CHAPTER XVI.
EDDIE FOY'S SWORN TESTIMONY.
Eddie Foy, whose real name is Edwin Fitzgerald, has faced many audiences under all conditions and circumstances during his stage career of a quarter of a century, during which he rose from a street urchin to the distinction of one of America's most entertaining and unctuous comedians. Never before had such interest centered in his appearance as when on Thursday afternoon, January 7, 1904, he took the witness stand to relate under oath what he knew concerning the calamity of the preceding week.
The actor's face was a study. His deep-lined countenance, ordinarily irresistibly funny without effort on his part, took on a truly tragic aspect as he entered upon his story. His indescribable, husky voice that has made hundreds of thousands laugh with merriment, was broken; there was no suggestion of humor in it. Instead it was a wail from the tomb, the utterance of a man broken with the weight of the woe he had beheld in a few brief, fleeting moments.
The questions were propounded by Coroner Traeger and Major Lawrence Buckley, his chief deputy, and were promptly and fully answered by the comedian.
The full text, as secured through a stenographic report, follows:
Q. Will you kindly tell us, Mr. Foy, or Fitzgerald, in your own way, what transpired?
A. Well, I went to the matinee with my little boy, six years old, and I wanted to put him in the front of the theater to see the show. I sent him out before the first act by the stage manager, and he took him out and brought him back and said there were no seats. I sent him downstairs and put him in a little alcove that is next to the switchboard, underneath where they claim the fire started, and where I saw the fire first.
Q. That is on what side of the stage?