“Nothing like yours, and no light vehicles such as yours. I could only think of the old chariot-races as I watched the teams of magnificent trotters that rushed by me like the wind. I hear you have a fine race-course at Chicago. Our friend Hatton told me long ago about seeing the famous Maud S. make her great time there.”
“Oh, yes. I remember how astonished he was. Maud S. and our fire-engine service captured his fancy. He described the racing in ‘To-day in America.’ You are coming to Chicago?”
“Yes. I am informed that I shall strike quite a different civilization in your city to that of New York; that public life with you is even more ardent than it is in the Empire city, and that the spirit of your commerce is more energetic. I can hardly understand that; but I long to see your wonderful streets and your city boundaries that daily push their way into the prairie. John McCullough, I remember, once gave me a startling description of Chicago.”
“I see that Mr. Sala, in the ‘Illustrated London News,’ warns you to expect our press to attack you. Is Mr. Sala a friend of yours?”
“Yes; and a dear friend and a very remarkable man. But we are wandering a little from the subject you came to talk about.”
“Not much. May I ask if you have any nervousness as to your first appearance?”
“Yes, the natural nervousness that is part of an actor’s first appearances everywhere. I cannot think that the taste for the drama is any different in New York and Chicago from Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, or London, in my own country.”
“Very much is expected of you. It would be hardly possible for you to realize the exaggerated ideas of some people. If you were a god you could not satisfy their expectations.”
“Nor, if I were a demon, could I achieve the attitudes and poses of my caricaturists. Between the two there is hope.”