Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

Two foreign gentlemen who refused to give their names, but who had some important intelligence to convey, called at my office. I signalled down that I would see them. I expected men in European garb. But the two weird creatures who shuffled into my sanctum were clothed in undressed animal skins reaching almost to their feet. They were shod in the same material. And their head-dress was also a fur so fashioned that only the eyes and nose of the individuals were visible. The curious part of the equipment was that the visitors carried pistols in their skin belts. I think that it was this little circumstance that “gave the show away.” I looked very hard at the taller of the two men, and then, feeling sure in my surmise, I said cheerily:

“My dear O’Donovan, how are you? I’m delighted to see you.”

“Faith, I knew you’d know me!” he declared, in a tone that entirely disguised his disappointment. “Come out and have a drink.”

Now, this hospitable invitation placed me in something of a dilemma. For in the first place I did not wish to offend O’Donovan by refusing, and in the second I had no desire to walk up Fleet Street in the company of companions so strangely clad. I suggested that, if O’Donovan and his friend would go on to the “Cheese,” I would follow when I had finished writing the letter on which I was then busy.

“That’s a beastly picture of Dizzy,” said O’Donovan quietly. He had taken his revolver from his belt, and was pointing with it to “Ape’s” cartoon of Beaconsfield which hung opposite my desk.

I understood the hint. I rose and accompanied my remorseless friend. My worst anticipations were realized when I reached the office door. Quite a large crowd of Fleet Street loafers—and I think that in the Street of Adventure we could have boasted of as many loafers to the square yard as any thoroughfare in London—pressed round the door. The Fleet Street loafer is often exhilarated by the sight of strange visitors; but he had never yet seen visitors quite so strange as these. The crowd did not make any demonstration. But Cockney criticisms of the general appearance of my companions were freely bandied about. We had to cross the street and encounter the jibes of cab-drivers and omnibus cads. The crowd followed us right up to the doors of the tavern to which I had been invited. Here was another assembly. For O’Donovan had already visited the Cheshire Cheese, and had announced his intention of returning to lunch. I believe that old Moore had during that afternoon the most anxious time of his life. The fun waxed fast and furious. But there is safety in a multitude of any kind, and the intrepid traveller had so many friends and admirers in this gathering that I was soon able to slip away unnoticed.

The man who accompanied O’Donovan on this occasion was Frank Power—one of the most accomplished humbugs that ever made a way in life by means of a glib tongue, a vivid imagination, and an entire absence of scruple of any kind. O’Donovan subsequently engaged him as secretary, and he was to have accompanied his employer during the march with Hicks Pasha. It was characteristic of Power that when the march was made Power remained behind in Khartoum. He was once mentioned in the House of Commons. A question was asked by an Irish Member as to the qualifications of Mr. Frank Power, who had contrived to get himself made British Consul at Khartoum. Mr. Gladstone, whose imagination was at times as vivid as that of Power himself, replied promptly that the gentleman in question was an “esteemed merchant” of that city.

In letters home, O’Donovan freely expressed his belief that the chances of his ever returning to England alive were extremely small. It is inconceivable that he should not have communicated this opinion to Power. That young gentleman, holding that discretion is the better part of valour, had an attack of dysentery at the very moment when his services should have—under ordinary circumstances—become of any value to his chief. He did not accompany the intrepid column that marched across the sands to inevitable and complete annihilation. As to O’Donovan, I know that he died as he would have wished to die. No survivor of that ill-fated expedition was allowed to escape with the story of the fight. But I can picture O’Donovan in the midst of the mêlée, his eyes bright with the fury of battle, his wild Irish “Whirroo!” appalling even his frantic assailants, his desperate play with revolver, his final collapse on the hot bosom of Mother Earth, his warm Irish blood reddening the sands of the African desert.

John Augustus O’Shea, of the Standard, was another war-correspondent who was very much given to practical joking, and disguise generally played a prominent part in his plans. On one occasion he was commissioned by his editor to describe a certain Lord Mayor’s Show. Elephants were to play a part in this particular pageant; and it occurred to the accomplished correspondent that from the back of an elephant he might obtain an unrivalled view of the rivals of the route. George Sanger was providing the elephants, and O’Shea experienced no difficulty in obtaining permission to ride in a howdah and illustrate the fidelity of Indian Princes to the Empire. Sanger was also able to provide the Oriental costume essential to the part, together with the stage diamonds without which no self-respecting Prince ever goes out elephant-riding. His face was made up to the proper tint; his turban was a triumph of millinery; and as O’Shea passed through Fleet Street in the character of an Eastern potentate, and in the train of a London Lord Mayor, not a soul recognized him.

Indeed, the completeness of the disguise led to some inconvenience. For when the show was at an end, and O’Shea went on his elephant to Sanger’s stables in the Westminster Bridge Road, he found himself pressed for time, and unable, therefore, to abandon his disguise. He got into a hansom just as he was, and drove off to Shoe Lane to write his descriptive article for the Evening Standard. He was about to pass the commissionaire who stood sentry at the office door. But that old soldier did not recognize a member of the staff in the garb of a pious Hindu, and O’Shea, unable to curb his love of practical joking, soundly rated the old soldier in an improvised gibberish which the warrior, no doubt, thought he recognized as something he had been acquainted with in the East. O’Shea endeavoured to push past. The man “on the door” barred his progress. The war of strange words between them grew loud and furious. The commissionaire called to a member of the crowd that was gathering round the door to go for the police, and upstairs the sub-editor was anxiously waiting for O’Shea’s copy.