ANSDELL’S AFTERNOONS
JAMES ANSDELL was a retired Cape merchant. He was a genial, generous,
and clever little man, and bore a somewhat striking facial resemblance to
Livingstone the explorer. Why on earth James Ansdell, with a fine income
and all the world open to him as an oblate spheroid of a pleasure-garden,
should have selected Anderton’s Hotel in Fleet Street as the resort, of
all others, to afford him the greatest amount of diversion, I have never
been able to discover. But in the smoking-room of Anderton’s some
five-and-twenty years ago Ansdell was to be found on every afternoon
after lunch, surrounded by a little coterie of pressmen, Fleet Street
nondescripts, and Cape cronies. He established himself as host of the
table; and in those days that in itself was a passport to the less
strenuously occupied of the journalists. Ansdell was always sure of a
full company, and as he was not only a good talker, but a good listener,
conversation for conversation’s sake was greatly encouraged, and time
passed swiftly and agreeably enough over the Cape merchant’s coffees and
whiskies and cigars.
Ansdell had met Alfred Geary at the Cape—about Geary I shall have a
little to say in my next chapter—and I suppose that to Geary he was
indebted for the introductions which enabled him to establish his
“afternoons.” My opportunities of joining Ansdell’s circle were
infrequent. The journalist of larger leisure, a smaller sense of
responsibility, and more mercurial temperament, found the Ansdell
reunions extremely to his taste. And there can be no doubt that the
founder of the “afternoons” had contrived to surround himself with some
very interesting characters.
Among them was a certain poet. The world forgets all about him—a
tasteless and an ungrateful world—but in the seventies and eighties no
new publication would consider itself complete that did not contain a
copy of verse from his muse. And if he had been Horace himself, he could
not have had a more profound belief in the authenticity of his poetic
gift. He had a stout figure, a round red face, and he walked up and down
the Street that is called Fleet with his head held well back, and with
the severe air of a man that was determined to bring the beast of a
British Public to its knees. I am afraid the good fellow was chaffed
considerably at the Ansdell symposia. But his belief in his own good
gifts was too profound to permit him to take offence even at the most
obvious irony.
The last occasion on which I saw the poet was on the day on which the
papers announced that the Laureateship, vacant for some time by the death
of Tennyson, had been bestowed upon Mr. Austin. He was overwhelmed with
grief and chagrin—grief, that a post so manifestly adapted to his own
genius should have been given to another; chagrin, because the office had
been given to one whom he regarded as his own inferior. His idea was
that I should obtain for him permission, from the conductors of a journal
with which I was then connected, to write the new appointment down. He
was greatly incensed, I remember, by my asking him whether it mattered
very much who was appointed or whether any appointment whatever were
made.
“It is the cynical act of a Minister who has made science his hobby.
What sort of a taste for literature can be expected to be acquired in
Lord Salisbury’s laboratories at Hatfield?”
“A taste for literary retorts,” I suggested. But he would not allow the
momentous subject to be side-tracked by a mere verbal pleasantry.
“I tell you,” he persisted, “it’s a filthy political job. Austin has
been officially honoured, not on account of his poems, but as a reward
for his Conservative leaders in the _Standard_. This great office has
been flung like a bone to a dog by a cynical and unscrupulous Minister.”
It was strange, the way he harped on poor Lord Salisbury’s cynicism. But
I was unable to obtain for him the hearing he desired, and I do not
expect that it was accorded to him elsewhere.
The most picturesque figure at these informal assemblies was
Brigadier-General McIver. In what service this Caledonian swashbuckler
earned his last distinction I forget, but the reader will find the
details in an autobiography of the General entitled “Under Fourteen
Flags.” From the very title of the book it will be deduced that the
General was impartial in his sympathies, and that his good sword was at
the disposal of any nationality that was disposed to pay for it. In that
autobiographical work the author is somewhat reticent about his life
previous to the date at which he received his first command. From
personal observation of the gallant officer, I should be inclined to say
that he had served in the ranks as a British Tommy, and that, having a
real taste for soldiering, and finding the rate of promotion in the ranks
vastly too slow for his aspirations, he had left the home forces, and
placed his services at the disposal of those struggling nationalities
which are so often only too glad to accord high commissions to Englishmen
or Scotsmen or Irishmen willing to serve under their flags. His whole
bearing, dialect, and appearance, was that of the ranker.
