“‘Do you mean upon your under-clothing or in your under-clothing?’ queried the astonished ‘Spirit,’ conjuring up visions of Christmas dinners on uninhabited islands, at which shipwrecked mariners had been known to devour their apparel, and of the tropical Christmas dinners in India and Australia, at which scanty costumes are appropriate to the climate.
“‘Both!’ replied Mr. Irving. ‘It is not a story of wonderful adventure; but I’ll tell it to you, if you have five minutes more to spare. Do you remember Joe Robins,—a nice, genial fellow who played small parts in provinces? Ah, no; that was before your time.
“‘Joe Robins was once in the gentleman’s furnishing business in London city. I think that he had a wholesale trade, and was doing well. However, he belonged to one of the semi-Bohemian clubs; associated a great deal with actors and journalists, and, when an amateur performance was organized for some charitable object, Joe was cast for the clown in a burlesque called “Guy Fawkes.”
“‘Perhaps he played the part capitally; perhaps his friends were making game of him when they loaded him with praises; perhaps the papers for which his Bohemian associates wrote went rather too far when they asserted that he was the artistic descendant and successor of Grimaldi. At any rate, Joe believed all that was said to him and written about him, and when some wit discovered that Grimaldi’s name was also Joe, the fate of Joe Robins was sealed. He determined to go upon the stage professionally and become a great actor.
“‘Fortunately Joe was able to dispose of his stock and good-will for a few hundred pounds, which he invested so as to give him an income sufficient to prevent the wolf from getting inside his door, in case he did not eclipse Garrick, Kean, and Kemble. He also packed up for himself a liberal supply of his wares, and started in the profession with enough shirts, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings, and under-clothing to equip him for several years.
“‘The amateur success of poor Joe was never repeated on the regular stage. He did not make an absolute failure; no manager would entrust him with parts big enough for him to fail in. But he drifted down to general utility, and then out of London, and when I met him he was engaged in a very small way, on a very small salary, at a Manchester theatre.
“‘His income eked out his salary; but Joe was a generous, great-hearted fellow, who liked everybody, and whom everybody liked, and when he had money he was always glad to spend it upon a friend or give it away to somebody more needy. So, piece by piece, as necessity demanded, his princely supply of haberdashery had diminished, and now only a few shirts and under-clothes remained to him.
“‘Christmas came in very bitter weather. Joe had a part in the Christmas pantomime. He dressed with other poor actors, and he saw how thinly some of them were clad when they stripped before him to put on their stage costumes. For one poor fellow in especial his heart ached. In the depth of a very cold winter he was shivering in a suit of very light summer under-clothing, and whenever Joe looked at him the warm flannel under-garments snugly packed away in an extra trunk weighed heavily upon his mind.
“‘Joe thought the matter over, and determined to give the actors who dressed with him a Christmas dinner. It was literally a dinner upon under-clothing; for the most of the shirts and drawers which Joe had cherished so long went to the pawnbroker’s, or the slop-shop, to provide the money for the meal.
“‘The guests assembled promptly, for nobody else is ever so hungry as a hungry actor. The dinner was to be served at Joe’s lodgings, and, before it was placed on the table, Joe beckoned his friend with the gauze under-clothes into a bedroom, and, pointing to a chair, silently withdrew.