If the question were put to a company of young women, "What is the most
thrilling experience you can have in a London street?" the odds are
a thousand to one that they would reply that nothing could be more
thrilling than to meet a famous actor in plain clothes and identify him.
I am not a young woman myself, but I should be inclined to share their
opinion. There is something about an actor in real life, moving along
like a human being--one of us--that always stirs my pulse. It is
exciting enough to see Mr. LLOYD GEORGE or Mr. ASQUITH or Sir OLIVER
LODGE; but no one stirs the imagination like an actor.
That is why I still tremble a little whenever I think of my good fortune
the other afternoon in the Haymarket, and why my pen shakes as I
commit the adventure to paper. For I met face to face two of the most
successful actors in London--at the present moment, in the world.
I was walking up the Haymarket in the rain, hoping, in spite of the new
prohibitive rates, that I might see an empty cab, when I met them coming
down. They were walking with a man whom I did not recognise, and, like
me, were getting wet. One thinks of successful actors as riding always
in taxis; but taxis are very rare nowadays, particularly in the wet, and
somehow it did not seem unnatural that they should be on foot. I am glad
enough that they were, or I should have missed my _frisson_; and others
would have suffered a similar loss, for the recognition was not only on
my part but on that of several passers-by, and it was instantaneous.
Indeed, I heard one lady tell her companion the name of the play they
are in and the extraordinary length of its run, and since she spoke
loudly I thought how delightful it must be to be a theatrical celebrity
and hear cordial things like that as you move about. Neither of them
paid any attention, however, although their friend showed signs that
the flattery had not escaped him; the two Illustrions (to coin a word)
merely walked on, superior to our homage, and disappeared into Charles
Street, where the stage door of His Majesty's is.
Pouring though it was, and grovelling admirer of footlight favourites as
I am, somehow I never thought to offer either of them my umbrella. But
then one doesn't offer an umbrella to a donkey or a camel, even though
they are two of the stars of _Chu Chin Chow_.
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