MORE ODD FISH
MY odd fish should have been disposed of in a single chapter, but one has
lingered over the memory of them. After all, they contributed the comic
element—or some of it—to many hours that lapsed in laughter. And shall
one not be grateful to them or to their memories?
A considerable proportion of my Press work had to do with the theatres.
I was acquainted with most of the actors and managers of my time, and
some of the oddest fish that ever swam into my ken were connected with
the “profession.”
There was, for instance. William Duck—manager, theatre-owner,
impresario. Duck commenced life in some very humble capacity in the West
of England. By a practice of punctuality, civility, a strict attention
to business, and the other virtues which are supposed to furnish forth
the complete British tradesman, he became a music-seller and purveyor of
musical instruments. In this capacity he evolved, by easy stages, into a
booker of theatre seats. And although Duck would not know a good play
from a bad one, he saw in the theatre an easy way to fortune. He felt
his feet by dabbling a little as “sharer” in likely ventures. But he
found himself, and, incidentally, founded his fortune, when, acting
alone, he purchased the country rights of “Our Boys.”
How much Duck netted out of that most diverting comedy I cannot say; but
I know that it was a prodigious sum. When first the money came tumbling
in, the happy man built him a lordly pleasure-house. In his new mansion
there were prominent two works of art: a statue of William Shakespeare
and a life-size portrait of Henry Byron. But, of the two, Duck always
considered the author of “Our Boys” to be the greater genius. He thought
no end of the writer of the play that brought him his first really big
returns. I met him, in deep mourning, a short time after Byron’s death.
“Ah, sir,” he said, shaking his head, “we’ll never see another man like
him—not in _our_ time.”
And Byron took every advantage of his admirer’s infatuation. Anything
that Byron brought him in the shape of a play Duck bought. When Duck
followed his idol to the Elysian Fields, his executors came upon a whole
press full of Byron manuscripts which were little more than “dummies.”
Byron had parted with his birthright for a mess of pottage, and
considered that he was justified in thus getting back a bit of his own.
Becoming interested in productions running at one or two of the West End
houses, Duck was now frequently to be met “in front,” and became known to
members of the Press. He was an exceedingly common-looking man, and one
of his eyes always oozed moisture, which caused him to raise his
handkerchief to his face while he conversed—a habit which acquaintances
at first found a little disconcerting. He was extremely ignorant—or, to
speak by the cards, extremely uneducated—and he never employed an
aspirate except when it was absolutely unnecessary. Which reminds me of
a story.
When “Our Boys” was being played for the first time at Plymouth, Duck
recollected having heard Byron say that he had never visited that town;
so he wired to his favourite author to come down as his guest. Byron
wired his acceptance. He probably had a new bundle of manuscript to pass
on to his patron. Duck was at the station to meet the traveller with a
programme for the afternoon’s enjoyment. He was anxious, above all
things, that Byron should see Plymouth’s famous Hoe. So, when they had
exchanged the customary civilities, Duck explained:
“I’m agoin’ to take you round to see the sights; an’ fust of all I think
we’d better take a little stroll round the ’O!”
“Don’t you think,” asked Byron, fixing him through his monocle, “that
first of all we’d better take a little stroll round the H?”
Duck looked amazed at his guest. He had not the remotest idea of the
point of Byron’s joke. He felt, in his confused way, that “’Enery Byron
was gittin’ at ’im.” He smiled feebly, shook his head in modest
deprecation, and answered:
“’Ar, you _will_ ’ave your little joke, sir; but it ain’t the haitch
after all, it’s the ’O we’re agoin’ to see—the ’O.”
“O!” was Byron’s monosyllabic comment.
