THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD

THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD

BY

HENRY A. LYTTON

JARROLDS
PUBLISHERS (LONDON) LTD

TO
RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE.
THE UPHOLDER
OF
A GREAT TRADITION

"THE GONDOLIERS."

(After assisting at the first night of the new Gilbert-and-Sullivan revival.)

You may boast of your Georgian birds of song
And say that never was stuff so strong,
That its note of genius simply mocks
At yester-century's feeble crocks,
And floods the Musical Comedy stage
With the dazzling art of a peerless age.
But for delicate grace and dainty wit,
For words and melody closely knit,
Your best purveyors of mirth and joy
Were never in sight of the old Savoy;
They never began to compete, poor dears,
With Gilbert-and-Sullivan's Gondoliers.
For me, as an out-of-date Victorian,
Prehistoric and dinosaurian,
I hardly feel that I dare reflect
On the art of the day with disrespect;
But if anyone asks me, "Who'll survive—
The living dead, or the dead alive?
Which of the two will be last to go—
The Gondoliers or the latest show?"
I wouldn't give much for the latter's chance;
That is the view that I advance,
Trusting the public to bear me out
(The good from the bad they're quick to sever);
"Of this I nurse no manner of doubt,
No probable, possible shadow of doubt,
No possible doubt whatever."—O. S.

(Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of "Punch," and of Sir Owen Seaman.)

Contents.

FOREWORD.

There have been many who have made great reputations in the Gilbert and Sullivan characters and have established themselves as favourites with the public who love and follow the operas, and when the roll comes to be written down finally, if ever it is, Henry Lytton undoubtedly will be assigned a foremost place. He has played a wide variety of the parts, and the scope and versatility of his work is unique. It is unlikely that his record as a Gilbert and Sullivan artiste will ever be surpassed.

Rupert D'Oyly Carte

HENRY A. LYTTON.

By
AN ADMIRER OF HIS ART.

Sincerely indeed do I offer my good wishes to my old friend, Henry A. Lytton, on his giving to the world this most interesting book, "The Secrets of a Savoyard."

Lytton represents a distinct type on our musical comedy stage. No other artiste, I think, has quite that gift of wit which makes one not merely a happier, but a better, man for coming under its spell. Its touch is so true and refined and delightful. Somehow we see in him the mirror of ourselves, our whimsicalities, and our little conceits, and could ever a man captivate us so deliciously with the ironies of life or yet chide us so well with a sigh?

Certainly it was fortunate both to him and to us that circumstances, in the romantic manner this book itself describes, first turned his early steps towards Gilbert and Sullivan, and thus opened a career that was to make him one of the greatest, as he is now the last, of the Savoyards. Like the natural humorist he is, he could be and has been a success in ordinary musical comedy rôles, but it is in these wonderful operas that he was bound to find just his right sphere. Lytton in Gilbert and Sullivan is the "true embodiment of everything that is excellent." He was made for these parts, just as they might have been made for him, and no man could have carried into the outer world more of the wholesome charm of the characters he depicts on the stage. He himself tells us on these pages how his own outlook on life has been coloured by his long association with these beautiful plays.

So closely, indeed, is he identified in the public mind with the wistful figure of Jack Point, or the highly susceptible Lord Chancellor, or the agile Ko-Ko that the thousands of Gilbert and Sullivan worshippers who crowd the theatres know all too little of the man behind the motley, the real Henry A. Lytton. For that reason I want to speak less about the great actor whom the multitude knows and more about the manner of man that he is to those, relatively few in numbers, whose privilege it is to own his personal friendship.

Lytton's outstanding quality is his modesty. No "star" could have been less spoilt by the flatteries of success or by those wonderful receptions he receives night after night. Something of the eager, impetuous boy still lingers in the heart of him, and he loves the society of kindred souls who have some good story to tell and then cap it with a better one. But all the while he lives for the operas. Even now, after playing in them for twenty-five years, he is constantly asking himself whether this bit of action, this inflection of the voice, this minor detail of make-up, is right. Can it be improved in keeping with the spirit of genuine artistry? So severe a self-critic is he that he will take nothing for granted nor allow his work to become slipshod because of its very familiarity. If ever there was an enthusiast—and there is much in this book to show that he is as great an enthusiast in private life as he is while in front of the footlights—it is Harry Lytton.

The great enthusiasm of his life is Gilbert and Sullivan. Nobody who reads these reminiscences will have any doubt about that, for it shows itself on every page, and it is such an infectious enthusiasm that even we who love the operas already find ourselves loving them more, and agreeing with Lytton that they must not be tampered with and brought "up-to-date." From Sir William Gilbert's own lips he heard just what the playwright wanted in every detail, and both by his own acting and by his help to younger colleagues on the stage he has worthily and faithfully upheld the traditions of the Savoy. I have been told more than once by members of the company how, when they have felt disheartened for some reason or other, he would come along with some cheery word, some little bit of advice and encouragement that would make all the difference to them. Often and often he has brightened up the dreary work of rehearsals by his buoyant humour and all-compelling good spirits.

What a happy family must be a company that is led by one who is so entirely free from vanity and petty jealousy and whose one aim is to help the performance along! Lytton is bound to have that aim because of his intense loyalty to the operas themselves, but how much springs as well from that inherent kindness of his, which, with that complete lack of affectation, makes him so truly one of Nature's gentlemen. "Each for all and all for each" was the motto of the heart-breaking Commonwealth days, of which he tells us such a pathetic human story here, and it seems to remain his motto now that he has climbed to the top of his profession as a principal of the D'Oyly Carte Company.

Lytton's acting always seems to me in such perfect "poise." It is so refined and spontaneous. Each point receives its full measure, and yet is so free of exaggeration or "clowning." He is, that is to say, an artiste to his finger-tips, and no real artiste, even when he is a humorist, has any place for buffoonery. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan operas themselves, he is always so clean and wholesome and pleasant. The clearness of his enunciation is a gift in itself, and his dancing reminds us of the time when all our dancing was so charming and graceful, and thus so different to what it is to-day. And then his versatility! Could one imagine a contrast so remarkable as that between his characterisation of the ugly, repulsive King Gama in "Princess Ida" and the infinitely lovable Jack Point in the "Yeoman of the Guard"? Or between his studies of the engaging and more than candid Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe" and that pretentious humbug Bunthorne in "Patience"? Or between the endless diversions of his frolicsome Ko-Ko in "The Mikado" and the gay perplexities of the sedate old General Stanley in "The Pirates of Penzance"?

So one might continue to speak of his quite remarkable gallery of portraits, both in these operas and apart from them, and one might search one's memory in vain for a part which was not a gem of natural and clever characterisation, rich in humour and unerring in its sympathetic artistry.

Yet no rôle of his, I think, stands out with such fascination in the minds of most of us as does dear Jack Point, the nimble-witted Merryman. The poor strolling player, with his honest heart breaking beneath the tinsel of folly, is a figure intensely human and intensely appealing, and no less so because of the mingling romance and pathos with which it is played. If Lytton had given us only this part, if he had shown us only in this case how deftly he can win both our laughter and tears, he would have achieved something that would be treasured amongst the tenderest, most fragrant memories of the modern stage.

Long may he remain to delight us in these enchanting operas of the Savoy! By them English comic opera has had an infinite lustre added to it—a lustre that will never be dimmed—and no less surely do the operas themselves owe a little of their evergreen freshness and spirit to the art of Henry A. Lytton.

THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD.

I.
YOUTH AND ROMANCE.

Apologia—Early Misfortunes of Management—Stage Debut in Schoolboy Dramatics—St. Mark's, Chelsea—The School's Champion Pugilist—The Sale of Jam-Rolls—Student Days with W. H. Trood—An Artist of Parts—A Fateful Night at the Theatre—The Schoolboy and the Actress—A Firm Hand With a Rival—Three Months' Truancy—Our Marriage and Our Honeymoon in a Hansom—The Dominie and the Married Man—First Engagement with D'Oyly Carte—Dilemma of a Sister and Brother.

Eight-and-thirty years on the stage!

Looking back over so long a period, memory runs riot with a thousand remembrances of dark days and brighter, and of times of hardship which, in their own way, were not devoid of happiness. It has been my good fortune to own many valued friendships, and it is to my friends that the credit or the guilt, as it may happen to be, of inspiring me to begin this venture belongs. Not once, but many times, I have been asked "Why don't you write your reminiscences, Lytton?" The late Lord Fisher strongly urged me to write them when I paid my last visit to his home a few months before he passed to the Great Beyond. So great was my respect for Lord Fisher, one of the noblest Englishmen of our age, that I felt bound to adopt his suggestion, and it is thus partly in homage to his sterling qualities and gifts that I begin now to reveal these "Secrets of a Savoyard." This much let me say at the very beginning. Naught that is written here will be "set down in malice." Searchers for those too numerous chronicles of scandal will look here for spicy tit-bits in vain. For what it is worth this is the record of one who has lived a happy life, whose vocation it has been to minister to the public's enjoyment, and whose outlook has inevitably been happily coloured by such a long association with the gladsome operas of the old Savoy.