His book, which was really written for him by an English officer “down on
his luck,” is an amazing record of deeds of derring-do in Servia, in
Turkey, in the Far East, and in the republics of South America. It was
all one to McIver. A soldier of fortune, it mattered nothing to him
whose blood he was called upon to shed, provided he was allowed to shed a
great deal of it. Had the deeds which the Brigadier-General has had
recorded in his name been performed under the British flag, the intrepid
warrior should have earned the Victoria Cross, perhaps a peerage, and
certain such a money grant as would have made him quite comfortable for
the rest of his natural life. The struggling nationalities, apparently,
had all been either ungrateful or impecunious, and McIver was in the
habit of drawing on the resources of his generous entertainer from the
Cape. That worthy individual was quite ready to meet these recurrent
demands, persuaded that in listening to the lurid romances of the General
he was receiving rather more than value for his money.
The successes of the gallant General in war were only less renowned than
his successes in love—that is to say, from the General’s own not very
lofty point of view. His intrigues were, indeed, of a somewhat squalid
character, occasionally involving the professional disqualification of
the “slavey” at his lodgings, and his own temporary disappearance from
his Fleet Street haunts.
He was a tall, muscular, well-knit, soldierly-looking man with a cavalry
moustache and big imperial. His accent was that of the Lowland Scot. On
one of Ansdell’s afternoons the General, “intoxicated,” to use a famous
phrase, “by the exuberance of his own verbosity,” or from other causes,
retired from the convivial circle, and stretched himself out to rest on a
couch at the end of the room. While “he lay like a warrior taking his
rest,” some habitués of the room decorated the face of the sleeping hero
with burnt cork and red paint, and when their artistic work had been
effected McIver looked more like a Sioux Indian on the war-path than a
Scots free-lance seeking repose. Hours afterwards he woke, and found
himself in a smoking-room now filled with strangers. A loud laugh
greeted his appearance when he arose—a giant refreshed. There could be
no mistake that the laughter was directed against him. In his most
heroic vein he demanded the cause of the company’s hilarity, and was
referred to the mirror that was fixed above the fireplace.
A wild Scottish whoop came from his throat. He turned on the assembly
with a fierce expression and a commanding gesture. The laughter of the
room broke out afresh. McIver was speechless with rage. He rushed from
the place. But he was staying in the hotel at the time, and in half an
hour returned in the opera-bouffe costume of a Brigadier-General in the
army of a struggling nationality. He had washed the paint and charcoal
from his face. He stood in the midst of the grinning assembly, and,
drawing his sword, he inquired in an awful voice for the name of the
perpetrator of the dastardly outrage, manifestly intent on cleaving that
caitiff from helm to chine. But a fresh roar of inextinguishable
laughter greeted his challenge. In the pages of “Under Fourteen Flags”
he would have fallen upon that ribald crowd, cutting the infidels down
man by man. In Fleet Street such a course was inexpedient. The _beau
sabreur_, casting on the mockers a glance of superb disdain, exclaimed,
“Ye’re a pauck o’ scoundrels sheltering a coward!” and stalked from the
room with the air of a tragedy king, followed by the gibes of the now
irate “scoundrels.”
Mr. Gladstone—the G.O.M., I mean—was accustomed to ask strange people to
his breakfast-table. But no stranger guest did he ever entertain than
when McIver sat with him at that meal to give the great statesman his
experiences in the Balkan States. Gladstone welcomed anyone who could
give him the slightest information regarding what were known in the
eighties as “Bulgarian atrocities,” and the Brigadier-General returned to
England reputedly abounding with reliable news from that part of Europe.