William Duck had in his company as “leading man” a capital actor named
Edward George. Much of the success of “Our Boys” in the provinces was
due to the admirable impersonation of Perkyn Middlewick by that excellent
comedian. While on tour, and playing in one of the large towns in the
North, an admirer of George presented him with a cameo pin, having the
likeness of Lord Byron carved on it. Duck, who noticed everything, and
who had twice as much curiosity as an old woman, seeing the pin in the
scarf of the comedian, immediately said:
“Pretty pin, Mr. George! ’Ad it giv’ to you?”
“It’s a present,” admitted the actor.
“Anybody’s portrait? Hey, Mr. George?”
“Yes. It’s a portrait of Byron,” was the reply.
Duck started, came nearer to George, held his face close to the cameo,
and then fell back laughing consumedly. When he had succeeded in
controlling his merriment, he exclaimed:
“You’ve bin took in, my dear feller: _’tain’t a bit like ’im_!”
William Duck, you see, knew of only one Byron. And that was “H. J.”
When Byron’s play had run under Duck’s management for five hundred nights
in the provinces, the grateful manager thought that he would like to
celebrate the event, and testify to his appreciation of the efforts put
forth by the members of his company. It was, if I remember aright, in
Liverpool that the play achieved its five hundredth night. Duck’s idea
was to give a supper at his hotel. “Comes cheaper ’n a lunching,” one
hears him say. He also determined—it must have cost him a pang, for
William was mean, and that’s the truth—to give a little present to each
member of the cast. He purchased some cheap bangles for the ladies, and
a “charm” of more or less precious metal for the watch-guards of each of
the gentlemen.
The memorable night arrived. Duck took the chair, presiding with rustic
geniality over the pleased, and indeed surprised, comedians. Supper at
an end, Duck hammered for silence, and rose, amid cheers, to make the
speech of the evening. He told the devoted band of players what a lot he
thought of them, how their efforts had helped the success of the comedy,
and, in a word, how tremendously pleased he was with affairs generally.
He concluded his address in the following peroration:
“But, ladies and gentlemen, them’s mere words. I wished to present
everyone ’ere a solid token of my feelin’s, so I ’ave determined to give
each member of my company a little momentum of the occasion. . . .
Waiter!” he called out to the smiling attendant, “bring in them
momentums!”
H. J. Byron, in pre-Duckian days, added to the joys of the town by
inventing “malaprops,” which he used to put into the mouth of poor Mrs.
Swanborough, of the Strand Theatre. But the advent of Duck put an end to
that branch of industry as far as Byron was concerned. Duck found his
own “malaprops,” and in their presence the pale contrivances of the wit
were “As moonlight is to sunlight or as water is to wine.”
By the way, I would like to say here, in justice to an amiable lady long
since dead, that Mrs. Swanborough was not at all the sort of person that
the Byron anecdotes make her out to be. I was for years acquainted with
her, and I never knew her to be guilty of such solecisms as the “H. J.”
series put to her account.
The banquet and the presentation of “momentums” exhausted Duck’s
capabilities in the direction of hospitality and largesse; for he was
penurious above all things, and desperately thrifty. In the drawing-room
scene in “Our Boys,” the stage directions provide for a chandelier in the
centre of the ceiling. In the London production this was ablaze every
night with wax candles. The first night on tour, the property-master had
provided candles on the original scale. Duck nearly had a fit when he
saw the illumination. He summoned the property-man to his office,
and—_both_ eyes now shedding tears—he ordered that in future the candles
be reduced in number by one half, and those that were used to be cut in
four pieces. The expression of the property-man was one of mingled
distress and contempt. Observing which, Duck, wiping his eyes, observed
with a smile:
“The shorter they har, the longer they’ll last. See? Hey?” I suspect
he saw, for he spat on the carpet; and made his exit without a word.
I remember another London manager who was before Duck’s time, and who
possessed some of his peculiarities. This was Giovanelli, who engaged in
theatrical and other entertainments in the east and north of the town.
