“It happened while we were away. Had a nervous collapse—a stroke as well, and was battered up for keeps—all one side. Seems he had tossed his money around without thought and he was left stony broke. So they gave him a royal London benefit. The war paused long enough to honor the old chap. People came hours before the performance and waited on street curbs, brought their lunch and all that. A stall was as hard to get the day of the performance as a slice of the moon. Baxter says it was as great an event in its particular way as a coronation. They all turned out, great and small, old and young, to give Sam a valedictory. And now blush, Thurley. They even had your voice on a talking machine singing, ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes,’ and it was encored! There, doesn’t that set you up? I can’t tell you the exact programme, but every great artist available appeared. There was every one from a coster singer to the finest Shakespearean artist. And then the curtain rose for the finale—all the artists were in tiers and dressed in evening costume. Up high on a sort of throne sat our Sam, weak and not quite resigned yet to the truth of what had happened but gamey old Sam in a tuxedo and a gardenia in his buttonhole! The house burst into one sobbing roar—for he was their Sam Sparling and they were going to prove it.”
“What did he do? Oh, why weren’t we there?” Thurley cried.
“First, the house sang the street gamin song Sam had sung when a lad, a catchy tune with a refrain of,
‘Let me hold your nag, sir,
Or your little bag, sir,
Anything you please to give—
Oh—thank ’ee, sir—!’
“He used to do a clog dance with it and have that laugh of his thrown in for good value. Well, the people forgot his Shakespearean triumphs and his drama work; they just sang the old song between their laughing and crying. Then two men helped Sam to half stand, a terrible effort for the dear old chap, but the house rewarded him,—they sobbed louder than ever. All Sam said was, with an echo of the old street gamin laugh, ‘Thank ’ee, sirs’—and then he fell back—dead! The excitement was too much ... and the money will go to the soldiers.”
“But that,” said Bliss, after Thurley managed to stop sobbing, “isn’t the thing that hurts the worst. That was a superb ending—just as Sam himself would have staged it. But the very next day, the leading daily announced they would run a series entitled ‘Sam Sparling’s Breach of Promise Suits’ as told by an ‘old beau’—and there you have what I’ve said in a nutshell—the wrong the man Sparling did to his better self living after him, the good forgotten, undervalued. All due to the present day system of advertising and standards for artists’ personalities.”