I cannot say that my love of the footlights was inherited, but at least it began to show itself at a very early age. One of my earliest recollections is concerned with a little diversion at the village home of my guardian. No doubt my older readers will remember the old gallanty shows which were in vogue some forty or fifty years ago. Explained briefly, these were contrived by use of a number of cardboard figures which, with the aid of a candle, were reflected on to a white sheet, and which could be manipulated to provide one's audience with a rather primitive form of enjoyment. Well, I do not recall where I had been to get the idea, but I decided to have a gallanty show at the bottom of the garden, and to invite the public's patronage. This ranks as my first venture in managerial responsibility. I rigged up a tent—a small and jerry-built contrivance it was—and an announcement of the forthcoming entertainment in my bold schoolboy's hand was pasted on to the outer wall of the garden. The charges for admission were original. Stalls were to be purchased with an apple, lesser seats with a handful of chocolates or nuts, while a few sweets would secure admission to the pit. The boys of the village, having read the notice, turned up and paid their nuts and sweets in accordance with the advertised tariff, but the sad fact has to be related that the show did not please them at all, and by summarily pulling up the pole they brought the tent and the entertainment to grief. In other words, I "got the bird." Nor can I say that was the end of the tragedy. Under threats I had to repay all that the box-office had taken, and as most of the lads claimed more than they had actually given, the stock of nuts and sweets was insufficient to meet the liabilities. So in the cause of art I found myself thus early in life in bankruptcy! My partner in the enterprise proved to be a broken reed, for when the roughs of the village got busy he showed a clean pair of heels and left me alone with the mob and the wreckage.

Seeing that this is an actor's narrative, I ought to place on record at once that my first appearance on any stage was in schoolboy dramatics in connection with St. Mark's College, Chelsea. Of St Mark's I shall have much to say. I played the title rôle in "Boots at the Swan." Except that I enjoyed being the cheeky little hotel "Boots" and fancied myself not a little in my striped waistcoat and green apron, I don't remember whether my performance was held to be successful or not, but unconsciously the experience did give me a mental twist towards the stage.

St. Mark's was regarded in those times—and I am glad to know is still regarded—as an excellent school for young gentlemen. But certainly my name was never numbered amongst the brightest educational products of that academy. What claim I had to fame was in an entirely different sphere. I was the school's champion pugilist! In those days I simply revelled in fighting. A day without a scrap was a day hardly worth living. Occasionally the older lads thought it good sport to tell the new-comers what an unholy terror they would be up against when they met Lytton. In most cases this was said with such vivid embellishments that the youngsters got a heart-sinking feeling. But there was one lad who was more adroit. He argued that it was all very well for the school champion to fight surrounded by and cheered on by his friends, but that this must put the challenger at a distinct disadvantage. He also considered that no harm would be done if he measured up this much-boomed light-weight before the time came for him to stand up publicly as his antagonist. Luring me, therefore, into a quiet corner one day, he commanded me in so many words to "put 'em up." Now while it is the privilege of a champion to name his own time and conditions, it really was too much to tolerate the pretensions of such an impudent upstart. So we set to in earnest, and very speedily the new boy was giving me some of his best—a straight left timed to the moment—and it needed only two such lefts to make me oblivious of time altogether. Certainly he succeeded in instilling into my mind a decided respect for his prowess.

Not being too richly endowed with pocket money, I conceived the idea that to set up in business as the school pastrycook would serve a "long-felt want." Strictly cash terms were demanded. Each day I bought a number of rolls at ½d. each and a pot of jam for 4½d. With these I retailed slices of most appetising bread and jam at a penny a time and made an excellent profit. If the truth must be told the smaller boys got no more than a smear of jam on their bread and the bigger boys rather more than their share, but on the average it worked out fairly well, and the juniors had sufficient discretion not to complain.

If I had any bent in those days—apart from fighting and selling jam rolls—it was in the direction of painting. For water-colour sketches I had a certain aptitude, and painting remains one of my hobbies, taking only second place to my enthusiasm for golf. For tuition I went to W. H. Trood at his studio in Chelsea. Trood in his time was an artist of parts. He had a fine sense of composition and painted many beautiful pictures. If he had not been deaf and dumb he would have made a great actor, for his gift of facial expression was extraordinary. Clubmen are familiar with a well-known set of five action photographs representing a convivial card-player who has gone "nap." Trood was the subject of those photographs.

For some time I attended St. Mark's during the day and went to the studio each evening. I realised very early that there was no money in painting and that it was of little use as a profession. We students were a merry band, and though we had little money, we made the most of what we had to spend. Our studio was only a garret, and it was a common thing for each of us to buy a tough steak for no more than fourpence, grill it with a fork over the meagre fire, and make it serve as our one substantial meal for many hours. It was a Bohemian existence and I have remained a Bohemian ever since.

Trood and I were more than master and pupil. We were, if not brothers, then at least uncle and nephew. From time to time we contrived to visit the theatre, for although he could not hear, he loved to study the colour effects on the stage, and had an uncanny talent for following the course of the plot. And one of these nights out was destined to be most fateful for me in my future career. We had gone together into the gallery at the Avenue Theatre (now the Playhouse). The attraction was a French opera-bouffe called "Olivette." And I must confess that my susceptible heart was at once smitten with the charms of a young lady who was playing one of the subsidiary parts. From that moment the play to me was not the thing. Eyes and thoughts were concentrated on that slim, winsome little figure, and I remember that at school the following day the sale of jam rolls was pushed with redoubled vigour in order that I might have the wherewithal to go to the theatre and see my charmer again.

I am getting on delicate ground, but the story is well worth the telling. It was clear I could not go on worshipping my fair divinity afar from the "gods." We must make each other's acquaintance. So to Miss Louie Henri I addressed a most courteous note, paying her some exquisite compliments, and inviting her to meet her unknown admirer at the stage door after the performance one night. And my invitation was accepted. I ought to mention here that I was then scarcely seventeen years of age. Louie Henri, as it afterwards transpired, was the same.

Well, I bedecked myself in my best and marched off in good time to the trysting place at the stage door. I spent my last sou on a fine box of chocolates. Nothing I could do was to be left undone to make the conquest complete. But first there came a surprise. Another St. Mark's boy was at the stage door already. He, too, had a box of chocolates, and it was bigger than mine.

"Who are those for?" I demanded. The tone of my voice must have been forbidding I already had my suspicions.

"Louie Henri," answered the lad. Seemingly he thought it wise to be truthful.

I had a rival! Crises of this kind have to be met with vigour and thoroughness.

"Give them to me," I insisted, "and hook it." The command was terrible in its severity. More than that, I was not the school's champion light-weight for nothing. The rival almost threw the chocolates into my hands and vanished like lightning. When Louie came out there I was with a double load of offerings! She was sensibly impressed.

From time to time further delightful meetings took place. Luckily the jam roll trade was flourishing, and so it was seldom the youthful swain met his lady-love empty-handed. Only once did the rival attempt to steal a march on me again. I discovered him loitering round the stage door, but when he saw my fists in a business-like attitude, he apparently realised that discretion was the better part of valour and bolted into the night. All of which proves anew that "faint heart never won fair lady."

Louie and I got on famously together, and although we were but children it was not long before we had decided to become engaged. The course of true love was complicated by the fact that while I was at St. Mark's in the daytime she at night had to play her part in "Olivette." So it occurred to me that the only thing was to give up school. I accordingly wrote a letter, in my guardian's name, saying that I was being taken away from St. Mark's for a three-months' holiday, and posted it to the headmaster at Chelsea. Then followed the rapture of sweetheart days. Our pleasures were few—there were no funds for more than an occasional ride on a 'bus—but into the intimacies of those blissful times there is no need to enter.

We were married late in 1883 at St. Mary's, Kensington. Louie and I certainly never realised the responsibilities of married life, and love's young dream was not spoiled by anxious reflections about the problem of ways and means, as may be gathered from the fact that our funds were exhausted on the very day of the marriage. I remember that, after the fees at church had been paid, the cash at our disposal amounted to eighteen-pence. The question then was how far this would take us in the matter of a honeymoon. Strolling into Kensington Gardens we decided that we would spend it on the thrills of a ride in a hansom-cab, and the driver was instructed to take us as far as he could for eighteen-pence. The journey was not at all long. I rather think that if the cabby had known the romantic and adventurous couple he had picked up as fares he would have been sport enough to give us a more generous trip.

Our plan of action after this honeymoon in a hansom had already been decided upon. My wife went to the theatre for the evening performance. I, on my part, had arranged to go back to school and put the best face on things that was possible. During my absence, of course, it had become known that my guardian's letter was a deception and that my three months care-free existence was truancy. Where I had been the headmaster did not know. What I had done he knew even less. But the delinquency was one which, in the interest of school discipline, had to be visited with extreme severity. The Dominie took me before the class and commenced to use the birch with well-applied vigour.

When at the mature age of seventeen one is made a public exhibition of one can have a very acute sense of injured dignity. The rod descended heavily.

"Stop it!" I shouted. "You can't thrash me like this. Do you know what you are doing? You're thrashing a married man!"