How this extraordinary individual came by the name Giovanelli I never
knew. He was a Cockney Jew, with all the engaging characteristics of
that delightful hybrid. His friends called him “Jo” for short. He had
seen the world, had Giovanelli. Among other places which he had visited
was Australia. It was on returning from that colony, I think, he adopted
the rolling Italian name which he bore in after-life. What name he went
out in is one of those interesting facts lost to the annals of the stage.
Besides running a theatre in the East End, the versatile “Jo” acted as a
low comedian. He did not, however, quite fancy himself in the dual role
of actor-manager, and neither, indeed, did the public. Therefore he
always engaged a low comedian in his company to supplement his own
efforts in that line. Indeed, the low comedian was the most important
member of East End companies, the “comic relief” in melodrama being
greatly to the taste of the untutored patrons. “Jo” once engaged an
actor who seemed to go all right at rehearsal, but who on the first night
excited the sibilation of “the bird.” At the end of the performance
Giovanelli sent for him. He handed him some golden coins.
“That’s your week’s salary, my boy. You needn’t come again.”
“I demand your reason for this summary dismissal,” said the chagrined
performer, standing greatly on his dignity.
“Well,” said Giovanelli, shrugging his shoulders, “if you _will_ ’ave
it—it’s because you’re a dam bad low comedian.”
“And what price _you_ as a comedian?” exclaimed the other.
“I know, I know, my boy,” replied Giovanelli, in his oily, deprecating
way; “but, you see, the public won’t stand _two_ dam bad low comedians.”
Some time since I saw in the Death advertisements of the _Times_ an
announcement of the decease of Mr. Richard Barnard. “Dick” Barnard was
one of the most impenetrable mysteries of the Strand. He was always well
dressed; he posed as a racing man, as a journalist, as a _flâneur_. He
managed to procure first-night invitations to all the important premiers.
He had scraped an acquaintance with some of the best-known men on the
turf, and was hand-in-glove with theatrical managers. The major portion
of his time was spent in Romano’s bar. But, for all his pose, Barnard
never owned a race-horse, never was a journalist, never had the slightest
interest in the stage. His success was founded on a well-groomed person,
a supercilious manner, the judicious communication of any good racing
information that came his way, and—indomitable cheek. For Dick was an
adventurer pure and simple, having abandoned the career of
billiard-marker in Birmingham for the greater possibilities of the
Metropolis.
Like most of his kidney, his life was a series of financial “ups and
downs.” Sometimes he was full of money; as often he was stony-broke. It
was during one of these latter periods that he was sitting in “the
Roman’s” lonely and disconsolate. To him entered, like a ray of
sunshine, a man-about-town in his little way, a votary of the drama, and
an habitué of Romano’s. He was one of those, also, who took Dick Barnard
seriously, supposing him to be a person of great influence on the Turf,
the Stage, and in Society.
Dick brightened up at the advent of his friend, but, of course, he did
not evince any particular elation. His satisfaction was naturally
enhanced when the young man from the country invited him to lunch.
Barnard accepted in the manner of a man who was conferring a favour.
They went into the narrow dining-saloon behind the bar—that was the only
_salle à manger_ Romano boasted in his halcyon days—and ordered luncheon
for two from Otto the waiter. During lunch Barnard related such items of
news as he thought would interest. And in return for these bits of
scandal his friend told him that he had just been down in the Boro’
selling his father’s crop of hops, and that he was carrying home the
spoils in his note-case—spoils amounting to several hundred pounds. To a
man who had not fingered a banknote for a month of Sundays this was news
indeed.
They did themselves fairly well—as well as a bill of fifteen shillings
will allow two lunchers to do themselves at “the Roman’s.” When coffee
had been served, and the lofty-minded Otto had gone to take orders from
another customer, the young gentleman leaned across the table, and
whispered to Barnard:
“I’ll pass you a tenner under the table; please pay the bill and give me
the change outside.”
“Certainly, sonny,” said Dick; “but may I ask the reason of all this
mystery?”
“The fact is, I’ve no smaller change, and I owe Otto a bit,” was the
answer.
