William Duck, you see, knew of only one Byron. And that was “H. J.”
When Byron’s play had run under Duck’s management for five hundred nights in the provinces, the grateful manager thought that he would like to celebrate the event, and testify to his appreciation of the efforts put forth by the members of his company. It was, if I remember aright, in Liverpool that the play achieved its five hundredth night. Duck’s idea was to give a supper at his hotel. “Comes cheaper ’n a lunching,” one hears him say. He also determined—it must have cost him a pang, for William was mean, and that’s the truth—to give a little present to each member of the cast. He purchased some cheap bangles for the ladies, and a “charm” of more or less precious metal for the watch-guards of each of the gentlemen.
The memorable night arrived. Duck took the chair, presiding with rustic geniality over the pleased, and indeed surprised, comedians. Supper at an end, Duck hammered for silence, and rose, amid cheers, to make the speech of the evening. He told the devoted band of players what a lot he thought of them, how their efforts had helped the success of the comedy, and, in a word, how tremendously pleased he was with affairs generally. He concluded his address in the following peroration:
“But, ladies and gentlemen, them’s mere words. I wished to present everyone ’ere a solid token of my feelin’s, so I ’ave determined to give each member of my company a little momentum of the occasion. . . . Waiter!” he called out to the smiling attendant, “bring in them momentums!”
H. J. Byron, in pre-Duckian days, added to the joys of the town by inventing “malaprops,” which he used to put into the mouth of poor Mrs. Swanborough, of the Strand Theatre. But the advent of Duck put an end to that branch of industry as far as Byron was concerned. Duck found his own “malaprops,” and in their presence the pale contrivances of the wit were “As moonlight is to sunlight or as water is to wine.”
By the way, I would like to say here, in justice to an amiable lady long since dead, that Mrs. Swanborough was not at all the sort of person that the Byron anecdotes make her out to be. I was for years acquainted with her, and I never knew her to be guilty of such solecisms as the “H. J.” series put to her account.
The banquet and the presentation of “momentums” exhausted Duck’s capabilities in the direction of hospitality and largesse; for he was penurious above all things, and desperately thrifty. In the drawing-room scene in “Our Boys,” the stage directions provide for a chandelier in the centre of the ceiling. In the London production this was ablaze every night with wax candles. The first night on tour, the property-master had provided candles on the original scale. Duck nearly had a fit when he saw the illumination. He summoned the property-man to his office, and—both eyes now shedding tears—he ordered that in future the candles be reduced in number by one half, and those that were used to be cut in four pieces. The expression of the property-man was one of mingled distress and contempt. Observing which, Duck, wiping his eyes, observed with a smile:
“The shorter they har, the longer they’ll last. See? Hey?” I suspect he saw, for he spat on the carpet; and made his exit without a word.
I remember another London manager who was before Duck’s time, and who possessed some of his peculiarities. This was Giovanelli, who engaged in theatrical and other entertainments in the east and north of the town. How this extraordinary individual came by the name Giovanelli I never knew. He was a Cockney Jew, with all the engaging characteristics of that delightful hybrid. His friends called him “Jo” for short. He had seen the world, had Giovanelli. Among other places which he had visited was Australia. It was on returning from that colony, I think, he adopted the rolling Italian name which he bore in after-life. What name he went out in is one of those interesting facts lost to the annals of the stage.
Besides running a theatre in the East End, the versatile “Jo” acted as a low comedian. He did not, however, quite fancy himself in the dual role of actor-manager, and neither, indeed, did the public. Therefore he always engaged a low comedian in his company to supplement his own efforts in that line. Indeed, the low comedian was the most important member of East End companies, the “comic relief” in melodrama being greatly to the taste of the untutored patrons. “Jo” once engaged an actor who seemed to go all right at rehearsal, but who on the first night excited the sibilation of “the bird.” At the end of the performance Giovanelli sent for him. He handed him some golden coins.