That report never came. Every week I had to post a big cheque to cover the deficit on the takings, and every week made it clearer that, although the play itself was a good one, it was a thoroughly bad speculation. Something certainly was amiss. I could not leave London myself, and the only alternative was to offer a friend his railway fare and expenses and ask him to run into the country, see the play and tell me frankly what was amiss. "Harry," said my friend very meaningly, "I've never done you a bad turn. I've seen it—once." Once was enough!
Eight weeks saw the end of "Melnotte." From the first it was a forlorn hope, and in any case it was impossible to run a company successfully unless one could be on the spot to superintend the production. The only satisfaction I had out of it—and I admit it with some feelings of pride—was that of standing by my fellow professionals, and, at whatever cost to myself, "playing the game." I have never made—and never shall be lured to make—another plunge into management. The risks are too great.
Sometimes I am inclined to contrast my bad luck in these business ventures with the good fortune of a friend who once asked me for a loan of £90. He was in humble circumstances then, but he had a little money of his own and his ambition was to buy the licence of a public-house in Holloway. I lent him the cash, and later on he came to repay me, with many thanks for thus giving him his opportunity. Years afterwards we met again. Upon the basis of that little public-house he had built a comfortable fortune, for he was a director of a brewery concern, had a big interest in various industrial undertakings, and eventually became a well-known member of Parliament. "You have been my mascot," he said—and there have been others who for various reasons have said the very same thing!
Once I met a "dear friend"—you may know the kind yourself—who was terribly anxious that I should be "in" with him in a rich gold mine in Alaska. He brought some nuggets to show me, and they were so plentiful, he told me, that he had picked these from the top of the ground. Evidently I must have been a particularly credulous person, because he got a good deal of my money, whereas all I got was experience!
Where hobbies are concerned my luck always seems to be appalling. I have had a mania for turning my hands to all sorts of things. It began, I remember, with my determination to commence breeding poultry, and having made up my mind to this, it had to be done very thoroughly. I bought quite a number of chickens and wired them within a very small space. The poor things had nothing like enough room, and they began to get bad tempered, to fight one another, and to pull out their feathers. Further, having pulled out their rivals' feathers and found the oil at the roots very tasty, they set to in earnest, and before long there was not one bird with a feather left in the place. They were all bald! A more miserable collection of freaks you could never imagine. With characteristic humour Dan Leno sent me a bottle of Tatcho for them!
From hens to ducks was not a far cry. So I bought a number of ducks' eggs, hatched them in an incubator, and at last decided that it was time the little wretches had their first swim. I accordingly carried them down to a pond to put them in. Alas! once more for my amateur enthusiasm! The ducklings were too young for that, and they got cramp and died.
Nothing daunted, I turned now to bulldogs, and in order to do things well I bought seven big kennels, complete with iron gates. They would have done credit to a big estate, where breeding is done on up-to-date lines, and were quite out-of-place in my suburban garden at Chiswick. To begin with we could not get the kennels into the garden. For hours they were on the street pavement while we cogitated just how we were going to get them round to the back of the house, and it was only after a police-officer had intervened with an order to remove them forthwith, because they were a nuisance, that we found that if there is a will, there must be a way.
"Captain Corcoran" was the name I gave to my best bulldog, and as he brought me luck, I was glad I had chosen that name from "Pinafore." He was a sturdy fellow, the winner of very many championships, and his progeny have since also carried off valuable prizes. But even my one successful hobby was doomed to be blighted. One day two crafty-looking individuals came to my house and said they wanted to see me about a dog. They were Americans, and they wanted, they told me, to buy "Captain Corcoran." I told them I would not sell him—not at any price. They found it a waste of time to try to fix up a deal. "Well," they said as their parting shot, "we're going to have him, anyhow." Within a day or two police officers called to warn me that two expert dog thieves had taken rooms in the neighbourhood, and I was forced to the conclusion, much as I disliked it, that I must dispose of "Captain Corcoran." Later on I commenced to breed dachshunds and Borzois, but somehow I did not care for the "doggy" people with whom I had to mix, and the end was that I gave up dogs altogether.
Then I determined I would venture into the more tranquil arts of floriculture. I would have my own flower garden, and what was more, everything in it should be done by myself. My wife, shrewd woman, said nothing. It was a case of "leave him alone, and he'll play for hours." From Holland I ordered an immense number of bulbs and put them into the ground. Months went by, but not a sign was there of my hyacinths. I pondered deeply over my manual of useful hints for gardening. Watered them? Yes. Raked the soil? Yes. What was wrong? Certain it was that these flowers never bloomed in the spring!