"You a married man! You lie!" The birching, bad as it had been, was redoubled in intensity. The master declared that he would teach me a lesson for lying.

"But I am a married man," I yelled. "I was married yesterday."

But even the dawn of truth meant no reprieve. The explanation put the offence in a still more lurid light. It was bad enough to tell a lie, but a good deal worse to get married, and the headmaster whacked me all the more severely as an awful example to the rest of the boys.

Following the thrashing, I enjoyed a fleeting notoriety in the eyes of my school mates, who crowded round to see the interesting matrimonial specimen. "Look who's married!" they shouted. "What's it like?" I'm afraid at the moment that, smarting under the rod, the joys of married life seemed to me to be, as Mark Twain would say, "greatly exaggerated." And worse was to come. Next day the master, considering my knowledge of life made me too black a reprobate to remain in his school any longer, terminated my career as a pupil. For a married man to be in one of the lower classes was too much of an absurdity.

Here was a pretty how-d'ye-do! A bridegroom in sad disgrace, and finding himself on the day after his marriage with no work, no prospects, no anything! Louie it was who came to the rescue. "Princess Ida" had just been produced at the Savoy, and she had been engaged for chorus work in the company which was being sent out on a provincial tour, commencing at Glasgow. My wife contrived to see Mr. Carte, and she faithfully followed the strategy that had been decided upon. Seeing that theatrical managers were understood to dislike married couples in companies on tour, she was to ask him whether he would engage her brother for the tour, pointing out that he had a good voice and was "fairly good looking." The upshot was that I was commanded to wait on Mr. Carte. Later in life I came to know him well and to receive many a kindness from him, but this first interview remains in my mind to this day, because it was destined to put my foot on the first rung of the theatrical ladder.

"Not much of a voice," was the conductor's comment—not a very flattering compliment, by the way, to one who had been for a long time solo boy in the choir of St. Philip's, Kensington. "Never mind," replied Mr. Carte; "he will do as understudy for David Fisher as King Gama." And as chorister and understudy I was engaged. Each of us was to have £2 a week, and in view of our circumstances the money was not merely welcome, but princely. Our troubles seemed to have vanished for ever.

One of our difficulties was that, having entered the company as brother and sister, that pretty fiction had to be kept up, and for a devoted newly-married couple that was not very easy. For a brother my attentiveness was almost amusing. The rôle was also sometimes embarrassing. Louie's charms quickly captivated a member of the company who afterwards rose very high in the profession—it would hardly be fair to give his identity away!—and one night he gave me a broad hint that my dutiful watchfulness was carried too far. "Leave her to me," he whispered, affably. When I told him I had promised mother I would not leave her, or some such story, a compromise was arranged whereby after the show, when we were going home, I should drop back and give him the opportunity for playing the "gallant." To have refused would have aroused suspicions that might have led to the discovery of our secret. So like Jack Point, I had to walk behind while the other fellow escorted my bride and paid her pretty compliments. It seemed less of a joke at the time than it does to-day.

Naturally, the little bubble was bound to explode before long, and it exploded when everything seemed to be going splendidly. It happened when one of the assistant managers, who also admired my wife, somehow induced us to invite him to visit our "digs."

"Nice rooms, these," he commented, taking them in at a glance. "What do you pay?"

"Sixteen shillings."

"Only sixteen shillings? Three rooms for sixteen shillings!"

"No! Only two——." The fatal slip! Truth at last had to out.

We told him that we had been afraid that, if we had said we were man and wife, we should not have got the engagement, and we were in too much of a dilemma to be sticklers for accuracy. Our "marriage lines" were then and there produced.

"Well," said the manager, "you are remarkably alike; no wonder you easily passed for brother and sister." That, in fact, was true. Our marriage, he went on to tell us, would not have been a handicap in the D'Oyly Carte Company. Most managers, he said, did not care for husband and wife to travel together, but that was not the case with Mr. D'Oyly Carte.

The news quickly spread through the company, and on every hand we received congratulations. Only one of our colleagues considered that he had a grievance. He was the usurper who had insisted that I should allow him to escort my alleged sister from the theatre to our lodgings. "What a fool you've made of me," he complained. "Why I was going to propose! I did think she would make such a nice little wife!"

Long after this it was Mr. Carte's custom, when making enquiries as to my wife, to say dryly, "And how's your sister, Lytton?" Similarly, whenever he spoke to my wife, there was invariably a twinkle in his eye whenever he asked after the welfare and whereabouts of her "brother."

II.
VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH.

£. s. d. on Tour—The Search for Independence—The Old Showman of Shepherd's Bush—Not the "Carte" I Wanted—The Commonwealth—Our Repertory and Our Creditors—"Well, Mr. Bundle"—A Thirsty Situation and a Melodramatic Finale—A Stammerer's Story—Comradeship in Adversity—Roaming the Country—Back in London and the Search for Work—Diverse Occupations and Little Pay—A Savoy Engagement at Last—Understudy to Grossmith—A Real Opportunity.

The "Princess Ida" tour, as I have said, opened at Glasgow. It ran for about a year, with enthusiasm and success wherever the company played, though unluckily for me, my services as understudy were never required. The D'Oyly Carte companies then, as now, were always a happy family, the members of which were always helpful to one another and always remarkably free from those petty jealousies that distinguish some ranks of the profession.

Looking back on those romantic times, my wife and I often marvel how, with all our inexperience in housekeeping, our slender finances withstood the strain of our extravagance. Whenever we moved on to a new town we had the usual fears as to what sort of a landlady we were to get. In these times landladies do not always look on actors as their legitimate "prey." But then they were extortioners, though there were, of course, some pleasant exceptions. I remember, for instance, that in some places we were charged 5s. a week for potatoes, and in others only 6d. On the whole, on that tour, we must have been in luck. Notwithstanding that we had lived fairly well—and we did indulge odd tastes for luxuries—we found that at the end of the 52 weeks' engagement we had saved £52.

Following the "Princess Ida" tour, we were sent out into the provinces again with other productions, and in this way we served under the Gilbert and Sullivan banner for the best part of two years. But they were not continuous engagements. From time to time we would find ourselves idle and our tiny resources steadily dwindling. Luckily, during this period we always managed to secure a fresh engagement before we had spent our last sovereign, though we were hardly as fortunate in the dark days that were coming.

I remember receiving at this time the advice of a dear old friend, a Mr. Chevasse, of Wolverhampton. "The turning-point in your career," he said to me, "will come when you have got 'independence.'" "What," I asked him, "do you mean by that?" "Get £100 in the bank," was his answer, "and in your case that will bring the sense of independence. It will put you on a different footing with everyone you meet, and you will know that at last you are beginning to shape your career yourself. Save everything you can. Save a shilling a week, or two shillings a week, but save whatever happens." And he was right. Later, when I had that £100 stored away, I found myself in a position that enabled me to assert my claim for principal parts, and I was sent out into the provinces to take three leading rôles—Ko-Ko, Jack Point, and Sir Joseph Porter.

But this is anticipating my story. Before that time came there were dark days to pass through, days when we did not know where the next meal would come from, and days when we tramped the country as strolling players, footsore and weary. When our modest savings had been exhausted during one prolonged period of "resting," I remember being driven by sheer necessity to apply for an engagement at the booth of an old showman at Shepherd's Bush. I had to do something. So I walked up to the showman, who was standing outside the tent in a prosperous-looking coat with an astrakhan collar, and asked him for a job. What did I want to be? I wanted, I told him, to be an actor, and would play anything from melodrama to low comedy.

"All right," said the showman. "Go over there and wash that cart!"

I went "over there" and started the washing. But it was no use. Sorry as things were with us, I just could not come down to that, and off I bolted. That was not the sort of "Carte" I wanted.

Our next venture was very interesting. It brought us no fame, precious little money, a great deal of hardship, and yet a host of pleasant remembrances to look back upon in the brighter days. "We were seven" and one and all down on our luck. Failing to obtain any engagements in town, we decided to band ourselves together as fellow-unfortunates, and to seek what fortune there was as entertainers in the villages and small towns of Surrey. It was to be a Commonwealth. Whatever profits there were made were to be divided equally. One week this division enabled us to take 7s. 10d. each! That was the record. What ill-success our efforts had was certainly not due to any want of "booming." The services of a bill-poster were obviously prohibitive. So at the dead of night we used to put our night-shirts over our clothes to save these from damage, creep out into the streets with our paste-bucket and brush, and fix our playbills to any convenient hoarding or building. It had to be done in double-quick time, but we had spied out the land beforehand, and generally we made sure that our notices were pasted where they would prominently catch the public eye.

Our repertory consisted of a striking drama entitled "All for Her," a touching comedy called "Masters and Servants," and an operetta known as "Tom Tug the Waterman." In addition, we did songs and dances, and as it happened these were the best feature of the programme. We had no capital available to spend on dresses and scenery. What we did was to take some ramshackle hall or barn, and then to make a brave show with our posters, though the printer was often lucky if he got more than free tickets for all his family to see our performance. Generally our creditors considered that, as there was small chance of getting any money from us, they might as well have an evening out for nothing. Our costumes were improvised from our ordinary attire. The men figured as society swells by using white paper to represent spats or by tucking in their waistcoats and using more white paper to indicate that they were in immaculate "evening dress." As to scenery all we had was our own crude drawings in crayons and pencil.

