It was to be a company for the provinces, and as Mr. Carte thought that the rather shabbily attired young person who officiated at the piano would not be exorbitant in his demands for salary, he decided that he would do, and offered Mansfield three pounds, or fifteen dollars, a week.
To the out-at-elbows, fate-buffeted artist, this seemed a princely sum, and he accepted the position with an eagerness he hoped was not as apparent as his necessities demanded it should be. But his spine stiffened a little later on when, having made good with Wellington Wells and one or two other impersonations in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire, he asked for a raise of salary amounting to two dollars a week. Mr. Carte declined to grant it, and Mansfield quit.
But, on the strength of his first engagement, it was not a heaven and earth raising matter to secure a second, and, like all the rest of his ambitious British brother actors, he steered his course across the Atlantic. He found a chance to appear as Dromez in the comic opera "Les Manteaux Noirs," which was done in New York at the Standard Theater, now known as the Manhattan.
This was in the early eighties. His next venture was Nick Vedder in a musical setting of "Rip Van Winkle," after which he returned to the Gilbert and Sullivan line and appeared as the Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe."
A Lucky Misfortune.
And right here steps in one of the luckiest misfortunes that ever befell a man. For had Mansfield not turned his ankle while dancing as the Chancellor in Baltimore he might have remained in comic opera until he disputed twentieth century honors in the field with De Wolf Hopper and Jeff De Angelis.
The accident put him out of the cast and sent him back to New York, right in the path of A.M. Palmer, who happened to be looking for somebody to do Tirandel in "A Parisian Romance." This was a small part, but, being in straight drama rather than comic opera, was regarded by Mansfield as a step upward, and he did not hesitate about accepting the engagement.
What followed has been told so often from the Mansfield side that the reader may be glad to get the story in the words of the man who made it possible for a fellow actor to lift himself in a night from obscurity to fame. I quote from "Recollections of a Player," by James H. Stoddart, whose last creation on the boards was Lachlan, in "The Bonnie Brier Bush," and who is now living in retirement at his home in Sewaren, New Jersey.
From the Memoirs of James H. Stoddart.
"After the reading of the play the company were unanimous in their opinion that 'A Parisian Romance' was a one-part piece, and that part the Baron, and all the principals had their eye on him. After some delay and much expectancy, the rôle was given to me. Miss Minnie Conway, who was a member of the company and had seen the play in Paris, said that she thought the Baron a strange part to give me.