"Both are reprehensible," replied Monseigneur Capel; and, bowing stiffly, he went his way, while Florence shrugged his shoulders à la his own fascinating creation of Jules Obenreizer in "No Thoroughfare," and walked off in the opposite direction, whistling to himself as he walked.
Florence delighted in companionship and in the good things and good stories of the table, whether at a noon breakfast which lasted well through the afternoon or at the midnight supper which knew no hour for breaking up, and he never came to Chicago that we did not accommodate our convenience to his late hours for breakfast or supper. Nothing short of a concealed stenographer could have done these gatherings justice. Mr. Stone footed the bills, and Field, Florence, Edward J. McPhelim of the Chicago Tribune, poet and dramatic critic, and three or four others of the Daily News staff did the rest. The eating was good, although the dishes were sometimes weird, the company was better, the stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, songs, and flow of soul beyond compare. Field, who ate sparingly and touched liquor not at all, unless it was to pass a connoisseurs judgment upon some novel, strange, and rare brand, divided the honors of the hour with the entire company.
In acknowledgment of such attentions, Florence always insisted that before the close of his engagements we should all be his guests at a regular Italian luncheon of spaghetti at Caproni's, down on Wabash Avenue. It is needless to say that the spaghetti was merely the central dish, around which revolved and was devoured every delicacy that Florence had ever heard of in his Italian itinerary, the whole washed down with strange wines from the same sunny land. Florence's fondness for this sort of thing gave zest to a story Field told of his friend's experience in London, in the summer of 1890. The epicurean actor had made an excursion up the Thames with a select party of English clubmen. Two days later Florence was still abed at Morley's, and, as he said, contemplated staying there forever. Sir Morell Mackenzie was called to see him. After sounding his lungs, listening to his heart, thumping his chest and back, looking at his tongue, and testing his breath with medicated paper, Sir Morell said:
"As near as I can get at it, you are a victim of misplaced confidence. You have been training with the young bucks when you should have been ploughing around with the old stags. You must quit it. Otherwise it will do you up."
"Well now," said Florence, as related by Field, "that was the saddest day of my life. Just think of shutting down on the boys, after being one of them for sixty years! But Sir Morell told the truth. The Garrick Club boys were terribly mad about it; they said Sir Morell was a quack, and they adopted resolutions declaring a lack of confidence in his medical skill. But my mind was made up. 'Billy,' says I to myself, 'you must let up, you've made a record; it's a long one and an honorable one. Now you must retire. Your life henceforth shall be reminiscent and its declining years shall be hallowed by the refulgent rays of retrospection.' To that resolution I have adhered steadily. People tell me that I am as young as ever; but no, they can't fool me, I know better."
Whereupon, according to Field, "Joe" Jefferson broke in incredulously: "Just to illustrate the folly of all that talk, I'll tell you what I saw last night. When I returned to the hotel, after the play, I went up to Billy's room and found Billy and the President of the Philadelphia Catnip Club at supper. What do you suppose they had? Stewed terrapin and frappéd champagne!"
"That's all right enough," exclaimed Mr. Florence. "Terrapin and champagne never hurt anybody; I have had 'em all my life. What I maintain is that people of my age should not and cannot indulge in extravagance of diet. The utmost simplicity must be the rule of their life. If Joe would only eat terrapin and drink champagne he wouldn't be grunting around with dyspepsia all the time. He lives on boiled mutton and graham bread, and the public call him 'the reverend veteran Joseph Jefferson.' I stick to terrapin, green turtle, canvasbacks, and the like, and every young chap in the land slaps me on the back, calls me Billy, and regards me as a contemporary. But I ain't; I'm getting old—not too old, but just old enough!"
A dozen years with the boys had done for Field's digestion what the robust Florence was dreading after sixty, and to the day of his death, Field, from the rigid practice of his self-denial, pitied and sympathized with the unhappy wight who had received the warning given to Florence, "You must quit training with the boys, otherwise it will do you up." But he had no more obeyed the warning as to coffee and pie than Florence did as to the injunction of Sir Morell against terrapin and champagne.