Henty was a man who always enjoyed mixing with his fellows, and being
constantly associated with members of the fourth estate, it was quite
natural that he should join certain clubs. It followed therefore that,
as years rolled by in a long life, he had a pretty good list in the way
of membership to his name.
He was, of course, a member of various yachting clubs; but coming to
literary gatherings, he early became a member of the world-known Savage,
which he joined in its old days, and his was a familiar, quiet,
thoughtful face at the weekly dinners, while he was a welcome and
trusted chairman at the gatherings of the committee. Later, without
giving up his membership, he joined, consequent upon some little tiff,
the select band of the oldest members, who formed what, if they had been
members of Saint Stephen's, would have been called the Cave of Adullam.
Here, however, the little branch or lodge was dubbed the Wigwam, whose
cognisance, still printed on the circulars which announce the chairman
and the date of the next dinner, is a clever sketch of a Red Indian's
wigwam. This was drawn by a clever artist member, who has passed away
almost as these lines are being written--namely, Wallis Mackay. The
skin lodge is looped back to display a group of occupants in full war
paint, feathers, and blanket, seated smoking. These represent in
admirable likeness a few familiar members, numbering, among others,
Tegetmeier the naturalist, Henry Lee of Brighton Aquarium and of octopus
celebrity, and Ravenstein the geographer, while, glass in eye, raising
himself like a look-out from the smoke aperture at the top, there are
the unmistakable features of the late J.L. Toole. To name one more,
there is the subject of this memoir. It is a playful little skit, with
a grim caricature in the distance shaped like a skeleton, suspended from
a blasted tree, as if suggestive of the fate of an intruder, while
plainly written upon one of the folds of the skin tent is "No admission
except on business."
For many years also Henty's was a face heartily welcomed as a friend and
fellow clubman at the quiet little social tavern club known as the
Whitefriars, a club at which in its early days politics was tabooed.
But as years passed on times altered, and political and social debate
became the rule, much to Henty's annoyance. His idea of a club was that
it should be a gathering-place where a few old friends, freed for the
time being from quill-driving and thinking out books, leading articles,
and other brain-worrying tasks, should meet for a social chat, and where
there should be no delivering of speeches, no debates. So soon,
therefore, as this debating and speech-delivering became the custom,
Henty began to talk to those with whom he was most intimate of
withdrawing his name from the club. Such a proceeding, it was pointed
out to him, would be depriving his oldest friends of his company. He
seemed to see the force of this, and matters went on, and a proposal he
had made to a few friends that they should follow the example of the
dwellers in the Wigwam and meet together in peace, seemed to have died
out. Nevertheless Henty was a man of very strong political feeling, and
possessed all the firm attributes of a thoroughly stanch Conservative
gentleman, one might say Tory, of the past. If he had taken a motto,
his would have been that of the old _John Bull_ newspaper: "God, the
Sovereign, and the People." Throughout his life, though gentle and
kindly by nature, he was, when roused by what he looked upon as
injustice or cowardice, a fierce and truculent Briton, ready to defy the
whole world.
On the whole, though, perhaps from its propinquity to the newspaper
world, Henty was most frequently seen at that centre of which the late
Andrew Halliday wrote that the qualification for admission was to be "a
working-man in literature or art, and a good fellow." Of course the
rendezvous meant is the Savage Club--that place "apart from the chilling
splendour of the modern club,"--the club over which so many disputes
have taken place amongst its members as to its title, as to whether it
borrows it from poor, improvident Richard Savage, or from its supposed
Bohemian savagery. Be that as it may, it is certainly the spot where
the bow of everyday warfare is unstrung and set aside.
It has long been the custom here to invite to dine at the social
Saturday evening gathering pretty well everyone who has become famous,
and whose name is upon the public lips, and these invitations have been
accepted by warrior and statesman, by our greatest artists and
travellers, whether they have sought to discover the Boreal mysteries or
to cross the Torrid Zone. Even those who have become great rulers have
not disdained to accept "Savage" hospitality, and upon such nights some
popular or distinguished member of the club is called upon to take the
chair. Now it so happens that there is extant a copy of the menu of a
dinner, drawn by one of the cleverest members, which depicts in quaint,
characteristic, and light-hearted fashion the imaginary proceedings and
post-prandial entertainment connected with the aforesaid unstrung bow.
In the case in question Lord Kitchener was the guest, fresh from his
victories in the Sudan, and no better chairman could have been chosen
than the popular war correspondent, George Henty, whose portrait and
that of the famous general occupy the centre of the dinner card
represented here.
It would be difficult to over-estimate the interest of such a typical
meeting at the club, one which had naturally drawn together a crowded
gathering of men who had more or less deeply cut their names upon the
column of popularity, if not of fame.
