John White looked nervously about the room, again asked whether they were quite alone, and commenced, in a husky whisper, to tell his narrative, with awful rapidity.
“It was all right at first, Tony, and I made some capital notes, but in a few days I tired. All the human characters seemed so much alike when studied in the life. So brutally alike. It pained me. The monotony of it made me giddy. But then the worst came, Tony. Whenever I went out to study a character—from the life—the character began to study me. I tried to brave it and bear up against it, because you know, Tony, the Times said I had genius and only wanted backbone. But just fancy to yourself setting out to study murderers and thieves, and all sorts and conditions of unmentionable men, and the murderers and thieves and unmentionables—from the life—turning round and studying you! What do you think of that? Study you—d’ye hear?—from the life! Ay, and follow you, too—to your club, to your home:—to your very bed!”
The trembling hands searched for the hat. Mr. White had jumped from his chair, and uttered a wild shriek, that sounded like “Here they are—from the life,” and had fled out on to the pavement of Paper Buildings.
Poor White died at Hanwell just two years ago—and Lomax married his widow. She, poor creature, finds in her new husband a practical person, whom she can understand, and seems all the happier for the change.
II.
THE SAWDUST MAN’S CURSE.
Harp Alley is a little nagged passage nestling under the heavy shadows of Drury Lane Theatre. None of the merchants who pursue business in the reeking enclosure can be truthfully described as doing a roaring trade. A manufacturer of spangles, who has hidden his commercial light under the bushel of Harp Alley, does a brisk business during the months preceding Christmas—his stock being in great demand for the decoration of the gorgeous characters of Pantomime. No one ever stops at the old book shop, where the same old plays which were offered ten years ago in a box at a penny each are offered at a penny still. And a steel engraving of David Garrick as Richard the Third, greatly perturbed by apparitions, has during the same interval failed to find a purchaser at half-a-crown. There is an old clothes shop in the Alley, owned by an adventurous speculator of the Semitic persuasion, where you can borrow a dress suit for the evening, and become a magnificent swell on the new hire system.
The best trade done in Harp Alley is done by the owner of the “Piping Bulfinch”—a public-house much resorted to in the present day by scene-shifters, stage carpenters, property men, and other humble ornaments of the British Drama, with a fine capacity for four ale and bad language. At the time of this story, the inner bar of the “Piping Bulfinch”—a reserved space with a door marked “private”—was the resort of certain actors and authors having a greater wealth of brain than of pocket. In those days the cuff-shooter was not, and a jeune premier would be satisfied with something less than the wages of an ambassador. Only the very superior sort of actor and manager and dramatic author belonged to a Club. The rank and file met unostentatiously in bars, and did their business or criticised their neighbours over “goes” of gin and whiskey, or half pints of ale and stout. I do not intend to mention here the names of those who were wont to meet of an afternoon at the “Piping Bulfinch.” Some are dead. Some are alive and famous. Others are alive and wrecks. And all of them seem desirous to forget the struggling period when they patronised the snug but sombre hostlery in Harp Alley.
Informally established as a réunion, this little society became known to the outer world, and the gentle layman penetrated to the recesses of the inner bar and forced his babbling company upon the playwright and the player. So that in self-defence the mummers and the drama-makers hired from the landlord of the “Piping Bulfinch” a large room that opened off the public bar. Towards defraying the expenses, each member of the coterie subscribed one shilling per week. They had a room of their own. They were now a Club; and that is the true history of the establishment of the Otway—for such was the style and title which these able but impecunious men of genius gave to this Association, when shrinking from contact with the profane vulgar, they withdrew behind the closed door of their own private and particular room.
And every Wednesday came to be known as Sawdust Day.
In those days of struggle what small incidents afforded interest and even excitement! and the weekly advent of the man bearing the sack of sawdust which was to be sprinkled on the floor of the Club-room, was looked forward to with keen enjoyment. He was a strange reflective man—the man who bore in this weekly sacrifice to respectability—this thin and shifting substitute for a carpet—this indoor Goodwin sands. But he greatly prized the opportunity afforded him of entering the Club. He laughed respectfully (to himself) at the jokes which were bandied about. He accepted with gratified smile the chaff which was levelled at him and at his sawdust. He became indeed a part of the Club itself, and lengthened his weekly visit as much as possible, always discovering, when it appeared time to go, some refractory spot on the floor which required replenishing and smoothing. The Sawdust man may have been a broken down dramatist, a poor poet whose literary wares were a drug in the market; and here in this bright association of wits and good fellows he found solace once a-week.