“Well, gentlemen, you want to talk to me,” he says, lighting a cigar, and offering his case to his nearest neighbors.
The reporters look at him and smile. They have had a brief consultation as to which of them shall open the business, but without coming to any definite arrangement. Irving, scanning the kindly faces, is no doubt smiling inwardly at the picture which his London friend had drawn of the interviewers. He is the least embarrassed of the company. Nobody seems inclined to talk; yet every movement of Irving invites interrogatory attack.
“A little champagne, gentlemen,” suggests Mr. Florence, pushing his way before the ship’s steward and waiters.
“And chicken,” says Irving, smiling; “that is how we do it in London, they say.”
This point is lost, however, upon the reporters, a few of whom sip their champagne, but not with anything like fervor. They have been waiting many hours to interview Irving, and they want to do it. I fancy they are afraid of each other.
“Now, gentlemen,” says Irving, “time flies, and I have a dread of you. I have looked forward to this meeting, not without pleasure, but with much apprehension. Don’t ask me how I like America at present. I shall, I am sure; and I think the bay superb. There, I place myself at your mercy. Don’t spare me.”
Everybody laughs. Barrett and Florence look on curiously. Bram Stoker, Mr. Irving’s acting manager, cannot disguise his anxiety. Loveday, his stage-manager and old friend, is amused. He has heard many curious things about America from his brother George, who accompanied the famous English comedian, Mr. J. L. Toole (one of Irving’s oldest, and perhaps his most intimate, friend), on his American tour. Neither Loveday nor Stoker has ever crossed the Atlantic before. They have talked of it, and pictured themselves steaming up the North river into New York many a time; but they find their forecast utterly unlike the original.
“What about his mannerisms?” says one reporter to another. “I notice nothing strange, nothing outre either in his speech or walk.”
“He seems perfectly natural to me,” the other replies; and it is this first “revelation” that has evidently tongue-tied the “reportorial” company. They have read so much about the so-called eccentricities of the English visitor’s personality that they cannot overcome their surprise at finding themselves addressed by a gentleman whose grace of manner reminds them rather of the polished ease of Lord Coleridge than of the bizarre figure with which caricature, pictorially and otherwise, has familiarized them.
“We are all very glad to see you, sir, and to welcome you to New York,” says one of the interviewers, presently.