If Mr. Gladstone was greatly in the habit of taking his facts about the
Eastern Question from authorities of the McIver kidney, it is little
wonder that he led his countrymen astray when he inflamed their passions
on the topic of atrocities with which he had become obsessed.
A year or two since I saw the death of the hero of the “Fourteen Flags”
announced in the _Daily Telegraph_. It was followed by quite a
flattering obituary notice of the deceased officer. His many deeds of
valour were referred to in terms which must have made all his friends
regret that the tribute should have been delayed till the man himself was
no longer alive to read it.
I have quoted above the initials G.O.M. as applied to Mr. Gladstone, and
standing, of course, for “Grand Old Man.” Another and less reverent
reading of the initials was given by one of Gladstone’s most devoted
supporters, Mr. Labouchere. It must have been at a time when the doctors
had stopped “Henry’s” cigarettes, or perhaps during one of those periods
of shuffling the Ministerial cards when Labouchere felt annoyed at having
his claims to office once more disregarded. Whatever the cause, to Mr.
Henry Labouchere was quite rightly attributed the translation of G.O.M.
into “God’s only mistake!”
Another of the regular members of the Ansdell circle was Morgan Evans.
Evans was as good a fellow and as sound a journalist as ever tempted
fortune in the Street of Adventure. But, like many a cultured man, he
drifted into the wrong line—wrong, I mean, in so far as money-making is
concerned. In journalism, as in other professions, that man makes most
who specializes in certain subjects. Now, the subject on which Evans had
specialized was scientific dairy-farming. In this study, his friendship
with Professor Duguid and other leading lights in the veterinary world
was of considerable service to him. The admirable series of articles
which he contributed to the _Field_ created widespread interest among
those for whose edification they were written, and Evans might have gone
on for ever treating on that subject and cognate ones in the _Field_ and
other papers dealing with agriculture. Such a course meant abundance of
work at special rates. But Morgan Evans was a dreamer, and preferred the
position of a free-lance writing spasmodically on general topics to that
of the highly paid regular contributor on scientific or semi-scientific
subjects.
With a miserably insufficient capital, and possessing absolutely no
business capacity, Evans founded a monthly magazine entitled _The
Squire_. He did me the honour to consult me about the prospects of such
a venture. When I asked and ascertained what was the amount of capital
behind the proposition, I strongly advised him to desist. It appeared to
me that the title was more suited to a weekly paper on the lines of the
_Field_, and I believed that if he would agree to the scheme a sufficient
capital could be obtained. But Evans was impatient. He would hear of
anything save delay. Besides, it was evident that he wanted the organ to
be his own mouthpiece and under his own individual control. And this
could only be achieved by the employment of his own capital. So he
brought out the _Squire_, and his friends rallied round him. H. H. S.
Pearse wrote charming articles about hunting; Vero Shaw wrote with
interest and authority about the dog; I believe I contributed some
dramatic articles. Evans himself wrote on general literature, and
Montgomerie Rankin produced the inevitable verses. Every topic in which
a country gentleman might take an interest was dealt with—except
scientific dairy-farming! Evans had been fed up with that subject, and
devoted himself to essays entirely detached from science of any sort. I
forget who was responsible for the rather neat and appropriate title for
the article dealing with the drama of the month; it was called “Partridge
at the Play.”
The _Squire_ lived for six months, and then fizzled out, the savings of
poor old Morgan Evans having fizzled out too. He then returned to the
unprofitable, but more congenial, rôle of casual contributor to the
Press. During the last months of his life he did little and suffered
much, and the end came mercifully and quickly. Evans was a rather short,
yellow-bearded man, with a gentle voice and a most engaging smile. He
hailed from the Principality, but was not at all of the type of Welshman
that now affrights the imagination of the English.
