstrels and a badly-arranged rehash of Albert Smith's 'Evening Parties' were, as they deserved to be, a dead failure. The whole exhibition was most painful, and as far beneath what we should have expected to see at the Polytechnic as a 'Penny Dreadful' is from one of Thackeray's novels. Our advice to the debutant is, to tarry at Jericho till his beard be grown."
I was extremely hurt at this, but the direct allusion to the police-court aroused my suspicions. I became a sort of amateur detective; and the result was, I "received information" that the article had been written by a gentle of position, who had just beforehand been charged at Bow Street with a very serious offence, and whose friends had not been successful in persuading me to "keep the case out of the paper," or in "altering his name" beyond recognition.
I owe very much to the Press, not merely for the favour extended towards me, but also for improvements gathered from their adverse criticism. But whenever I read a notice like the above, I am consoled by the thought that its author, at some time or other, without consent or consultation, has put in an appearance at Bow Street Police Court during my reign as reporter.
In the foregoing chapter, I have dealt entirely with visits into Society professionally. In the next, and last, I shall speak of the non-professional invitations: for, strange as it may appear to the uninitiated, I am not always expected "to oblige with a song;" nor is it a sine qua non that if I accept an invitation to dinner, it is on the distinct understanding that I should be funny. I can be a very rational being when I choose; and any hostess who asked me to her residence in the expectation that I should gratuitously amuse her guests, would find me particularly prosaic.
Happily for all professional men and women, such hostesses are very rare; and, fortunately, their reputations precede them. Still, there are people who cannot understand why I should appear in propria persona in a drawing-room; and a wealthy hatter of slight acquaintance, meeting me at a "Mansion House" ball, said:
"Hulloa! Mr. Grossmith, what are you doing here? Are you going to give us any of your little funniments—eh?"
"No," I replied. "Are you going to sell any of your hats?"