“Oh!” said Dick sympathetically.
The tenner was duly passed under the table. The young man lit a
cigarette and left the room, passing out into the “roaring Strand.” He
waited for a quarter of an hour cooling his heels on the pavement, when
he was rejoined by his friend.
“Your change, old chap,” said Dick sweetly, as he handed the youth five
shillings.
“But, my dear fellow, that was a ten-pun note I gave you,” he said.
“I know,” replied Dick. “But, you see, _I owed Otto a bit too_.”
How the ingenuous youth explained matters to his father, I have never
heard.
In 1871 I first made the acquaintance of E. J. Odell, the actor. He then
seemed to be a man well advanced in middle age. He is still alive—one of
the features and mysteries of the Strand. He is the last of the
Bohemians—the survival of days (to quote Eccles) “as is gone most like
forever.” He has contrived to make a lasting reputation as an actor.
His impersonations were usually in burlesque or opera-bouffe. I can
personally recall two of his Metropolitan engagements. One of these was
in a burlesque at the Gaiety. But he failed there to justify the high
expectations of the management. Even at rehearsal there were
difficulties. Bob Soutar was stage-manager, and, being a bit of a
martinet, he and Odell did not quite “hit it.”
Odell played on tour as Gaspard the miser in “Les Cloches de Corneville,”
and I believe acquitted himself very creditably, which is no small thing
to say of any performer following Shiel Barry in the same part. For
Barry’s performance was one of the finest bits of acting seen on the
London stage in my time. On the first night of Shiel Barry’s appearance
in the part, I first understood the meaning of the phrase (Edmund Kean’s,
is it not?), “The Pit rose at me.” When the curtain fell on the second
act of “Les Cloches,” moved by the intensity of Shiel Barry’s acting in
the final scene of the act, the audience rose to their feet in all parts
of the house. It was an outburst of genuine enthusiasm which called the
performer before the curtain again and again. Lord Kilmorey—at that time
Lord Newry—was sitting next to me in the stalls. He does not strike one
as being a very emotional sort of nobleman; but he was carried away like
the rest of us by a wave of pulsating fervour which was quite
irresistible.
But to return to Odell. If that gentleman has not achieved a long record
of successes _on_ the stage, he has certainly made a great reputation
_off_ it. My friend Hollingshead was right when he described Odell as a
monologue entertainer. His entertainments, to be successful, must,
however, be of a private or semi-private nature. Certain of his ballads
are conceived more or less on the lines of Sala’s “Bet Belmanor.” One of
them was a weird thing commencing:
“Oh! was it in the garding,
Or was it in the ’all?”
He had an unctuous manner of rendering this gem which was quite his own—a
manner unique and of humour all compact.
There can be little doubt that Odell deliberately adopted the pose of an
eccentric. He enjoyed the surprise and interest occasioned by his
appearance when he promenaded the Strand. He had a thin, clean-shaven
face which would have been ascetic were it not for a perennial smile. He
wore his hair long; rolling down on his shoulders, it fell in a brown
cascade. Above was a wide black sombrero tilted rakishly on one side.
His coat—worn summer and winter—was an ulster cut very wide in the skirt.
He walked with a curious swaying gait which caused the ulster to undulate
its skirts from side to side. If his object were to attract public
attention to his person, he most undoubtedly succeeded. Country cousins
encountering the strange figure were sure to spot him as a celebrity of
some sort, and inquire as to his identity. Every gamin, in that
thoroughfare of gamins, was ready with the answer:
“’Im? W’y, that’s Odell, the hactor!”
Odell has a very pretty wit of his own, and there is no member of the
Savage Club—of which he is one of the oldest members—who can hope to get
the better of him in repartee. I remember hearing him sit very severely
on a pompous member of the old Lancaster Club, in the Savoy. Odell
happened to invite one or two of his friends to drink with him. The rude
and pompous person approached the group, and Odell, on hospitality
intent, invited him to have a drink.