An occasional visitor to Ansdell’s table was A. K. Moore. At that time
Moore also was among those who wielded the free-lance. Among the
journals that sometimes accepted his contributions was _Punch_. But
Fleet Street was a long time discovering Moore’s merits. He was a
graduate of Dublin University and a graduate of Oxford. He was an
Irishman, he possessed a fine sense of humour, wrote a lucid, vigorous
style, yet had to wait many years for a recognition of his gifts. When
at last “he came into his own” by being appointed Editor of the _Morning
Post_, he proved himself to possess all that his journalistic friends in
Fleet Street claimed for him; but I imagine that it was a man somewhat
soured by waiting who took command in the editorial sanctum of the
_Post_. His duties were, however, discharged not only with fidelity, but
with conspicuous ability, and the paper prospered greatly in his hands.
He died in harness.
There were two artists in the Ansdell entourage. The one was Mat
Stretch, the other George Cruikshank junior. Both were contributors to
the comic papers. The work of Mat Stretch was at one time in great
demand. He possessed a vein of humour which was quite his own, and his
drawings always found a place in one or other of the humorous
publications. Cruikshank had a stiff style and an exaggerated method. I
never could stand his work, nor, indeed, did I care very much for the
little creature himself. He was by way of being a bit of a dandy. He
wore a very glossy silk hat tilted over one ear; his clothes were usually
of a sporting cut, and he affected the style of a patron of the turf.
Before the growing popularity of camera pictures both he and Mat Stretch
fell back. The camera, if not artistic, is at least reliable, and any
reliability which Cruikshank might have at one time evinced became
impaired by his conviviality. It is to be feared, indeed, that he was
not a bigoted subscriber to the teetotal tenets of his illustrious
relative. George the Elder drew “The Bottle.” George the Younger was
fonder of drawing the cork.
Ansdell, the chairman of these afternoon reunions, was a widower. When
he took to himself a second wife, Cruikshank junior regarded it as
something in the nature of a personal affront that the permission of the
circle at Anderton’s had not been obtained in the first place. Perhaps
Ansdell knew that George would never give his consent. At all events, he
got married without asking for it. The agreeable afternoon functions
were broken up, and Fleet Street knew James Ansdell no more.
The smoking-room at Anderton’s Hotel is abundantly provided with windows
at the back, and over the front part of it, which is cut off from the
back by a partition, there is a dome light. But the place is so built in
that the walls of neighbouring erections cut off the sunlight, and on the
brightest days this particular apartment is always tenebrious. On gloomy
days the artificial lights are switched on. At Anderton’s Hotel the
redoubtable Richard Pigott spent some of the last days of his smirched
career, and the smoking-room was the favourite resort of the devoted
forger.
Pigott’s favourite position was at the writing-tables under the glass
skylight in the lower part of the room. There he spent many hours of
those days of the Parnell Commission pending and during his call to the
witness-box. I had occasion to interview him on two occasions during
this momentous period—almost literally period—in his career. I always
found him writing away like mad and smiling sweetly to himself the while.
Never, surely, did the results of a literary man’s efforts yield so much
immediate pleasure to their author as Pigott’s “copy” seemed to afford to
him. When I addressed him and explained my desires, he gathered up his
sheets of “copy” and deposited them in a black leather bag which always
accompanied him.
He was a most benevolent-looking rascal. His white beard and whiskers
were carefully trimmed; his rubicund face was invariably wreathed with
smiles; his portly figure had an aldermanic contour; and altogether he
suggested the railway director or the rich stage uncle. No one would
have taken him for the editor of a tenth-rate provincial paper, or the
clumsy forger who was so careless in his criminality as to sign his
victim’s name at the top rather than at the bottom of a letter on the
acceptance of which everything depended.
Once I met him in Coventry Street late at night, and asked him into the
American Bar of the Criterion. He hesitated a good deal before accepting
my invitation, and was evidently ill at ease while he remained there with
me. He was greatly disconcerted by the apparent interest which two men
who were drinking cocktails were taking in him. They certainly looked
our way and whispered together. Pigott took leave of me hurriedly and
left the place. I called on him next day, desirous, if possible, of
ascertaining his exact suspicion about the men, whose presence had so
obviously disturbed him, and their connection with a conspiracy of which
he was obviously in dread. But Pigott could be as close as an oyster
when he desired. He assured me that he had not particularly noticed
anyone at the Criterion, and explained that he never really liked the
place. The “company is so mixed, you see,” declared the venerable liar.