We presented our plays by what is known as "winging." By that I mean that only one manuscript copy of the play was usually available, and each player had to get an idea of the lines which he or she had to speak after each entrance, though the actual words used on the stage were mainly extemporised. "Winging," even when one has theatrical experience behind one, is not at all easy. I know that in "Tom Tug" I dreaded the very thought of having to go on and make what should have been a long speech designed to give the audience a more or less intelligent idea of the plot. I was so uncertain about it that I took the book on with me in the hope of getting furtive glimpses at it as we went along.

"Well, Mr. Bundle," I began.

"Well?" Mr. Bundle responded.

"Well," I stammered again.

"Well?"

"Well."

The next "Well" did not come from the stage; it came from the audience. "Well?" it yelled, accompanied, so to speak, by a tremendous note of interrogation. "Well?" it echoed again. "Say something, can't you?"

This was too much. In confusion I rushed off the stage. Even that was not all. I should, as I have said, have outlined the course of the story, but not only did I not do this but in my confusion I left behind me the book of words on which we were all depending. From the others in the wings there came anguished whispers. "Where's the book?" "You've left the book on the table!" So I had to put the best face on things and walk on to get it. But the audience had had enough of me that night. "Get off" they shouted—and I did.

"Tom Tug" was also once the occasion of a painful fiasco. Instead of dashing on to the stage where my wife was playing the part of a simple fisher-girl, and greeting her like the jolly sailor-man I was with a boisterous "Here I am my darling," I found myself, standing behind her in such a state of stage-fright that I was absolutely "dried up." I could not utter a word. I simply stood behind her limp, speechless and motionless, and no amount of prompting would induce me to go on with the wooing. So there was nothing for it but to ring down the curtain, and for the rest of the evening we had songs and dances, with which we made amends.

"All for Her" was a drama of a desert island that should have melted hearts of stone. We were all dying of thirst (at least, according to the plot). Nowhere on that desert island was water to be found. They sent me out to explore for it while they rolled about the stage moaning and groaning in agony. During my absence from the stage I sat near a fire-bucket in the wings. Then came my cue to reappear.

I staggered on famished and weary. The quest had been in vain. "Not a drop," I croaked in a parched, dry voice; "not a drop of water anywhere."

"Liar!" screamed the audience in unison. Our audiences, as you will have gathered, were often critical folk who could sit with dry eyes through our most anguishing scenes. It transpired that while I was sitting near that fire-bucket the bottom of my Arab cloak had dipped into the water and there it was dripping, dripping, dripping right across the stage! The dramatic situation was absolutely spoilt.

The company included, besides my wife and myself, a young actress named Emmeline Huxley, who after these hard times with us went to America and there undoubtedly "made good." Then there was a "character" whom we called "'Oppy." He was the general utility man who acted as conductor and orchestra rolled into one, and then went behind the scenes to play the cornet, to act as stage adviser, or at a pinch to take a small part. He was an enthusiast who was here, there and everywhere. "'Oppy," in addition to having a wall eye and a club foot, had a decided impediment in his speech, but, strangely enough, he was entirely unconscious of this disability. For that reason we often used to induce him to tell his story of the lady who sang "Home, Sweet Home."

This story is bound to lose some of its effect when put into cold print. As "'Oppy" told it the humour was irresistible. "Sh-sh-she wan-wan-ted to go on the sta-sta-sta-stage," he used to say, "and the man-an-an-ager he sa-a-a-aid to her, 'Wh-wh-wh-what can you sing?' And she said, 'Ho-ho-ho-home, Sw-we-we-we-weet Ho-ho-home,' And he told her to sing-sing-sing it. And (here he could not keep a straight face over the poor lady's misfortunes) she-she-she couldn't sing-sing-sing it for-for-for stam-stam-stam-stam-stam-mering."

Never did "'Oppy" tell this story, of the ridiculousness of the telling of which he seemed entirely unconscious, without his hearers exploding with laughter. "Wh-what makes you all lau-lau-laugh so?" he used to ask, incredulously. "You lau-lau-lau-lau-laugh altogether to-to-to-too hearty. It's a good-good-good yarn, but I'm dam-dam-dam-damned if it's as fun-fun-fun-funny as that."

Once he received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a postal order from a relative for two or three shillings. "Come and have a little dinner with me to morrow," he said to me and my wife. "I know you're hungry." When we arrived we found his plate was already on the table and empty. He apologised profoundly. He had been too hungry to wait for us and had already eaten his dinner. So while my wife and I each enjoyed a chop—the first square meal we had had for many a day—he sat by and kept us entertained. Splendid fellow! Little did we guess that as he did so he was suffering the pangs of hunger accentuated by the sight of our satisfaction. Next day the landlady confided to us the fact that as our friend's windfall had been insufficient to provide chops and vegetables for three, he had smeared his plate with the gravy from the chops we were to have, and then made us believe that he had satisfied his hunger already.

What became of him later on I have never discovered. I only know that I have tried hard to find him in order that that noble act of self-denial might be in some generous manner repaid. Neither inquiries nor advertisements, however, have ever revealed his whereabouts to me, and it may be that already this honest fellow has gone to receive his reward. God rest his soul!

Then there was Arthur Hendon. If ever a Christian lived it was that sterling fellow. Time after time in those heart-aching days we were on the verge of despair. Luck was dead out. Life was a misery. But Hendon, though he was as sore of heart and as hungry as the rest of us, was always ready with some cheery word, some act of kindness, some "goodness done by stealth." Louie and I were rather small in size, and often as we tramped from one place to another he carried one of us in turn in his arms. For we had little food, and were tired, footsore and "beat." And he, too, was "done." Only his great heart sustained him in those terrible times as our "captain courageous."

The Commonwealth venture lasted for about three months altogether. As I have shown it was one continual struggle against adversity and poverty. For some time we were located at Aldershot. Our show ran as a rule from six to eleven o'clock, and for want of better amusement the soldiers gave us a fair amount of patronage at threepence a head. If we did not please them they did not hesitate to fling the dregs of their pint pots on to the stage. One night we felt ourselves highly honoured by the presence of a number of military officers at our performance. "All for Her," I am glad to say, went without a hitch on that gala occasion. Our "theatre" was an outhouse owned by a publican, who was very considerate towards us in the matter of rent, because he found that our presence meant good business for his bar-parlour receipts.

From Aldershot we went on to Farnham, and from there to other hamlets where we believed there was an audience, however uncouth and untutored, to be gathered together. Eventually we reached Guildford. By then matters were getting desperate. The Mayor or some other local public man heard of our plight. He drove out to where we were playing, witnessed part of our performance, and engaged us to sing at a garden-party. I remember that, exhausted as we were, gratitude enabled us to give of our very best as the only return we could make for his kindness. He told us it was a great pity that such clever people should be living a precarious existence in the country villages, and offered to pay our train fares to London in addition to the fee for the engagement we had fulfilled. This generosity we accepted with alacrity. The next morning we were back in town again—each to follow his or her different way. So ended the vagabondage of the Commonwealth. It was an experience which none of us was ever likely to forget.

Once more in London it would be idle to say that our troubles had disappeared. It meant the dreary search again for employment. Mr. D'Oyly Carte had no immediate vacancies. Other managers had nothing more to offer than promises. Lucky is the actor—if he ever exists—who throughout his career has been free from this compulsory idleness. During this period I had to turn my hand to all sorts of things. Once I called at a draper's shop and secured casual work as a bill distributor. I had to go from door to door in a certain select part of Kensington. I remember I looked at those gilded walls and those red-carpeted stairs with a good deal of envy. Later on I was destined to visit some of those very houses and walk up those same red-carpeted stairs as a guest—those very houses at which to earn an odd shilling or so to buy bread I had delivered those bills! Yes; and there was one house at which I called in those humble days where they abruptly opened the door, showed me a ferocious-looking dog with the most business-like teeth, and significantly commanded me to "get off—and quick!" I had done nothing wrong, and my body and my heart were aching. Years afterwards I became a breeder of bulldogs—about that you shall hear later on—and sold one of them to those very people. And, as if in poetic justice, that bulldog bit them!

My training under Trood was turned to advantage during these empty days. A fashion had just set in for plaques. I painted some scores of these terra-cotta miniatures, and although it was not remunerative work, it served to put bare necessities into the pantry. We were living about that time in Stamford Street, off the Waterloo Road, and in those days it was a terrible neighbourhood where one's sleep was often disturbed by cries of "murder" and "police." Our baby's cradle was a travelling basket—we could not afford anything better. I remember, in connection with those plaques, that in after years I was dining at the house of a well-known writer and critic, and he showed me with keen admiration two beautiful plaques, which, he said, had been won by Miss Jessie Bond in a raffle at the Savoy. She had made a present of them to him. "Yes," I commented, "and I painted them." He was kind enough to say that that enhanced their value to him considerably.

