[199]
]CHAPTER XVII
PEOPLE OF THE THEATRE
Sir Herbert Tree—Gordon Craig—Henry Arthur Jones—Temple Thurston—Miss Janet Achurch—Miss Horniman
Sir Herbert Tree never met a stranger without trying to impress him. He always succeeded. He would take the utmost pains about it: go to any lengths: use his last resource.... I am not now, of course, dealing with him as an actor. We all have our varying opinions of him as an actor. Some think he could; some think he couldn’t.... But I am writing of him at the present moment as a man. A showman, if you like. As a man, as a man who “showed off” either as a wit, a mimic, a man of the world, a superman, or what not, he was supreme.
I met him in his private office at His Majesty’s in the middle of the run of Joseph and his Brethren. He had invited me there in order to dictate an article to me, but, as he told me over the ’phone, he hadn’t the remotest notion what the subject of the article was going to be. Could I help him with any ideas? His article was for a Labour paper. Did I know anything about Labour? If I didn’t, did I know anybody who did?
In speaking to me over the ’phone, he appeared so anxious that I began to rack my brains for a subject. In the recesses of my meagre intellect I found the remnants of two or three subjects, and at nine o’clock that evening I presented myself at His Majesty’s Theatre with them on the tip of my tongue.
His room was empty as I entered it. Opposite the door [200] ]was a fireplace and above the fireplace a mirror; on the left of the door as you entered it was Sir Herbert’s large desk. By the side of this, seated on a low chair, I waited. I had not to wait long, for presently I heard a soft, rather pulpy kind of sound coming down the passage and, a moment later, Sir Herbert entered, wearing a long white beard and the garments of a gentleman of the East. The play was still in the first act, and he had that minute come off the stage.
“Got a subject?” he asked, shaking hands. “So have I. The Influence of the Stage on the Masses! What do you think of it? Very trite, I know, but there are a few important things I want to say. Sit here, will you? Here you are—ink and paper.”
And, sitting down, he began immediately to dictate the article. He got along swimmingly, and about a third of the article must have been down on paper when I heard a squeaky voice outside the door. It was the call-boy. Sir Herbert rose, stroked his beard, adjusted his gown, and walked outside; as he did these things he continued dictating, his voice stopping in the middle of a rather involved sentence when he was out in the passage.
After five or six minutes, I heard the same soft, pulpy sound approaching and, while yet outside the door, he began dictating at the precise point where he had left off, rounding off the sentence most beautifully. It was a remarkable feat of memory. After a very short period, we heard the high-pitched voice a second time, and once more he moved dreamily away, still dictating. Again he stopped, purposely as it seemed to me, in the middle of a sentence, and again, when he reappeared, he spoke the waiting word. Marvellous! He gave me a cautious, inquiring look, as if to discover if I had noticed his cleverness. I smiled back reassuringly. In a few minutes the article was finished.
[201]
]“Do you like it?” he asked.