Pigott presented a strange psychological problem with singular
physiological developments. Immediately after the appearance of his
forgeries in the _Times_, he suddenly lost flesh: the incessant smile and
inflated waist had disappeared; his face was haggard; he was but the
shadow of his former self. Pigott was a sick man. The thing
accomplished, fear possessed him and reacted on his body. But he put on
flesh again, and when he appeared before the Commission he was the same
sleek, obese, oleaginous charlatan of former days. On his oath he was as
unctuous and specious as when off it, and quite untrammelled by its
obligations.
His flight to Spain, and his suicide when his pursuers were close on his
trail—these are matters of history. That which is not quite a matter of
history is an incident redounding very much to the charity and humanity
of Mr. Labouchere. It will be recollected, perhaps, that the exposure
and flight of the traitor and forger were brought about at a conference
which he had with Sala and Labouchere at the house of the latter. That
which has gone unrecorded is that Labouchere charged himself with the
maintenance of the dead man’s children.
It was curious to note the effect of the exposure of the Pigott forgeries
on the London public. The Man in the Street came out very strong on the
occasion. Up to that time Parnell was a much-hated politician. But your
Cockney has fine sporting instincts always, and the finest instinct of
the sportsman is a love of fair-play. It was felt now that a deadly
wrong had been done to the leader of the Irish people—for leader of the
Irish party he never was and never pretended to be. He led the people;
but he drove the party like a herd of pigs. I was on the steps of the
Royal Courts when Parnell came out after the disclosure. Quite a crowd
of people were assembled on the pavement. Parnell was accompanied by
George Lewis. On the appearance of the lawyer and his client, quite a
hearty cheer was raised. The eminent solicitor—usually so impassive—was
quite evidently moved and pleased. But Parnell passed on untouched,
sphinx-like, contemptuous. As far as he was concerned there might have
been no demonstration, no expression of sympathy, no British public at
all. Tall, gaunt, unbending, he moved on, a sad, lonely figure of a man,
I thought. His, however, was the immobility that covered a very genuine
sense of power.
After the divorce proceedings, which broke the rod of iron with which he
had hitherto ruled his so-called Parliamentary following, had come to an
end, the Irish tribune proceeded to his native country to face the thing
out in the constituencies. A friend of his and of mine met him on the
platform at Euston Station, and, on behalf of a news association, asked
him to impart something of his plans and views.
“What is there about which you particularly want to know?” asked Parnell.
“Well,” said the interviewer, “my people are anxious to ascertain your
present attitude with regard to Mr. Gladstone.”
“Oh, the old man?” said Parnell coolly, and dropping the “grand” which
usually accompanied the words. “You can tell your people, if you like,
that the old man has made three mistakes with me.”
“Yes,” said the other eagerly.
“The first was when he put me into gaol; the second was when he let me
out; and the third was when he went into business with me and thought to
get the better of me.”
But I have wandered some few perches from Anderton’s. I return. My last
visit to that hotel was with the late Dr. Tanner, a Member for Mid-Cork.
His brother had committed suicide there by injecting morphia. The
deceased gentleman, Dr. Lombard Tanner, was an extremely jovial and
good-looking Irishman. He had got into entanglements—not of a financial,
but of the _other_ kind—and he saw no way out but this. I had been an
intimate friend of his. But he sought advice neither from friends nor
relatives. The memory for me will always remain gruesome and
ineffaceable. For before the inquest the coroner’s officer handed me a
letter-card addressed to me by poor Lombard, which was written, as to the
first part, just before he commenced the injection, and, as to the last
part, ending blurred and incoherent, while the drug was taking effect.
He wished me to accept his sword and certain other effects which he had
left at his room, in St. James’s Place, St. James’s, and to bid me
farewell!
This is, I confess, a sad note on which to close a chapter, but even the
most jocund periods have their short sharp moments of tragedy.