For a time I went into a works where they made dies for armorial bearings. Here I had to do a good deal of tracing, and the work was fairly interesting. I drew five shillings the first week—hardly an imposing stipend for a family man—but the second week it was ten shillings and the third twenty shillings. Singing at occasional smoking concerts and running errands supplemented this money very acceptably. The job at the die-sinkers might have continued, but the foreman wanted me to clean the floors in addition to doing my artistic work, and at that my dignity revolted. I left.

Some months went by in this flitting from one job into another, but it is useless to attempt a full catalogue of my versatility, for it is neither impressive nor very inspiring. During all this hand-to-mouth existence I was calling on theatrical managers. Slender as the rewards which the stage had thus far given me were—just a meagre livelihood and precious little encouragement—the call to return to it remained insistent and strong. Sooner or later I was bound to return, and whether it were to be to good fortune or ill, the very hope buoyed me up. I had worried Mr. Carte with ceaseless importunity. Every week at least I went round to try and see him on the off-chance of an engagement. And at last there came the turn of the tide.

It happened on the eve of the first London production of "Ruddigore." Concerning this new opera, the producers had for good reasons maintained an air of secrecy, and the unfolding of the mystery was thus awaited with more than usual public curiosity. It was the talk of the town and the subject of many skittish references in the newspapers. Calling once again at Mr. Carte's office, I caught him, after a long wait, just leaving his room and hurrying along a corridor. Without more ado I button-holed him and asked him once again for an engagement. Mr. Carte was not a man who liked that sort of conduct. "You should not interrupt me like this," he said, in a tone that betrayed his annoyance. "You ought to send up your name." Explaining that I had done so and had been told he was out of town, I repeated my plea for an engagement. Hurrying on his way Mr. Carte told me to go down to the stage. Success had come at last! When Mr. Carte sent a man to the stage that man became ipso facto a member of the company. Later the news came through that Mr. Carte had chosen me as understudy to Mr. George Grossmith as Robin Oakapple. This was indeed a slice of good fortune. Understudy to Mr. George Grossmith!

"Ruddigore" was produced for the first time on Tuesday, the 22nd January, 1887, at the Savoy. Towards the end of that week Grossmith was taken seriously ill with peritonitis. By an effort he was able to continue playing until the Saturday. Then he collapsed and was taken home for a serious operation. Upon the Monday morning I was told I was to play his part—and play it that very night.

Chosen to step into the shoes of the great George Grossmith! Faced with such an ordeal to-day I verily believe I should shirk it. But then, the audacity of youth was to carry me through. The supreme chance had come. At all costs it had to be grasped.

III.
CLIMBING THE LADDER.

The "Ruddigore" Success—Congratulations from everyone—My First Meeting with Grossmith—Gilbert's Advice to a beginner—Irving's wonderful Acting and its Effect—Speaking to the Man in the Gallery—The Mystery of Jack Point—How My Tragic Ending Was Introduced—Gilbert's Approval—A Memorable Hanley Compliment—Laughter I ought not to have had—Bunthorne's Fall—Accidents, Happy and Otherwise—Ko-Ko's Mobile Toe—Not a Mechanical Trick—The Myth of the Poor Old Man of Seventy—Still Youthful in Spirit and Years.

The Savoy Theatre had its usual large and fashionable audience on that Monday night when I was to play my first big principal part either in or out of London. What my sensations were it would be hard to describe. Nervous I certainly was, and in the front of the house my wife was sitting wondering, wondering whether the stage-fright fiasco in "All for Her" was going to be repeated in this critical performance of "Ruddigore." Both of us knew that here was my great opportunity. If I won the future was assured. If I lost——! I knew the dialogue, and I knew the songs, but during the previous week there had been all too little chance for me to study Grossmith's conception of the part from the "wings."

Then my cue came and I went on. The silence of the audience was deathly. They gave me not the slightest welcome. The great Grossmith, the lion comique of his day, was not playing! Oakapple was being taken by an unknown stripling! No wonder they were disappointed and chilling. First I had a few lines to speak, and then I had a beautiful little duet with Miss Leonora Braham, who was playing Rose Maybud. And when that duet, "Poor Little Man" was over, and we had responded to the calls for an encore, all my tremors and hesitation had gone. I knew things were all right. With every number the audience grew more and more hearty. The applause when the curtain fell was to me unforgettable. It betokened a triumph.

Behind the scenes the principals and the choristers almost mobbed me with congratulations. Up in my dressing-room there were many further compliments. Sir (then Mr.) William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan came to see me together. I heard afterwards that they had been very anxious about the performance. Gilbert, as he shook me by the hand, declared "To-night there is no need for the Lyttons to turn in their graves." Mr. Carte, though always a man of few words, gave me to understand that he realised that his confidence in me had not been misplaced. Cellier, who had occupied the conductor's seat, told me that "From to-night you will never look back." He and I remained fast friends for life.

The second act was no less successful. Since then I have come to know how wonderful receptions can be, but never did applause fall more gratefully than when as a young man under the first ordeal of a terrible test, I was making that first appearance at the Savoy. Late as it is, I should like to thank any who were there and who read these lines for that sympathy and encouragement. It gave me confidence in myself and helped me along. For every young artist who comes for the first time before the footlights, may I bespeak always the same kindly feeling? It does mean so much. The Press, to whom my debt has always been great, also said many nice things about that performance. "Carte and Company, it must be admitted," said one leading paper, "are wonderful people for finding out hitherto unexploited talent."

Although George Grossmith was at first not expected to live, he made an amazingly rapid recovery, and in about three weeks he was able to resume his part in "Ruddigore." One of the first things he did was to send for me. "Gee-Gee," as the older generation remembers, was in his day a veritable prince of comedians, and in the theatre he was always paid the deference due to a prince. Outside his dressing-room a factotum was always on duty. None dare think of entering without permission. Thus, when I, a mere member of the chorus, was summoned there into the great man's presence, it was regarded by the company as an event, and everyone wanted to know what it was like! Grossmith told me he had heard of my success, gave me a signed copy of his photograph as a memento, and thus laid the foundation of a friendship that was destined to grow very intimate during the coming years.

Grossmith was a man of brilliant accomplishments, and as an artiste in facial expression and in wistful fancy, perhaps we have not seen his equal. Shortly after he left the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, he went on tour with a repertory of charming songs he had himself composed, and in that venture he made a good deal of money. For a reason theatre-goers will understand—the desire to avoid becoming a pale imitation of a man playing the same part as oneself—I was never a spectator "in front" when he was in the cast at the Savoy.

Connected with my "Ruddigore" success I was proud to become the recipient from Gilbert of a gold-mounted walking-stick that is still one of my most treasured possessions, and the letter accompanying this gift it may be well to reproduce:—

39, Harrington Gardens,
South Kensington,
22nd February, '87.

My Dear Sir,—

Will you do me the favour to accept the accompanying walking-stick as a token of my appreciation of your excellent performance of the part of Robin Oakapple, undertaken, as it was, at a very few hours' notice, and without any adequate rehearsal.

Faithfully yours,
W. S. Gilbert.

H. A. Henri, Esq.

Let me explain here that, in consequence of the "brother and sister" deception, when I joined the D'Oyly Carte organisation just after my marriage, I adopted my wife's name and was known as H. A. Henri during the early part of my career. It was on Gilbert's own suggestion that I made the change.

It was true, as Gilbert said, that I had no adequate rehearsal when I was bidden to step at short notice into George Grossmith's shoes, but during the next few weeks it was my good fortune to be under the playwright's personal coaching. Subsequently I shall have to tell many reminiscences of Gilbert, who in after years gave me the privilege of being both his friend and confidant, but at this moment I want to refer to advice he gave me while "putting me through my paces" in "Ruddigore." In my anxiety I was rather hurrying the speech I was supposed to address to the picture gallery of my ancestors. He pulled me up.

"Let me tell you something, young man," he began. "That speech, 'Oh! my forefathers!' is now a short speech, but originally it consisted of three pages of closely-written manuscript. I condensed and condensed. Every word I could I removed until it was of the length you find it to-day. Each word that is left serves some purpose—there is not one word too many. So when you know that it took me three months to perfect that one speech, I am sure you will not hurry it. Try to remember that throughout your career in these operas." Later on he also gave me this sound counsel, "Always leave a little to the audience's imagination. Leave it to them to see and enjoy the point of a joke. I am sure you are intelligent," he went on to say, "but believe me, there are many in the audience who are more intelligent than you!"

