"Yes, old chap, and the next time you have a walk I advise you to walk all round the H."
In those merry gatherings I recall the familiar features of true Bohemians, when Bohemianism was at its best—not the ornamental names of those one finds mentioned in all reports of the famous gatherings, but of the members who really used and made the Club. Few of the outside public recollect, for instance, the name of Arthur Mathieson, who wrote and sang that pathetic ballad, "The Little Hero"; who also was an actor and writer of ability,—in fact, he was what is fatal to men of his class—a veritable Crichton. Being in appearance not unlike Sir Henry Irving, he was engaged by our leading actor to play his double in "The Corsican Brothers," and made up so like his chief that no one could possibly tell the difference between the two. One evening during the run of the piece an old Irishwoman who was duster of the theatre, and with whom the genial double of Sir Henry often had a friendly word, approached as she thought the familiar M., and in a rather frivolous mood innocently tickled the actor under the chin with her dusting-broom.
"My good woman, what do you mean?"
The poor Irishwoman dropped on her knees, clasped her hands and said, "The Saints protect me! it's the Masther himself—I'm kilt entoirely."
The "Masther," however, probably enjoyed the humour of it. Sir Henry, like his dear old friend Mr. J. L. Toole, has found a relief in occasional harmless fun. Toole, however, was irrepressible.
A PRESENTATION.
I was one day walking with him in Leeds (when he was appearing in the evening on the stage, and I on the platform). A street hawker proffered the comedian a metal pencil-case for the sum of a halfpenny. Toole made this valuable purchase. As soon as I left the platform that night, I found a note for me, inviting me to the theatre directly after the performance. Toole came back on to the stage, and making me an elaborate and complimentary speech, referring to me as "a brother artist in another sphere," etc., etc., presented me with the pencil! I made an appropriate reply, and we went to supper.
The following paragraph from the pen of Mr. Toole appeared in the Press the next day in London as well as the provinces:
"Brother artists, even when working in different grooves, do not lack appreciation of each other's work. After Mr. Harry Furniss's lecture in Leeds the other night, he and Mr. Toole foregathered; and the popular and genial actor presented the 'comedian of the pencil' with a very neat and handsome pencil-case, just adapted for the jotting down, wherever duty takes him, of those graphic sketches with which the caricaturist amuses us week by week."