“Cut hisself much!” exclaimed the innocent child; “he’s cut his bally head off!”
Brough used to tell another story in which the same note of exaggeration was the salient characteristic. It had to do with a Scotsman and a kilt, and afforded a sort of current phrase in his clubs for a time. The quoted phrase was: “I’m a maun o’ few wor-r-r-ds!” The story is not of the kind that can easily be conveyed in cold print.
Some years before his death I went into the Eccentric Club with him. There had been a considerable making of theatrical knights at or about the time; and when we entered the club-room, we found a smart young journalist of the new school inveighing against the knighting of stage folk. Brough, who did not care a red cent one way or the other, but who felt himself bound to stick up for his order, asked:
“But why should not actors be made knights?”
“Because,” answered the adolescent Fleet Streeter, with professional glibness, “they belong to a wandering, a nomadic, race.”
“Sort of Arabian knights, I suppose,” suggested Brough, closing the discussion with the acquiescent ridicule that kills.
“Lal” Brough and John L. Toole were the especial favourites of Londesborough among the players, and they might frequently be seen on his drag—his lordship was an accomplished “whip”—driving down to race-meetings near London, or enjoying in his company the beauties of Scarborough.
Another indomitable patron of the stage in the seventies and eighties was the Duke of Beaufort. His Grace was particularly quick in discovering budding talent in pretty actresses. To his fostering care was due the great advance which Miss Connie Gilchrist made in an education outside the meagre accomplishments demanded in an actress of burlesque—an education which fitted her for taking that high place in Society which she was destined to fill. Ah, dear me! it seems but a little while ago since the Duke was giving those luncheons in the upper room at Rule’s in Maiden Lane, at which the time passed for all of us so quickly and so gaily. Yet how few of those who sat at the board have survived to tell the tale!
In a public-house kept by one Beck in that part of the Strand which backed on to Holywell Street, and has disappeared under the advance of the County Council improvements, there was established a small club of actors and journalists, called the Unity Club. This was a coterie to which admission was not quite so easy as its surroundings might suggest. The talk there was excellent because, I think, there were always a sufficient number of butts upon which to exercise the ingenuity of the wits. It was in this select assembly that George R. Sims was first enabled to give a taste of his quality. His butt-in-ordinary was a very boastful actor named Harcourt, and the verses—chiefly in parody of great poets—which Sims wrote on one of Harcourt’s big boasts will still be recalled by those who were privileged to read one of the few copies printed. The “house-dinner” at the Unity Club was one of the most enjoyable feasts to which I ever sat down. The fare, indeed, was plain and substantial, but the sauce provided by the cheery players and pressmen who sat round the table was the most piquant to be obtained in all London.
At the Unity might sometimes be met David James and Tom Thorne, of the Strand Theatre. The club was just opposite to the theatre. When James and Thorne left the Strand, and, in partnership with Harry Montague, took the Vaudeville, a great amount of public interest was displayed in the venture. The new managers relied on burlesque as an opening experiment, preceded by comedy. The comedy was provided by Andrew Halliday. I forget who wrote the burlesque—Byron, perhaps. But the fortunes of the managers were to be founded by the new work of a new man, and the two burlesque actors from the House of Swanborough were to be enabled to rely thereafter on comedy, and to dispense entirely with burlesque. The new author was James Albery; the new play, “Two Roses.” For this production the services of Henry Irving were engaged—an engagement which evinced considerable managerial discretion, and, incidentally, gave Irving his first real opportunity of making a hit with the London public. All the members of the managerial triumvirate were provided with strong parts. George Honey gave a memorable impersonation of a good-hearted bagman—the “Our Mr. Jenkins” of the bills. Some of his lines were delivered with great unction. He comes under the influence of his wife’s religious belief, and evolves into what he calls “a shining light.” He and his wife are encountered by the heroine of the play.