Now, if an actor in these operas has to be careful of one thing above everything else, it is that of avoiding forcing a point. Gilbert's wit is so neat and so beautifully phrased that it would be utterly spoilt by buffoonery. The lines must be declaimed in deadly seriousness just as if the actor believes absolutely in the fanciful and extravagant thing he is saying. I can think of no better illustration of this than the scene in "Iolanthe" where Strephon rejects recourse to the Chancery Court and says his code of conduct is regulated only by "Nature's Acts of Parliament." The Lord Chancellor then talks about the absurdity of "an affidavit from a thunderstorm or a few words on oath from a heavy shower." What a typical Gilbertian fancy! Well, you know how the "comic" man would say that, how he would whip up his coat collar and shiver at the suggestion of rain, and how he would do his poor best to make it sound and look "funny." And the result would be that he would kill the wittiness of the lines by burlesque. The Lord Chancellor says the words as if he believed an affidavit from a thunderstorm was at least a possibility, and the suggestion that he does think it possible makes the very idea, in the audience's mind, more whimsical still. Imagine, again, in "Patience" how the entire point would be lost if Bunthorne acted as if he himself saw the absurdity of his poem "Oh! Hollow, Hollow, Hollow!" Grosvenor, in the same opera, is intensely serious when he laments sadly that his fatal beauty stands between him and happiness. If he were not, the delightful drollery of the piece would, of course, be destroyed.

Gilbert, by the way, gave me two other hints which should be useful to those just beginning their careers in the theatre, and they are hints which even older actors may study with profit. He held that it was most important that the artiste who was speaking and the artiste who was being addressed should always be well to the front of the stage. "If you are too far back," he said to me, "you not only lose grip over the audience, but you also lose the power of clear and effective speech." Then there is that old trouble—nearly every novice is conscious of it—as to what one should do with one's hands when on the stage. Somehow they do seem so much in the way, and one does feel one ought to do something with them, though what that something should be is always a problem. I mentioned this matter to Gilbert. "Cut them off at the wrists, Lytton," was his quick reply, "and forget you've got any hands!" Every young professional and young amateur should remember this. So long as one worries about one's hands or one's fingers, one is very liable to be nervous and to do something wrong, and so the only sound rule to follow is to forget them entirely.

For a good reason I am going to digress here to tell a story of Sir Henry Irving. It was my good fortune once to be in the wings at the Lyceum when he was playing Shylock in the "Merchant of Venice." The power of his acting upon me that day was extraordinary. Every word I listened to intently until at last, in the trial scene, he had taken out his knife to cut the pound of flesh. I knew, of course, that he was never really going to cut that pound of flesh, but the sharpening of the knife, the dramatic gleam in the great tragedian's eyes, the tenseness of the whole situation, was all too vivid and all too like reality. I hated the sight of bloodshed, and in the shock of anticipation, I fainted.

When I came round I was in the green room, and a little later, amongst those who came to see me, was Irving himself. I was deadly white, and if the truth must be told, rather ashamed. But Irving was immensely pleased. He took it as a compliment to the force of his acting. Learning that I was a young actor, he declared that my emotionalism was a good omen, and said that my sensitive and highly-strung nature would help me in my work enormously. Then he went on to give me many hints that should be valuable to every aspirant for success on the stage. One hint I have never forgotten. "See to it," he said, "that you always imagine that in the theatre you have a pal who could not afford the stalls, and who is in the back of the pit or the gallery. Let him hear every line you have to say. It will make you finish your words distinctly and correctly."

If it is true, as friends have often told me, that one of the chief merits of my work is the clearness of my elocution in all parts of the house, it is due to the advice given to me in those early days by two of the greatest figures connected with the stage, Gilbert and Irving. Seeing that these operas are now being played by hundreds of amateur societies each year, I want to pass on to those who perform in them this golden rule: Always pitch your voice to reach the man listening from the furthest part of the building. Since Gilbert's death I have often had the feeling that someone is still intently listening to me—someone a long way away!

But now I must proceed with my story. When George Grossmith returned to the cast, I was sent out as a principal in one of the provincial companies, and in this work continued for years. Sometimes we played one opera only on tour—the opera most recently produced in town—and sometimes a number of them in repertory. It was towards the end of 1888 that I first played what is, I need hardly say, the favourite of all my parts, Jack Point, in the "Yeomen of the Guard," the opera which was Gilbert and Sullivan's immediate successor to "Ruddigore." And in connection with this part let us finally clear up a "mystery." It has been a frequent source of enquiry and even controversy in the newspapers.

When at the close of "Yeomen" Elsie is wedded to Fairfax, does Jack Point die of a broken heart, or does he merely swoon away? That question is often asked, and it is a matter on which, of course, the real pathos of the play depends. The facts are these. Gilbert had conceived and written a tragic ending, but Grossmith, who created the part, and for whom in a sense it was written, was essentially the accepted wit and laughter-maker of his day, and thus it had to be arranged that the opera should have a definitely humorous ending. He himself knew and told Gilbert that, however he finished it, the audience would laugh. The London public regarded him as, what in truth he was, a great jester. If he had tried to be serious they would have refused to take him seriously. Whatever Grossmith did the audience would laugh, and the manner in which he did fall down at the end was, indeed, irresistibly funny.

So it came about that while he was playing Jack Point in his way in London I was playing him in my way in the provinces. The first time I introduced my version of the part was at Bath. For some time I had considered how poignant would be the effect if the poor strolling player, robbed of the love of a lady, forsaken by his friends, should gently kiss the edge of her garment, make the sign of his blessing, and then fall over, not senseless, but—dead! I had told the stage manager about my new ending. From time to time he asked me when I was going to do it, and then when at last I did feel inspired to play this tragic dénouement, what he did was to wire immediately to Mr. Carte: "Lytton impossible for Point. What shall I do?"

I ought to explain that any departure from tradition in the performance of these operas was strictly prohibited by the management. Thus, while I might demur to the implication that my work was impossible, the fact that he should report me to headquarters was only consistent with his duty. But the sequel was hardly what he expected. The very next day Mr. Carte, unknown to me at the time, came down to Bath. He watched the performance and, after the show, the company were assembled on the stage in order that, in accordance with custom, he could express any criticisms or bestow his approval. What happened seemed to me to be characteristic of this great man's remarkable tact. He first told us that he had enjoyed the performance. "For rehearsals to-morrow," he went on, "I shall want Mr. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, Miss So-and-so, Miss So-and-so," and several others. The inference was that there were details in their work that needed correcting. Then he turned to me, shook me most warmly by the hand, and just said very cordially, "Good night, Lytton." And then he left. No "Excellent"—that might have let down the stage manager's authority—but at the same time no condemnation. It was all noncommittal, but it suggested to me, as it actually transpired was the case, that he was anything but displeased with my reading.

Gilbert and I, when we had become close friends, often had long talks about this opera, and particularly about my interpretation of the lovable Merryman. I told him what had led me to attempt this conception, and asked him whether he wished me to continue it, or whether it should be modified in any particular way. "No," was his reply; "keep on like that. It is just what I want. Jack Point should die and the end of the opera should be a tragedy."

For the sake of fairness I must mention that a fortnight after I had introduced this version of the part, another popular artiste, who was out with one of the other provincial companies, played the rôle in just the same way. It was entirely a coincidence. Neither of us knew that the other had evolved in his mind precisely the same idea, even down to the minutest details, and still less had either of us seen the other play it.

One little detail in my make-up for this part may be worth recording. Whenever kings or noblemen in the old days were pleased with their jesters they threw them a ring. For that reason I invariably wear a ring when I appear as Jack Point. Simple ornament as it is, it was once owned by Edmund Kean and worn by him on the stage, and another treasured relic of the great tragedian that I possess is a snuff-box, also given to me by my old friend, Charles Brookfield.

One of the finest compliments ever paid to me as an artiste occurred at Hanley. We were playing "Yeomen." Many of our audience that night were a rough lot of fellows, some of whom even sat in their shirt sleeves, but there could be no question but that they were keenly following the play. Everywhere we had been on that tour there had been tremendous calls after the curtain. At Hanley when the curtain fell there was—a dead silence! It was quite uncanny. What had happened? Were they so little moved by the closing scene of the piece that they were going out in indifference or in disgust? Gently we drew the edge of the curtain aside, and there, would you believe it, we saw those honest fellows silently creeping out without even a whisper. He was dead. Jack Point was dead!

I changed in silence myself. The effect of the incident had been so extraordinary. And when I went down to the stage door a crowd of these rough men were waiting. Somehow they knew me for Point. "Here he is!" they shouted. "Are you all right, mister, now?" Then, as I walked on, they turned to one another and I overheard one of them say: "He wasn't dead, after all." As they saw the end of the opera they verily believed something had gone wrong. Such a thing in the theatre may possibly be understandable, but that the illusion should have lingered after the curtain had dropped, and even after they had left the theatre and come really to earth in the street, seemed to me extraordinary.

The "Yeomen of the Guard" was staged again the following night, but this time the audience must have been told by their pals that they had actually seen me afterwards, and that it was "only a play." Jack didn't die—not really. It was only "pretended."

That Hanley audience rather overdrew the gravity of things. Some audiences, on the other hand, go to the opposite extreme and they have their biggest laugh when and where I least expect it. I remember once playing the Pirate King in the "Pirates of Penzance," and as a result of a slip (a physical one) I was the sorry figure in one of those incidents which I might catalogue as "laughs I ought not to have got." I had to come in, armed to the teeth, high up on the stage. By some mischance I slipped down the rocks, and encumbered with all those knives, pistols and cutlasses about me it was a pretty bad drop. The audience, of course, thought my undignified entrance a capital joke. I didn't—it hurt. But I turned the mishap to account, first picking up a dagger and putting it between my teeth, then groping round for the other weapons, and all the while cowing my pirate swashbucklers with a vicious look that suggested "Come on at your peril; I'm ready." That incident was not in the book.