The names of the general and war correspondent attracted to that dinner
a distinguished company; the singer possessed of sweet tenor voice or
deepest bass; the musician who excelled as pianist or who could bring
forth the sweetest tones from the strings; the flautist; the skilful
prestidigitator who puzzled the gathering with the latest Egyptian card
trick, but who will amuse no more; the clever actor ready to give
expression to some recitation, serious or laughable; the delineator of
quaint phases of life; the artist whose works have provoked thought and
admiration in the picture galleries; the scientist with the secrets of
his laboratory gradually developing into life-saving and
labour-economising reforms; to say nothing of the keen-visaged
diplomatist whose range covers the mysteries of the chancelleries of
Europe and cabinets where whispers are sacred and policies are shaped;
and the writer to whom the wide world is but the sunning ground of
cogitation.
At the club's improvised concerts and entertainments all are ready to
amuse or be amused; even the learned judge and the argumentative counsel
who takes his brief from some clever lawyer, now his companion for the
evening, meet the eye of physician or surgeon upon common ground.
Later, the deeply-engaged actor, when his part is at an end, comes in
straight from the boards, bringing with him the buoyancy and
imaginativeness of the strange fantastic realm where he is so popular--a
realm so different from all others, although merely divided from the
commonplace world by a row of lights.
Here all are friends, gathered by the attractions of music, song, and
repartee. Men who have striven greatly all their lives and have gained
much, and maybe lost something too, are here in good fellowship.
Irksome trammels for the time are cast aside, permitting one and all to
partake of what seems to be like a whiff of ozone or a breath from the
pine-scented Surrey hills, after the contracted arena of the struggle
for life.
On the particular occasion referred to above, supported as he was by
those who had shared his past and been his companions and the witnesses
of many a deadly battle, Henty was thoroughly at home; and it was a
happy choice of a chairman which brought him to preside on that November
evening when Kitchener was the special guest.
It was only a few short months after Kitchener's crowning victory at
Omdurman, which had finally crushed the Dervish power and set Slatin and
his fellow captives free, and established law and order at Khartoum and
through the immense territories which separate that city from Cairo. It
was, therefore, a bright idea that inspired Oliver Paque, to give him
his _nom de plume_, in his merry caricature to depict the gallant
general as a _beau sabreur_ leading a charge at full gallop and riding
in to the feast. He is seen, as the illustration shows, leaping
triumphantly through a circus paper hoop supported by a swarthy
Sudanese, and the tatters of the paper ingeniously form the map of
Africa. Right through Africa he leaps, as it were, into the fire of
cheers and applause that greet him--into the smoke of the "Savage" pipe
of peace, started by the chairman.
But that memorable night is not so far back in the Hinterland that one
has any need to strain the memory assiduously for the leading details of
historic incidents sketched in upon the menu card. The tattered
indication of a map recalls Major Marchand and his march across desert
and through forest and swamp to Fashoda. There are pleasant
suggestions, too, in the tribute paid to the chairman by the artist's
pencil, which playfully deals with the fame the chairman had reaped by
his books. Boys are shown eagerly reading his thrilling tales of
history and adventure, a young mother is depicted admonishing a lad who
is engrossed in some stirring work, while the list of titles--_A Dash
for Khartoum, True to the Old Flag, Through the Fray, By Right of
Conquest, Held Fast for England_--is alone a tribute to the sturdy
chairman, for though titles only they illustrate the feelings of a
patriotic man.
The pen-painter of the merry scene, indeed, notwithstanding the
grotesqueness of the work, has contrived to suggest by many a happy
touch little peculiarities in the individualities of his subjects. Thus
he gives a wonderful likeness of such a familiar member as Dan Godfrey,
the well-known band-master of the Guards, who is shown leading the
concert in heroic bearskin what time Handel's march of "The Conquering
Hero" is blown by one of the most popular humourists of the club. The
name of another member--Slaughter--seems by the irony of fate to be
singularly apposite at a war correspondent's banquet, while the drum and
cymbals and the tom-tom tell their own tale as beaten by members whose
faces are familiar to those behind the scenes. Everything, in short,
tended to make this dinner a great success.
Sometimes when taking the chair, however, at one of these club dinners,
Henty would fancy that the attendance was not so good as it might have
been, and attributing it to a want of popularity, he would turn to the
writer and whisper with almost a sigh, "Another frost!" This quaint bit
of dramatic slang is, of course, popularly used in the theatrical world
when the British public displays a tendency not to throng the seats, and
there is a grim array of empty benches to crush all the spirit out of
the actors in some clever piece. It was quite a mistake, though, to use
it in connection with Henty's dinners, for he was always surrounded by
plenty of warm-hearted friends whose presence and sunshiny aspect were
sufficient to set the wintry chill of unsociability at defiance.