"Never mind!" I said, as the soup was followed by worse and worse. "There's my pudding!"
It came on blazing and looked superb. Henry tasted a mouthful.
"Very odd," he said, "but I think this is a camphor pudding."
He said it so politely—as if he might easily be mistaken. My maid in England had packed the pudding with my furs! It simply reeked of camphor.
So we had to dine on Henry's wine and L. F. Austin's wit. This dear, brilliant man, now dead, acted for many years as Henry's secretary, and one of his gifts was the happy knack of hitting off people's peculiarities in rhyme. This dreadful Christmas dinner at Pittsburg was enlivened by a collection of such rhymes, which Austin called a "Lyceum Christmas Play."
Everyone roared with laughter until it came to the verse of which he was the victim, when suddenly he found the fun rather laboured.
The first verse was spoken by Loveday, who announces that the "Governor" has a new play which is "wonderful"—a great word of Loveday's.
George Alexander replies:
But I say, Loveday, have I got a part in it,
That I can wear a cloak in and look smart in it?
Not that I care a fig for gaudy show, dear boy—
But juveniles must look well, don't you know, dear boy;
And shall I lordly hall and tuns of claret own?
And may I murmur love in dulcet baritone?
Tell me, at least, this simple fact of it—
Can I beat Terriss hollow in one act of it?[1]
Norman Forbes: