How sweet and amiable of you to allow a humble being like myself to
write to you. Dropping your own special style (which, to be perfectly
frank with you, I could no more continue through the whole of this
letter than I could dine off treacle and butter-scotch), I beg to say
that I am heartily glad to have this opportunity of telling you a few
things which have been on my mind for a long time. In what corner of
the great realm of abstractions do you make your home? I imagine you
whiling away the hours on some soft couch of imitation down, with a
little army of sweet but irrelevant smiles ready at all times to do
your bidding. You are refined, I am sure. You cultivate sympathy as
some men cultivate orchids, until it blooms and luxuriates in the
strangest and gaudiest shapes. Your real face is known of no other
abstraction; indeed, you never see it yourself, so well-fitted and so
constant is the mask through which you waft the endearments which have
caused you to be avoided everywhere. This, I admit, is imagination;
but is it very far from the truth? Perhaps I ask in vain, for truth
is the very last thing that may be expected of you and of those who
do your bidding upon earth. I will not, therefore, press the question,
but proceed at once to business.
[Illustration]
About a month ago I met your friend, ALGERNON JESSAMY. What is there
about ALGERNON that inspires such distrust? He is very presentable;
some people have gone so far as to call him absolutely good-looking.
He is tall, his figure is good, his clothes fit him admirably, and are
always speckless; his features are regular, his complexion fresh, and
his fair hair, carefully parted in the middle, lies like a smooth and
shining lid upon his head. I pass over all his remaining advantages,
whether of dress or of nature. It is enough to say that, thus
equipped, and with the additional merits of wealth and a good
position, ALGERNON ought to have found no difficulty in being one of
the most popular men in town. Perhaps he would have been if he had
not tried with such a persistent energy to make himself "so deuced
agreeable." The phrase is not mine, but that of SAMMY MIGGS, who has
a contempt for ALGERNON and his methods, which he never attempts to
conceal.
"ALGY, my boy," I have heard him say, while the unfortunate JESSAMY
smiled uneasily, and shifted on his seat, "ALGY, my boy, I've known
you too long to give in to any of your nonsense. All that butter of
yours is wasted here, so you'd better keep it for someone who likes
it. Try it on QUISBY," he continued, indicating the celebrated actor,
who was at that moment frowning furiously over a notice of his latest
performance; "he loves it in firkins, and I'll undertake to say you'll
never get to the bottom of his swallowing capacity. You'll have to
exhaust even your stock, ALGY, my boy; and that's saying a lot."
So thoroughly uncomfortable did the suave and gentle ALGERNON look,
that I afterwards ventured to remonstrate mildly with the gadfly
MIGGS.
"What?" he said, "made him uncomfortable, did I? And a jolly good job
too. Bless you, I know the beggar through and through. I wasn't at
Oxford with him for nothing. Wish I had been. He's the sort of chap
who loses no end of I.O.U.'s at cards one night, and when he wins
piles of ready the next never offers to redeem them. You let me
alone about ALGY. I tell you I know him. There's no bigger humbug in
Christendom with all his soft sawder and gas about everybody being the
dearest and cleverest fellow he's ever met. Bah!"
And therewith SAMMY left me, evidently smarting under some ancient
sore inflicted by the apparently angelic ALGERNON.
However, this little incident was not the one I intended to narrate.
I met ALGY, as I said, about a month ago. It was in Piccadilly. At
first, as I approached, I thought he did not see me, but suddenly
he seemed to become aware of my presence. An electric thrill of joy
ran through him, a smile of heavenly welcome irradiated his face, he
darted towards me with both hands stretched out and almost fell round
my neck before all the astonished cabmen.
"My dear, dear fellow," he gasped, apparently struggling hard with an
overpowering emotion, "this is almost too much. To think that I should
meet the one man of all others whom I have been literally longing to
see. Now you simply must walk with me for a bit. I can't afford to let
you go without having a good talk with you. It always refreshes me so
to hear your opinions of men and things."
