I had sent Lady Diana the name of a professional spiritualist, and here is an extract from her reply:
Thank you so much for writing to E——. I am all for a medium who stands no nonsense with the spirits, but has them up there and then. I fear W—— lets his ghosties give themselves airs, as both "Petre" and also "John King" have always thrown me over. Who was John King? . . .
Yours very sincerely,
DI. HUDDLESTON.
Letters of invitation follow from Frank Holl, R.A., George du Maurier, Nita Gaetana (Mrs. Moncrieff), Kate Field, and Earls of Fife and Wharncliffe. Then comes a letter from F. C. Burnand, respecting my proposer for the Beefsteak Club. He suggested Sir Arthur Sullivan; but eventually Corney Grain proposed me. I think Frank Burnand is the most amusing man to meet. He is brimful of good humour. He will fire off joke after joke, and chaff you out of your life if he gets a chance. His chaff is always good-tempered. No one minds being chaffed by Burnand. I will not sing a song when he is in the room if I can possibly help it. He will sit in front of me at the piano, and either stare with a pained and puzzled look during my comic song, or he will laugh in the wrong places, or, what is worse still, take out his pocket-handkerchief and weep.
A short time ago we were dining at Mrs. Lovett Cameron's, and were seated on either side of her. Throughout the dinner I had purposely been making some rude observations respecting the dishes, with which Mrs. Cameron was immensely amused. Eventually a "sweet" was handed round, consisting of little hard cakes of something resembling dark-brown toffee or hardbake, with cream piled on. Mrs. Cameron said to me, "You must not pass this dish—do have some." I replied, "Well, I won't have any of the cream—only some of the glue," which the sweet certainly resembled. Burnand promptly replied, "Oh, are you going to stick here all night?"
Burnand's parties are to be envied, and not forgotten. At one of his evening entertainments in Russell Square, he suggested we should get up a "bogus" band. I fell in with his idea at once, and it was left to me to arrange. I decided upon the overture to Zampa; and, to give a semblance of reality to the performance, arranged with Mr. Charles Reddie to preside at the piano; and, chaos or no chaos, he was to go steadily on. Frederic H. Cowen was the violoncello; the first violins were played by Mr. Samuel Heilbut, a capital amateur violinist, and by my brother, who was nearly as good. I played second violin, and was simply awful. Rutland Barrington played the piccolo; but as he could only play in one key, which, unfortunately, was not the one we were playing, the effect can be imagined. Last, but not least, Corney Grain conducted.
The time arrived for the performance, and the music-stands were placed in a circle in the crowded drawing-room; and, in order that there should be no jumble at the commencement, we decided to take the overture at exactly half its proper time.
I shall never forget the surprised look on the faces of Sir Julius Benedict and Mr. W. G. Cusins when we began. There was no idea, at first, it was a joke. We played the next andante movement with sublime expression and perfectly correctly, with the exception of Barrington's piccolo, which was here more terribly conspicuous than before. This was rendered all the more ridiculous by the sweet, satisfied smile which Grain was assuming, after the fashion of an affected conductor.
The audience began to suspect something was up; but their suspicions were soon set at rest when the subsequent quick movement arrived. Reddie played on, and Heilbut stuck to it. Fred. Cowen, Weedon Grossmith, and myself put down our instruments and stared up at the ceiling, as if we had a few bars' rest. Barrington played a tune of his own; and Grain, in an excited manner and in the German tongue, demanded him to desist. Barrington, who also speaks German, retaliated.
This German row was most natural and funny, and created roars of laughter. J. L. Toole, who was in the audience, and who did not see why he should not join in, forced his way through the people and seized hold of Weedon's old Italian violin, and was about to bang it on the back of a chair. Weedon had a genuine fight to recover his fiddle, and had to remind Toole that it was not one of his own "properties." Reddie and Heilbut still seriously stuck to the piano and violin. Grain then bullied me for not playing. A general altercation ensued; and as the final chords of the shortened overture were played, Grain seized me up under his arm, as if I had been a brown-paper parcel, and marched out of the room with me.