“On the night of my visit to His Grace, the theatre was crammed from floor to ceiling with an audience attracted by that cold curiosity which characterizes the public with regard to my performances. The play was ‘Louis XI.,’ and the difficult feat which I had to accomplish was to catch a train after the performance, in order to present myself at the mansion of my noble host in time to participate in the ducal supper.
“Throughout the play I labored with all heart and earnestness to cut short the performance by every means in my power. I was determined to sleep under the roof of the Stratford-upon-Avons that night, come what come would.
“The curtain fell only five minutes before the time of the train starting; so, throwing on my overcoat of sable furs (a handsome adjunct to my American expedition), and, still attired as King Louis,—for I had no time to change my costume,—I rushed into the brougham, ready at the stage-door, and, followed by my valet, drove frantically to the station.
“I was thrust immediately through the open door of the nearest compartment—the door was locked—the whistle shrieked—away sped the train—and, panting and breathless, I was left to my meditations.
“‘Ah, horror! most dreadful thought; too dreadful to relate! I have left the theatre without my teeth,—my beautiful teeth!’
“In order to heighten the realism of the impersonation when I first acted Louis, I had several teeth extracted by one of our most eminent dentists, who has offered, as an advertisement, to take out any others in the like liberal manner.[6] In my insane hurry to catch the train I had left my teeth in a glass on my dressing-room table.
“But regrets are useless; the train has stopped, and I enter the duke’s chariot, in waiting at the station, and through the broad woodlands soon reach the duke’s home.
“I alight from the ancestral coach and enter the ancestral hall, in which a cheerful fire is blazing upon the ancestral hearth.
“Suddenly I find myself in the presence of my host, surrounded by many scions of the nobility of ‘England, Home, and Beauty.’ The oddness of my position (dressed as I was, and minus my teeth), and the natural inferiority which I always feel when in the presence of the real aristocrat, robbed me for the moment of my self-possession, and I unconsciously permitted two of the gentlemen in powder to divest me of my overcoat, and there I stood revealed as that wicked monarch Louis XI.