“Thanks,” replied the would-be wit, “I only drink with gentlemen.”
“Then, sir,” flashed out Odell, without a moment’s hesitation, “let me
assure you that _you will never die of delirium tremens_!”
Odell’s age has always been as profound a mystery as his place of
residence. Much time and ingenuity have been expended by his associates
in the endeavour to unravel these mysteries. As the place of his birth
has never been divulged, there is an insuperable difficulty in obtaining
information under the first head; while as to the second, he has never
been known to leave his club until all the other members have departed.
Of all London, Odell holds the record of “latest to bed.” The genial
Bohemian has in his old age been very well treated by his clubs—more
particularly by the Savage. But what the Savage Club would be without
Odell one cannot imagine. The chief of the Bohemian clubs cannot afford
to lose the chief of the Bohemians.
Your average pressman, with an observing eye and an open mind, is bound
to knock up against a greater number of charlatans than the member of any
other profession. For publicity is to the charlatan the breath of his
nostrils, and the Press is the most potent engine in procuring publicity
of which the charlatan has any knowledge. And it will be borne in mind
that your properly-constituted charlatan does not at all care what
description of publicity he attains so long as the quantity is all right.
“Better be damned than mentioned not at all”
is his motto. Notoriety rather than celebrity is his aim.
Taking this as the measure of his aims, I conceive that the Marquis De
Leuville was the greatest charlatan that loomed through all the jocund
years. To begin with, he was no more a Marquis than I am; and, to
complete the absurdity of his pretensions, although he bore a
high-sounding French title, he was not a Frenchman. But he had every
possible claim to the title of “odd fish.” He was an Englishman. His
name was Oliver, and the place of his nativity was the city of Bath.
Various accounts have been circulated concerning his early life. Some of
these legends declared him to have been a hairdresser’s assistant;
others, that he had commenced as page-boy to a Bath doctor. About these
matters he himself was persistently reticent. The literary world first
heard of his existence by means of a novel in three volumes—at that time
the simple and inexpensive method of publishing a couple of shilling’s
worth of fiction. I forget the title of the book, I never read it; but I
discovered some time after its appearance that, although the title-page
described it as “by the Marquis De Leuville,” it was the work of one of
those literary “ghosts” of whose labours, all through his artistic
career, the “Marky,” as he was called, liberally availed himself.
The “Marky’s” novel was reviewed in the daily and weekly Press. In many
quarters it was even favourably reviewed. For there are snobs in Fleet
Street, as there are everywhere else, and there were certain
book-reviewers who would consider it bad form to say anything that was
not quite civil about the productions of a Marquis, even though the title
he bore was only a French one. The appearance, and newspaper acceptance,
of the book established those friendly relations with the Press
concerning which our friend Oliver had been so solicitous. Having once
established his footing in Fleet Street, the “Marky” was most assiduous
in his attention to those individuals with whom his work had found
favour. By them he was introduced to others. And so he extended his
connection like a good commercial traveller. It was rather unfortunate
for the adventurer that, at the moment of his advent as a writer, Mr.
Henry Labouchere had just commenced, in _Truth_, that crusade against
impostors, charlatans, and social parasites generally, which at once made
his paper and protected the public—one of those rare occasions by which
public benefactors have made anything out of their labours. In the most
matter-of-fact way Labouchere laid bare the pretensions of the mock
Marquis, and left him without a rag of reputation to his back.