Ignoring my assurance that I had an important appointment to keep,
he linked his arm closely in mine and dragged me with him in the
direction from which I had come. How he pattered and chattered
and flattered. He daubed me over with flattery as I have seen
bill-stickers brush a hoarding over with paste. Never in my life had
I felt so small, so mean and such a perfect fool, for though I own
I have no objection to an occasional lollipop of praise, I must say
I loathe it in lumps the size of a jelly-fish. Yet such is the fare
on which JESSAMY compels me to subsist. And the annoying part of
it was that every lump which he crammed down my throat contained
an inferential compliment to himself, which I was forced either
to accept, or in declining it to appear a churl. I was never more
churlish, never less satisfied with myself. Amongst other things we
spoke of the affairs of "The Dustheap," a little Club of which we were
both members. JESSAMY opined it was going to the dogs. "Just look,"
he said, "at the men they've got on the Committee; mere nobodies. I've
always wondered why you are not on it. Men like you and me wouldn't
make the ridiculous mistakes the present lot are constantly making.
Fancy their electing MUMPLEY, a regular outsider, without enough
manners for a school-boy. I really don't care about being in the
same room with him." At this very moment, by one of those curious
coincidences which invariably happen, the abused MUMPLEY himself, a
wealthy but otherwise inoffensive stockbroker, hove in sight. "There
comes the brute himself," said JESSAMY; and in another moment his arms
were round MUMPLEY's neck, and he was protesting, with all the fervour
of a heartfelt conviction, that MUMPLEY was the one man of all others
for whom his heart had been yearning. That being so, I left them
together, and departed to my business.
Now does JESSAMY imagine that that kind of thing makes him a
favourite? It must be admitted that he is not very artistic in his
methods; and I fancy he must sometimes perceive, if I may use a
homely phrase, that he doesn't go down. But the poor beggar can't
help himself. He is driven by a force which he finds it impossible
to resist into the cruel snares that are spread for the over-amiable.
You, my dear GUSH, are that force, and to you, therefore, the sugary
JESSAMY owes his failure to win the appreciation which he courts so
ardently.
And now I think I have relieved my mind of a sufficient load for the
time being. If I can remember anything else that might interest you,
you may count upon me to address you again. Permit me in the meantime
to subscribe myself with all proper curtness,
Yours. &c. DIOGENES ROBINSON.
* * * * *
"THE PRODIGY SON."
[Illustration: Much put out.]
Sir,--I have not seen _Pamela's Prodigy_, but I have just read the
criticism in the _Times_, which says of it, "It must be regarded
either as a boyish effusion or a sorry joke." The criticism
then points out how it lacks "wit, humour, literary skill," and
apparently is wanting in everything that goes to make a successful
play,--everything that is, except the actors. Mrs. JOHN WOOD was in
it: she is a host in herself: not only a host, but the Manageress of
the theatre who, with her partner in the business, is responsible for
the selection of pieces. Now granting the critic to be right--and,
on referring to others, I find a _consensus_ of opinion backing him
up--at whose door lies the responsibility of having deliberately
selected a failure? Under what compulsion could so clever and
experienced an autocrat, sharp as a needle and with the "heye of an
'awk" in theatrical matters, as Mrs. JOHN WOOD, have made so fatal a
mistake--that is, if the critics are right, and if it be a mistake?
"_To err, is human_"--and, including even Mrs. JOHN WOOD, and the
critics, we are all human,--"_To forgive, divine_"--the critics
not being divine could not forgive; the public apparently, did
forgive--and, will, of course, forget. 'Tis all very well to fall
foul of the unhappy author--whom we will not name--_after_ the event;
but why was the piece ever chosen, and why was not the discovery of
its unfitness made during rehearsal? No! "as long as the world goes
round" these things will happen in the best regulated theatres, and
experience is apparently no sort of guide in such matters.--Yours
faithfully,
"NOT THERE, NOT THERE, MY CHILD!"
* * * * *
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