“‘The scoundrels were just fooling me, like any softy.’
“Then he began to shout ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ and ran off, as we hoped and expected he would, to alarm the house. We all crept back to the room, closed the window, drew down the blind, relighted the gas and our cigars, put each piece of silver back into its proper place, and sat down to wait for our bill. We could hear Sandy, at the top of his voice, telling the story of the robbery; and in a few minutes we heard, evidently the entire household, coming pell-mell to the dining-room. Then our door was flung open; but the crowd, instead of rushing in upon us, suddenly paused en masse, and Sandy exclaimed, ‘Great God! Weel, weel! Hae I just gane clean daft?’
“‘Come awa’, drunken foo’, come awa’!’ exclaimed the landlord, pulling Sandy and the rest back into the passage and shutting the door; but we could hear how both master and wife abused poor Sandy, who did nothing but call upon his Maker and declare, if he had to die that minute, when he went into the room it was empty of both guests and silver. He was told to go to bed and sleep off his drunk, and thank his stars that his long service saved him from instant dismissal.
“We rang the bell. The landlord himself answered it. We asked for an explanation of the hubbub. It was nothing, he said, only that his man had got drunk and made a fool of himself. Was that all, we asked. Well, yes, except that he was very sorry to have so disturbed us. To have all the house burst in upon us, we said, was such a strange proceeding, that we begged he would explain it. He said he did not like to do so. It was the first time Sandy had ever been known to get so drunk as to lose his senses, and all he could do was to express his regret that his servant had made a fool of himself; but he would not insult his guests by telling them how great an ass the fellow was. We coaxed him, however, to explain the entire business; and at last, with many apologies, he told us how the drunken fool had mistaken us for a pack of thieves, and swore we had run off without paying our bill and taken the plate with us. We humored the landlord for a time, and when he was at last in a genial temper we told him the true story, and he enjoyed the joke as well as any of us. Then we had him send for Sandy, who was so glad to discover that he had not lost his wits that a couple of sovereigns left him, at our departure, just as happy and contented a man as he was before making the acquaintance of ‘a parcel of actors,’ who are still regarded in some remote corners of Great Britain as the ‘rogues and vagabonds’ they are proclaimed in our ancient statute-books.”
V.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE PLAY.
The Vividness of First Impressions—New York Hotels—On the Elevated Road with “Charlie”—Trotting Horses—Audiences on both Sides of the Atlantic—“A Man knows best what he can do”—“Americanisms,” so called—A Satirical Sketch, entitled “Bitten by a Dog “—Louis and the Duke of Stratford-on-Avon—Macready and the Forrest Riots.
I.
“A journalist from Chicago is anxious to have your opinion of New York, and some suggestions about your feelings in regard to your first appearance in America,” I said; “and if you will talk to him I have undertaken to collaborate with him in writing the interview, so that I may revise and adopt it for our book of impressions.”