“I did, Jim,” was the tearful reply.
And there, I think, we plumb the very deeps of pathos.
It would be, however, an endless, exhausting, and uninteresting task to pursue my friends the players through their various theatres. The easier way is to catch them during their hours of relaxation in their clubs and in their pubs. The billiard-room of the Junior Garrick between half-past eleven at night and two in the morning was a covert always successfully drawn by those in search of theatrical game. Pool and pyramids were the games most in vogue, but more especially pool. Here you were sure of encountering “Jimmy” Fernandez (I never knew an actor, however sedate and inaccessible, who, being christened “James,” was not called “Jimmy” by his confrères), a devoted exponent with the cue; H. B. Farnie was rarely absent. He was a great hulking Scotsman with a slight limp, of which he hated to be reminded. He had originally been a medical student at Edinburgh. John Clarke, of the Adelphi—no relation to John Sleeper Clarke—was another of this coterie. He was a fine comic and character actor. He was the husband of Miss Furtado, a favourite Adelphi actress of the time. He played with unvarying success under many managements, including that of the Bancrofts, was of a grumbling disposition, and was known as Lame Clarke, to distinguish him from the other John Clarke—Sleeper of that ilk—lower down the Strand.
Clarence Holt, the tragedian, greatly fancied himself at the game of billiards, and had succeeded in cutting more billiard-cloths than any man living. Clarence Holt (his real name was Jo) was a barn-stormer of the old school; and although in general conversation he scowled, and made use of weird expletives, he was as good-hearted a fellow as ever lived. At the Saturday house-dinners of the club he invariably gave a recitation of “The Old Clock on the Stairs,” and always accepted with a sort of condescending and regal dignity the ironical cheers which it invariably evoked. His mingling of oaths with endearing epithets was one of the quaintest things in the world.
“How is Miss Holt?” one would ask.
“Oh, the dear, darling, bally little idiot—she’s well, dear boy, well!”
James and Thorne were also habitués of the billiard-room of the “J.G.,” as it was affectionately called by its members. And, indeed, in the stifling atmosphere of that room, which was situated in the upper part of the house, you would meet from time to time one half the actors in town. It was the favourite resort of the Swanboroughs, and of many others whose names have escaped my memory. In the Savage Club there was no billiard-room, but there was always a good attendance of actors after the closing of the theatres. The Garrick itself was never an actors’ club in the exclusive sense of the word. One or two of the upper crust of the “profession” always belong to it, to justify and perpetuate the use of the title. But to the rank and file of the calling it stands in the relation of Paradise to the Peri. So that, beyond the Junior Garrick and the Savage, the noble army of actors had no clubs. Their usual meeting-places, therefore, became pubs. And these seemed to be selected with a view to obtaining the utmost discomfort conceivable combined with the highest scale of charges possible. Thus, in the seventies the chief meeting-place of the theatrical fraternity was a wine-bar in Russell Street, Covent Garden, next door to the “Hummums,” and occupying a site now covered by a market tavern. From one to four o’clock of an afternoon the wine-bar at Rockley’s was crammed with all sorts and conditions of stage folk, and their contributory artistic aids—managers, costumiers, authors, artists, journalists.
About half a dozen times in my life did I visit Rockley’s, but I retain the most vivid recollection of the close atmosphere, the mingled smell of sawdust and port, the loud buzz of conversation, and the frequent laugh that followed the last new story or the smartly uttered retort. It will suffice here to record the impression of a single visit. The little man standing close to the bar, the centre of an eager group intent on his poignant utterance, is Shiel Barry. Barry was an Irishman, an actor of extraordinary intensity, and a man of considerable general knowledge. He was an omnivorous reader, and, when I first knew him, a great admirer of Carlyle, some passages of whose “French Revolution” he recited with a wonderfully lurid effect. I have recorded elsewhere in this book my impression of his masterly interpretation of the part of the miser in “Les Cloches de Corneville.” His rendering of certain of the characters in Dion Boucicault’s Irish plays was equally memorable and impressive. He was a master of pathos and ferocity, and could at once attract or repel by the strange realism of his embodiment of either emotion. The flamboyant gentleman with the Louis-Napoleonic moustache is William Holland, of the Surrey Theatre, the North Woolwich Gardens, the Circus at Covent Garden, and finally manager of the Corporation’s amusements at Blackpool, which became this particular Napoleon’s St. Helena. Conversing with him is Dr. Joseph Pope, familiarly known as “Jo,” and nicknamed “Jope.” Dr. Pope had been a surgeon in the army, serving in the Royal Artillery. He was a brother of Mr. Sam Pope, Q.C., of the Parliamentary Bar. Jo had been celebrated as the fattest man in the army, and Sam was distinguished as the fattest man at the Bar. Sam was a bachelor making an enormous income. Jo was a bachelor living on his half-pay; and it used to be said, that when Jo was in need of a remittance wherewithal to set right his balance at Cox’s, he would apply to Sam. If Sam proved irresponsive, Jo at once threatened to go on to the music-hall stage. That always “fetched” Sam, who hated the Bohemianism in which Jo wallowed.
William Brunton discusses costume designs with Alias, and Harry S. Leigh hums a new lyric which he has composed for a production at the Alhambra. Brunton, espying me, edges through the crowd to me.
“Have you heard George Hodder’s non sequitur?” he asks.