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HAD a day in London before starting off on my next venture, and so
looked in at my old theater. I knew none of the company, but the
workmen and supers were mostly the same that I had left there. Dear
old Jim was in his usual state and greeted me with a pleasant:
“Hulloa! you seem jolly fond of the place, _you_ do. What the deuce
brings here?”
I explained that it was a hankering to see him once again.
“Mad Mat” was there, too. The pantomime was still running, and
Mat played a demon with a pasteboard head. He was suffering great
injustice nightly, so it appeared from what he told me. He was
recalled regularly at the end of the scene in which he and his brother
demons were knocked about by the low comedian, but the management
would not allow him to go on again and bow.
“They are jealous,” whispered Mat to me, as we strolled into _The
Rodney_ (it would be unprofessional for an actor to meet a human
creature whose swallowing organization was intact, and not propose a
drink)--“jealous, that’s what it is. I’m getting too popular, and they
think I shall cut them out.”
The poor fellow was madder than ever, and I was just thinking so at
the very moment that he turned to me and said:
“Do you think I’m mad? candidly now.”
It’s a little awkward when a maniac asks you point-blank if you think
he’s mad. Before I could collect myself sufficiently to reply, he
continued:
“People often say I’m mad--_I’ve_ heard them. Even if I am, it isn’t
the thing to throw in a gentleman’s teeth, but I’m not--I’m not. _You_
don’t think I am, do you?”
I was that “took aback,” as Mrs. Brown would put it, that, if I had
not had the presence of mind to gulp down a good mouthful of whisky
and water, I don’t know what I should have done. I then managed to get
out something about “a few slight eccentricities, perhaps, but----”
“That’s it,” he cried excitedly, “‘eccentricities ‘--and they call
that being mad. But they won’t call me mad long--wait till I’ve made
my name. They won’t call me mad then. Mad! It’s _they’re_ the fools,
to think a man’s mad when he isn’t. Ha, ha, my boy, I’ll surprise ‘em
one day. I’ll show the fools--the dolts--the idiots, who’s been mad.
‘Great genius is to madness close allied.’ Who said that, eh? _He_
was a genius, and they called _him_ mad, perhaps. They’re fools--all
fools, I tell you. They can’t tell the difference between madness and
genius, but I’ll show them some day--some day.”
Fortunately there was nobody else in the bar where we were, or his
ravings would have attracted an unpleasant amount of attention.
He wanted to give me a taste of his quality then and there in his
favorite _rôle_ of Romeo, and I only kept him quiet by promising to
call that night and hear him rehearse the part.
When we were ready to go out, I put my hand in my pocket to pay,
but, to my horror, Mat was before me, and laid down the money on the
counter. Nor would any argument induce him to take it up again. He was
hurt at the suggestion even, and reminded me that I had stood treat on
the last occasion--about three months ago. It was impossible to force
the money on him. He was as proud on his six shillings a week as
Croesus on sixty thousand a year, and I was compelled to let him
have his way. So he paid the eightpence, and then we parted on the
understanding that I was to see him later on at his “lodgings.”--“They
are not what I could wish,” he explained, “but you will, I am sure,
overlook a few bachelor inconveniences. The place suits me well
enough--for the present.”
Hearing a lunatic go through Romeo is not the pleasantest way
of passing the night, but I should not have had pluck enough
to disappoint the poor fellow, even if I had not promised, and,
accordingly, after having spent the evening enjoying the unusual
luxury of sitting quiet, and seeing, other people excite themselves
for _my_ amusement, I made my way to the address Mat had given me.
The house was in a narrow court at the back of the New Cut. The front
door stood wide open, though it was twelve o’clock, and a bitterly
cold night. A child lay huddled up on the doorstep, and a woman was
sleeping in the passage. I stumbled over the woman, groping my way
along in the dark. She seemed used to being trodden upon though, for
she only looked up unconcernedly, and went to sleep again at once. Mat
had told me his place was at the very top, so I went on until there
were no more stairs, and then I looked round me. Seeing a light coming
from one of the rooms, I peered in through the halfopen door, and
saw a fantastic object, decked in gaudy colors and with long, flowing
hair, sitting on the edge of a broken-down bedstead. I didn’t know
what to make of it at first, but it soon occurred to me that it must
be Mat, fully made-up as Romeo, and I went in.
I thought, when I had seen him a few hours before, that he looked
queer--even for him--but now, his haggard face daubed with paint, and
his great eyes staring out of it more wildly than ever, he positively
frightened me. He held out his hand, which was thin and white, but
remained seated.
“Excuse my rising,” he said slowly, in a weak voice, “I feel so
strange. I don’t think I can go through the part to-night. So sorry to
have brought you here for nothing, but you must come and see me some
other time.”
I got him to lie down on the bed just as he was, and covered him with
the old rags that were on it. He lay still for a few minutes, then he
looked up and said:
“I won’t forget you, L------, when I’m well off. You’ve been friendly
to me when I was poor: I shan’t forget it, my boy. My opportunity will
soon come now--very soon, and then------”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but began to murmur bits of the part to
himself, and in a little while he dropped asleep. I stole softly
out, and went in search of a doctor. I got hold of one at last, and
returned with him to Mat’s attic. He was still asleep, and after
arranging matters as well as I could with the doctor, I left, for I
had to-be on my way early in the morning.
I never expected to see Mat again, and I never did. People who have
lived for any length of time on six shillings a week don’t take long
to die when they set about it, and two days after I had seen him, Mad
Mat’s opportunity came, and he took it.