Lovers of "Patience" will recall that little diversion where Lady Jane picks up Bunthorne in her arms and carries him off. Well, when Miss Bertha Lewis was playing with me in this scene quite recently, she did something quite unauthorised. She dropped me—it was a terrible crash—and the audience thought it a "scream." In the shelter of the wings I remonstrated with her, pointing out that this was a distinct departure from what Gilbert intended. All the sympathy I got was, "Well, I've dropped you only twice in eight years!" Scarcely an effectual embrocation for bruises!

When we were doing "Ruddigore" in Birmingham, some years ago, I broke my ankle in the dance with which the first curtain fell. Somehow I finished the performance, but when I went up to my dressing-room to change I fainted. When I came to I found that my foot had swollen enormously, that the top boot I was wearing had burst, and that they were doing their best to cut it away. The speediest medical aid to be found was that of a veterinary surgeon, and although the pain was awful it was nothing like the feeling of doom when I overheard him saying, "He may not walk again!" Luckily his fears were altogether unfounded, but although the accident has not affected my dancing, the ankle has never been quite right to this day.

Once, in the "Yeomen," I kicked one of the posts near the executioner's block. It dislocated my toe, but what a happy accident it was I did not realise until some weeks later, when we were playing "The Mikado," and when I was doing the dance in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," I trod upon a tin-tack, and instinctively drew my toe away, as it were, from the pain. From the audience there came a tremendous roar of laughter. For a moment I could not understand it at all. Looking down, however, I was amazed to find that big toe upright, almost at right angles to the rest of the foot. With my fan I pressed it down—then raised it again. This provoked so much merriment among the audience that I did it a second time, and a third. All this time the theatre was convulsed. I confess that to myself it seemed jolly funny. Here, indeed, was a quaint discovery.

This "toe" business has ever since been one of Ko-Ko's greatest mirth-provokers in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring." The explanation of its origin shows that it is not a trick mechanical toe nor, as some people suppose, that it is done with a piece of string. The fact is simply that the toe is double-jointed.

Now that I have made a brief reference to dancing, I think it may be well to correct a legend which has grown up about my age, and which usually turns up when we have been encored a first or a second time for a dance or some boisterous number, especially in "Iolanthe" or "The Mikado." "Isn't it a shame?" I know some dear kind friends say, "making him do it again. Poor old man! He's well over seventy." Others declare, "Isn't he a marvel for sixty-five?" Well, if a man is as old as he feels, then my age must still be in the thirties, and certainly there is no intention on my part of retiring just yet. But if we have to go by the calendar, and if it is necessary that there should be "no possible shadow of doubt" in the future as to my age, I had better put on record the fact that I was born in London on January 3rd, 1867. The rest, a small matter of arithmetic, may be left to you. At all events I am still some distance from the patriarchal span.

The stage is a wonderful tonic in keeping one healthy and strong. Not once, but many times, I have gone to the theatre in the evening suffering from neuralgia, but the moment my cue comes the pain has entirely disappeared. No sooner, worse luck, have I finished for the night than it has returned!

IV.
LEADERS OF THE SAVOY.

Memories of Gilbert—His instinct for stagecraft—Stories of rehearsals—Jack Point's unanswered conundrum—The craze for the Up-to-Date—Gilbert's experiments on a miniature stage—Nanki-Poo's address—The Japanese colony at Knightsbridge—The geniality of Sullivan—A magician of the orchestra—The cause of an unhappy separation—Only a carpet—Impressions of D'Oyly Carte—Merited rebukes and generous praise—D'Oyly Carte and I rehearse a love scene—A wonderful business woman—Mrs. Carte's part in the Savoy successes—Our leader to-day.

Sir William Gilbert I shall always regard as a pattern of the fine old English gentleman. Of that breed we have only too few survivors to-day. Some who know him superficially have pictured him as a martinet, but while this may have been true of him under the stress of his theatrical work, it fails to do justice to the innate gentleness and courtesy which were his great and distinguishing qualities. Upright and honourable himself, one could never imagine that he could ever do a mean, ungenerous action to anyone, nor had any man a truer genius for friendship.

Gilbert, it is true, had sometimes a satirical tongue, but these little shafts of ridicule of his seldom left any sting. The bons mots credited to him are innumerable, but while many may be authentic there are others that are legendary. He was a devoted lover of the classics, and to this may be attributed his command of such beautiful English. Nimble-witted as he was, he would spend days in shaping and re-shaping some witty fancy into phrases that satisfied his meticulous taste, and days and weeks would be given to polishing and re-polishing some lyrical gem. But when a new opera was due for rehearsal, the libretto was all finished and copied, and everything was in readiness.

Few men have had so rare an instinct for stagecraft. Few men could approach him in such perfect technique of the footlights. Up at Grim's Dyke, his beautiful home near Harrow, he had a wonderful miniature stage at which he would work arranging just where every character should enter, where he or she should stand or move after this number and that, and when and where eventually he or she should disappear. For each character he had a coloured block, and there were similar devices, of course, for the chorus. Thus, when he came down for rehearsals, he had everything in his mind's eye already, and he insisted that every detail should be carried out just as he had planned. "Your first entrance will be here," he would say, "and your second entrance there. 'Spurn not the nobly born' will be sung by Tolloller just there, and while he sings it Mountararat will stand there, Phyllis there," and so on.

When the company had become familiar with the broader outlines of the piece, he would concentrate attention upon the effects upon the audience that could be attained only by the aid of facial expression, gesture and ensemble arrangement. Not only did he lay down his wishes, but he insisted that they must be implicitly obeyed, and a principal who had not reached perfection in the part he was taking would be coached again and again. I remember once that, in one of those moods of weariness and dullness that occasionally steal over one at rehearsals, I did not grasp something he had been telling me, and I was indiscreet enough to blurt out, "But I haven't done that before, Sir William." "No," was his reply, "but I have." The rebuke to my dullness went home! It was Durward Lely, I think, whom he told once to sit down "in a pensive fashion." Lely thereupon unmindfully sat down rather heavily—and disturbed an elaborate piece of scenery. "No! No!" was Gilbert's comment, "I said pensively, not ex-pensively." That quickness of wit was very typical.

George Grossmith once suggested that the introduction of certain business would make the audience laugh. Gilbert was quite unsympathetic. "Yes!" he responded in his dryest vein, "but so they would if you sat down on a pork pie!" Grossmith it was, too, who had become so wearied practising a certain gesture that I heard him declare he "had rehearsed this confounded business until I feel a perfect fool." "Ah! so now we can talk on equal terms" was the playwright's instant retort. And the next moment he administered another rebuke. "I beg your pardon," said the comedian, rather bored, in reference to some instructions he had not quite understood. "I accept the apology," was the reply. "Now let's get on with the rehearsal."

You will remember that in "The Yeomen" poor Jack Point puts his riddle, "Why is a cook's brainpan like an overwound clock?" The Lieutenant interposes abruptly with "A truce to this fooling," and the poor Merry-man saunters off exclaiming "Just my luck: my best conundrum wasted." Like many in the audience, I have often wondered what the answer to that conundrum is, and one day I put a question about it to Gilbert. With a smile he said he couldn't tell me then, but he would leave me the answer in his will. I'm sorry to say that it was not found there—maybe because there was really no answer to the riddle, or perhaps because he had forgotten to bequeath to the world this interesting legacy.

Sir William not only studied the entrances and exits beforehand, but he came with clear-cut ideas as to the colour schemes which would produce the best effect in the scenery, laid down the methods with which the lighting was to be handled, and arranged that no heavy dresses had to be worn by those who had dances to perform. No alterations of any kind could be made without his authority, and thus it comes about that the operas as presented to-day are just as he left them, without the change of a word, and long may they so remain!

I ought, perhaps, to answer criticisms which are often laid against me when, as Ko-Ko in "The Mikado," I do not follow the text by saying that Nanki-Poo's address is "Knightsbridge." I admit I substitute the name of some locality more familiar to the audience before whom we are playing. Well, it is not generally known that Knightsbridge is named in the opera because, just before it was written, a small Japanese colony had settled in that inner suburb of London, and a very great deal of curiosity the appearance of those little people in their native costumes aroused in the Metropolis. Gilbert, therefore, in his search for "local colour" for his forthcoming opera, had not to travel to Tokio, but found it almost on his own doorstep near his home, then in South Kensington. A Japanese male-dancer and a Geisha, moreover, were allowed to come from the colony to teach the company how to run or dance in tiny steps with their toes turned in, how to spread or snap their fans to indicate annoyance or delight, and how to arrange their hair and line their faces in order to introduce the Oriental touch into their "make-up." This realism was very effective, and it had a great deal to do with the instantaneous success of what is still regarded as the Gilbert and Sullivan masterpiece.