Little incidents of the kind are always allowed for in the calculations
of an adventurer. The Marquis De Leuville, following the example of “ole
Brer Fox” in the allegory, determined to “lay low an’ say nuffin.” When
the Labouchere disclosures were forgotten, the scandal blown over, and
the sportsmen of Carteret Street busy on the trail of some other quarry,
the Marquis-who-was-not-a-Marquis and author-who-was-not-an-author made
his reappearance. Invitations to garden-parties at the Priory, Kilburn,
issued by a Mrs. Peters, descended like a shower of snow on newspaper
offices. And those who accepted them were received at the Priory by a
very affable, not to say merry, widow, who had very sensibly discarded
the trappings and the suits of woe. This was Mrs. Peters, the owner of
the house and grounds. And in these pleasant surroundings we found the
Marquis installed. The game was a very pretty one. Mrs. Peters was the
widow of a wealthy coach-builder. And in the chaste fastnesses of
Kilburn she had thought to establish a _salon_. Here she would play the
part of Madame Récamier to the Chateaubriand of a Bath Oliver!
Quick to read between the lines, the journalists who had been induced to
accept an invitation to the Priory were able now to piece together the
whole story. The giddy relict of the deceased coach-builder was the
founder of the “Marky’s” fortunes. Her cheque had paid for the French
marquisate. The Marquis De Leuville was, indeed, a work of fiction
conceived, constructed, and given to the public, by Mrs. Peters. And it
was a work of fiction transcending in human interest anything in the same
line which could be produced by Oliver or his “ghosts.” The _salon_ at
Kilburn failed to fulfil the hopes of its promoters; Society—even society
with a little “s”—fought shy of it. It was felt that Mrs. Peters as
Madame Récamier and her protégé as Chateaubriand did less than justice to
their several parts.
A suite of rooms was then taken for the Marquis in Victoria Street,
Westminster, somewhere opposite the Army and Navy Stores. Here the
indomitable humbug gave receptions, issuing the invitations in his own
name. At these receptions one met the most weird characters—the shy
denizens of the fringe of Bohemia, ostracized clerics, unread authors,
swashbucklers of doubtful nationality, but about whose character there
could be no sort of doubt whatever.
Mr. Harry De Windt, in his interesting book of reminiscence, gives an
anecdote concerning the Marquis and his Victoria Street receptions,
which, if worth telling at all, was worth telling correctly. I now
relate the incident as it was repeated to me by Mr. Charles Collette, the
well-known actor. At one of these assemblies in Victoria Street the
Marquis invited two or three of the guests to remain and “have a bite”
with him. When the general body of the guests had retired, these
selected individuals were taken to the dining-room, where the merry widow
was discovered awaiting them. Half a dozen people sat down to a meal
which consisted chiefly of potatoes and mutton cutlets. Collette sat on
the left of the Marquis, who took the head of the table. The Marquis was
not a pretty eater, and that’s the truth. He detached a whole cutlet
from the bone, and put it into his mouth as one bite. Looking up, he saw
the amazed expression on Collette’s face.
“I’ve got a devil of a twist,” explained the Marquis.
“I see. An Oliver twist,” said Collette sweetly.
De Leuville called on me once in Fleet Street while I was editing a
weekly paper. One of my contributors had fallen foul of a poem bearing
the nobleman’s name. The reviewer had discovered in the verses every
fault which the author of a poetical composition could by any possibility
commit. De Leuville’s principal object in seeking an interview was, he
declared, to prove to me that “shore” was a true rhyme to “Samoa.” He
did not quite succeed. He was a man with a big, round, foolish face; he
wore a moustache and imperial. He had very broad shoulders, and wore his
collar so low as to give him something of a _décolleté_ appearance. His
black tie was big and flamboyant, and suggested the boulevards—as it was,
no doubt, intended to do. His hair was long, and his broad-brimmed silk
hat was worn slightly tilted to one side, indicating that he was rather a
dog of a Marquis. He wore stays, which had the effect of adding,
apparently, to the width of his shoulders. On his fingers were large
rings of eccentric design. And the man literally stank—there is no other
word for it—of unguents and essences. That was the first occasion on
which I had the doubtful pleasure of seeing the Marquis De Leuville. The
last time I encountered him was about three years since at Boulogne. He
was a greatly altered marquis. His long grey hair fell over his
shoulders; he wore a black soft felt hat, a black velvet dinner-jacket.
