“Old Tom Meade, beloved by all English players, and the best stock ghost any company ever had, was much given to reading in the dressing-room between his cues. “Hamlet” was on one night, and after his first appearance as the murdered king, Meade went to his room for the long “wait” before the closet scene. With his heels on the table, a black clay pipe in his mouth and silver spectacles astride his nose he was soon in the profoundest depths of a philosophical work. The call boy gave him notice of his cue.
“Uh-yes,” was the reply, but Meade went on reading. Several minutes later there was feverish excitement in the wings and messengers from the stage manager poured into Meade’s room; the lights had been lowered, the stage was enveloped in blue haze, but there was no ghost! Dropping his book, Meade hurried to the stage, but in his excitement he entered on the wrong side, and almost behind Hamlet. It was too late to go around to the other side, so Meade whispered huskily to Mr. Irving:
“Here, sir, here—just behind you!”
About this time the man who managed the calcium light succeeded in locating the dilatory ghost and in throwing the blue haze upon him, as Hamlet exclaimed:
“See where he goes e’en now, out at the portal!”
Poor Meade was in agony until he was able to speak to Mr. Irving.
“Gov’n’r,” he faltered, “reading in my dressing-room—heard call, but forgot. Rushed to wrong side of stage, sir. Never happened before—never will again, sir. And after all, it didn’t go so bad, sir.” For a moment Mr. Irving looked him through and through, after which he said icily:
“Yes, Tom—but I like it better the other way.”
One day Mr. Irving chanced to meet McIntyre, with whom he had played in the provinces in his own struggling days. The two men had not met in years, and Irving’s eyes—marvelous eyes they are, beamed with delight, as they always do when they see an old companion.