“Well, well, McIntyre!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”—and he led the way into Haxell’s, where they might have a quiet chat over cigars and brandy and soda.
“Nothing,” was the comprehensive reply.
“Have you settled on anything?”
McIntyre admitted that he was expecting to play in something at the Holborn. Before they parted Irving said: “You must come down and have seats in the house, so you can tell me what you think of us.” Next day he sent to the Holborn a most cordial letter containing tickets for the two best seats in the lyceum and an urgent request for another chat. Merely as an afterthought was this postscript:
“Forgive me for handing you a ten-pound note as a loan at your convenience. You may need to get something new for the play.” McIntyre’s feelings may be imagined when I repeat his confession that at that moment he did not know where his next meal was coming from.
Mr. Irving is very fond of children and—as does not always follow in other men’s fondness of the same nature, he is very attentive to them. When he produced “Olivia,” the juvenile part was played by a nine year old boy who kept himself very clean and tidy, but his street clothes were so old that extreme poverty was evident. One night Mr. Irving asked:
“Where do you live, my lad?”
“Beyond Hammersmith, sir”—a London section some miles from the theatre.
“And how do you get home?”
“I walk, sir,” the boy replied, surprised by the inquiry.