There is a colony of theatrical people near Collier, and they have a small theatre in which a dazzling array of talent sometimes appears, although the performances are impromptu affairs. On Sundays this theatre serves as a church for the Catholics of the vicinity. At one side hangs a large lithograph of Willie Collier, concerning which the following conversation between the two Irishmen was overheard:
“I wint into the church this mornin’ airly, while it was pretty dark, an’ I see a picture hanging there, an’ thinkin’ it must be one av the saints I wint down on me knees an’ said me prayers before it. When I opened me eyes they’d got used to the dark, an’ if I didn’t see it was a picture av that actor-man beyant that they call Willie Collier!”
“An’ what did’ you do?” asked the other Irishman.
“Sure, I tuk’ back as much av me prayers as I cud.”
Augustus Thomas, the playwright, who is always “Gus” except on the back of an envelop or the bottom of his own check, was chairman of a Lambs’ Club dinner at which I was to speak. When I began, he joked me on my shortness by saying:
“Mr. Wilder will please rise when making a speech.”
I was able to retort by saying: “I will; but you won’t believe it.”
When an acquaintance said to him after being wearied by a play: “That was the slowest performance I ever saw. Strange, too, for it had a run of a hundred nights in London!” Thomas replied:
“That’s the trouble. It’s exhausted its speed.”