He looked a rather seedy and shrivelled Marquis. Altogether he had the
appearance of a stunted Buffalo Bill fallen upon evil days. He was
accompanied in his visits to the _établissement_ by a group of
octogenarian lady admirers. He lived in an hotel at one side of the
estuary; they lived in a hotel on the other. Everything was entirely
respectable and platonic. And it was quite pathetic, I thought, to hear
the shrill voice of the merry widow—for the “Marky,” like the Pope, was
still supported by “Peters’ Pence”—rebuking a friend, and announcing
emphatically:
“My dear, the Marquis has a soul above gambling!”
Messengers came and went between the hotels, and a pleasant interchange
of amenities was constantly taking place. The Marquis, from his retreat
near the railway-station, despatched little presents of scent and
trifling sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow. These manuscripts the
recipient read in her high piping voice to her satellites, describing
them as “p’tee morr-sow.” And I suppose in exchange for the bottles of
strange smells and the poems there was a generous supply of “Peters’
pence.”
During his stay in Boulogne the Marquis invented a new boot-varnish, the
secret of applying which belonged to himself alone. He spent quite an
hour a day varnishing his boots, the result being that he was evicted,
one after another, from half the hotels in the town. His varnish had a
nasty habit of communicating itself to table-linen, carpets, or any other
hotel property that happened to touch it. But Oliver stuck to his
boot-varnish, and permitted himself to be driven from hostelry to
hostelry rather than abandon it. He afforded a fine example of the old
nobility sacrificing itself on the altar of principle. A year after I
had seen him in Boulogne I read of his death; and the devoted chatelaine
of the Priory, Kilburn, soon followed him into a realm where charlatanism
is, we may imagine, at a discount.
Colonel Whitehead was another gentleman who thought it well to establish
relations with gentlemen on the Press—on the principle, I suppose, that
it is well to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. The Colonel
was a great admirer of the stage, more particularly that department of
the stage which devotes itself to the encouragement of histrionic talent
in good-looking young women. He was a haunter of stage-doors, was
admitted, here and there, to the _coulisses_, and was one of those
patrons of the drama whose patronage takes a practical turn in the case
of its female professors. In order to indulge his tastes in this
direction, he leased the Canterbury for a season, revived the ballet with
some of its ancient glory, and thoroughly enjoyed himself among the
members of the corps. But the experiment was a costly one, and his
operations were subsequently carried on at a less ruinous scale of
expenditure.
He was one of the original members of Russell’s Club for Ladies. Here he
would turn up of a night with the largest shirt-front in London, in the
middle of which sparkled a diamond of prodigious size. The Colonel was
sitting one night in the drawing-room of the club, waiting, no doubt, for
one of those ladies for whose special convenience Russell had founded his
club. A boyish officer in one of the regiments of Guards was sitting not
far off staring at the Colonel, whose get-up fascinated him. The
youthful Guardsman was not nearly as sober as he might have been. Having
gazed, fascinated, for a length of time at the Colonel, he called out:
“Waiter!”
“Yessir,” said the servant who answered the summons.
“Oh—er—waiter, who’s (hic) that man with the lighthouse in his stomach?”
From that day to the day of his death Whitehead was known as Colonel
Lighthouse. The Colonel had a big house outside Margate, to which at
week-ends he invited his theatrical and literary friends. And the
highest sort of high-jinks were carried on there.
A certain Irish nobleman was on his death-bed. The priest came to him.
The holy man was anxious to get a general confession from him. The
nobleman declared he had nothing to confess. “Look back on your past
life, my lord. Is there nothing you regret?”
“Nothing,” he replied; “_I never denied myself a pleasure_!”
He closed his eyes, fell back on his pillow, and, in that happy belief,
died.
Whitehead was a gentleman of that kidney, and brings to an end my
selections from an almost inexhaustible list of odd fish.