But to return to the point about Knightsbridge. When "The Mikado" was produced at the Savoy, the significance of the reference to a London audience was obvious and amusing enough, but it was a different matter when the opera was sent into the provinces. Gilbert accordingly gave instructions that the place was to be localised, and there was and always is something very diverting to, say, a Liverpool audience in the unexpected announcement that Nanki-Poo, the great Mikado's son, is living at "Wigan." In the case of Manchester it might be "Oldham" or in that of Birmingham "Small Heath." What I want to make clear is that, so far from any liberty being taken on my part, this little variation is fully authorised, and it is the only instance of the kind in the whole of the operas.

Sir Arthur Sullivan I knew least of the famous triumvirate at the Savoy. I was under him, of course, at rehearsals, and we had pleasant little talks from time to time, but my relations with him were neither so frequent nor so intimate as they were with the other two partners. We had a mutual friend in Francois Cellier, about whose work as conductor I shall have more to say, and it was through him that I learned much about the fine personal and musical qualities of the composer.

Certainly Sullivan was a great man, intensely devoted to his art, and fame and fortune never spoilt a man less. A warm-hearted Irishman, he was always ready to do a good turn for anyone, and it was wonderful how the geniality of his nature was never clouded by almost life-long physical suffering. Sullivan lived and died a bachelor, and I believe there was never a more affectionate tie than that which existed between him and his mother, a very witty old lady, and one who took an exceptional pride in her son's accomplishments. Nor is it generally known that he took upon himself all the obligations for the welfare and upbringing of his dead brother's family. It was to Herbert Sullivan, his favourite nephew, that his fortune was bequeathed.

Of Sullivan the musician I cannot very well speak. I have already owned that I have little real musical knowledge. But at the same time he always seemed to me to be something of a magician. Not only could he play an instrument, but he knew exactly what any instrument could be made to do to introduce some delightful, quaint effect into the general orchestral design. "No! No!" he would say at a rehearsal to the double bass, "I don't want it like that. I want a lazy, drawn-out sound like this." And, taking the bow in his fingers, he would produce some deliciously droll effect from the strings. "Oh, no! not that way," he would say to the flutes, and a flute being handed up to him, he would show how the notes on the score were to be made lightsome and caressing. Then it would be the turn of the violins.

At the earlier rehearsals it was often difficult for the principals to get the tune of their songs. The stumbling block was the trickiness of rhythm which was one of the composer's greatest gifts. Now, although I cannot read a line of music, my sense of rhythm has always been very strong, and this has helped me enormously both in my songs and my dancing. Once when Sir Arthur was rehearsing us, and we simply could not get our songs right, I asked him to "la la" the rhythm to me, and I then got the measure so well that he exclaimed "That's splendid Lytton. If you're not a musician, I wish there were others, too, who were not."

One story about Sullivan—I admit it is not a new one—well deserves telling. Standing one night at the back of the dress-circle, he commenced in a contemplative fashion to hum the melody of a song that was being rendered on the stage. "Look here," declared a sensitive old gentleman, turning round sharply to the composer, "I've paid my money to hear Sullivan's music—not yours." And whenever Sir Arthur told this story against himself he always confessed that he well deserved the rebuke.

Gilbert and Sullivan were collaborators for exactly twenty-five years. It was in 1871 that they wrote "Thespis," a very funny little piece of its kind that was produced at the Gaiety, and it was this success that induced Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte to invite them to associate again in the writing of a curtain-raiser destined to be known as "Trial by Jury." From that time until 1889 they worked in double harness without a break, and it was in that latter year, after the most successful production of "The Gondoliers" that there came the unfortunate "separation." It lasted four years. When, in 1893, the two men re-united their talents, they gave us that delightfully funny play, "Utopia Limited." But with "The Grand Duke" in 1896—and the superstitious will not overlook that this was the thirteenth piece they had written together—the curtain finally came down upon the partnership.

It may be expected of me that I should say something about the cause of the famous "separation." It is a matter I should prefer to ignore, partly because the consequences of it were so very unfortunate to the cause of dramatic and musical art, and partly because the reason of it was trivial to a degree. Slight "tiffs" there may have been between the two from time to time—that was inevitable under the strain of rehearsals—but these minor differences were mended within a day or a night. What caused the rift was—would you believe it?—a carpet! This Mr. Carte, who under the contract was responsible for furnishings, had bought for £140, as a means of adding to the comfort, as he believed, of the patrons of the Savoy. Seeing this item in the accounts, Mr. Gilbert objected to it as a sheer waste of money, arguing that it would not bring an extra sixpence into the exchequer. The dispute was a mere "breeze" to begin with, but Gilbert and Carte had each a will of his own, and soon the "breeze" had developed into a "gale." And that miserable carpet led at last to the break-up of the partnership.

Sullivan, whether he agreed with the purchase or not, did his best to put an end to the quarrel, but as in the end he had to adhere to one side or the other, he linked himself with Mr. Carte. This, then, was the sole cause of the breach, and by none was it more regretted than by the principals. Gilbert, I know, felt this severance from his old friend very acutely, though in our many talks in after years he was always inclined to be a little reticent as to this subject. Sullivan, too, though he went on composing, was not at all fortunate in his choice of lyrical writers, none of whom had the deftness and quaint turn of fancy of the playwright with whom he had worked so long and so successfully.

Before I leave Sullivan, I think students of music will be interested to hear what Cellier once told me as to the composer's methods in writing his beautiful songs. With Gilbert's words before him, he set out first to decide, not what should be the tune, but the rhythm. It was this method of finding exactly what metre best suited the sentiment of the lyric that gave his music such originality. Later, having decided what the rhythm should be, he went on to sketch out the melody, but it was seldom that he set to work on the orchestration until the rehearsals were well under way. In the meanwhile the principals practised their songs to an accompaniment which he vamped on the pianoforte. Sullivan, who could score very quickly, had a mind running riot with musical ideas, and he could always pick out the idea for a given number that fitted it like the proverbial glove. "I have a song to sing O!" he regarded, I have been told, as the most difficult conundrum Gilbert ever set him, and musicians tell me that, in sheer constructive ingenuity, it is one of the cleverest numbers in the "Yeomen of the Guard."

Now I must turn to Mr. D'Oyly Carte. From time to time in this book I have given indications as to the manner of man that he was, but although much is known about his capacity as a business manager, the world knows very little indeed of his kindly generosity. It was impossible, of course, for him to take into the company every poor actor who was down on his luck, but certain it is that he never sent him empty away. Seldom did he leave his office without seeing that his pockets were well laden with sovereigns. Out in the Strand, as he knew, there would be some waif of our profession waiting for him, always sure that under cover of a handshake, Mr. Carte would press a golden coin upon him with a cheery "see you get yourself a good lunch," or "a good supper."

Mr. Carte, as I have said before, was a man of few words and of a rather taciturn humour, but it would be wrong to think that he was not fond of his joke. First, however, let me tell the story of a small youthful folly of mine, in "The Mikado." It happened in the second act where Ko-Ko, Pooh Bah and Pitti Sing are prostrate on the floor in the presence of the Emperor. We three had to do our well-known "roll-over" act in which I, like Pitti Sing herself, had to bear the weight of the 20-stone of dear old Fred Billington. Well, an imp of mischief led me one night to conceal a bladder under my costume, and when Fred rolled over it exploded with a terrible "bang." Billington had the fright of his life. "What's happened Harry?" he whispered anxiously, his nose still to the floor, "What have I done?"

I am afraid that in those days I had an incurable weakness for practical joking. One night I went for dinner into a well-known hotel in the Strand. Soon after I had entered the restaurant I was roughly grasped by one would-be diner, who was obviously in a very bad temper, and who demanded to know why no one had been to take the order for himself and his guests. Well, if I was to be mistaken for a waiter, it would be just as well to play the part. "Pardon, monsieur!" I exclaimed, dropping at once into a most deferential attitude, and immediately getting ready to write down his order on the back of a menu-card that was handy. The diner, still in the worst of humours, recited the courses he had selected. "And wine, monsieur?" I asked. Yes, he wanted wine as well, and that order also was faithfully booked. Then I went to the far end of the room to join my own party of friends. What combustible heat the diner developed when he found that his wishes were still unattended to, and what verbal avalanche the real waiter had to endure when he had to ask that the order should be repeated, are matters upon which no light can be thrown—by myself! But to return to the story of the "explosion" in "The Mikado."

My little bit of devilment was duly reported to the management. Mr. Carte summoned me before him and looked very grave. Unauthorised diversions of this kind would never do—and certainly not when perpetrated by a leading principal. "I think it is about time you stopped your schoolboy pranks," was his rebuke.

But a different side of Mr. Carte was seen in connection with a certain incident at the Savoy. The point to remember is that it had reference to something that did not involve any liberties with the performance, and this fact put it, in his eyes, in an entirely different category. We had in the company a man who was always telling tales about the rest to the stage manager. So one night some of us got hold of him, ducked his head in a bucket of dirty water, and kept it there as long as we dare. Naturally he reported us, and in due course we were summoned to attend and explain our conduct to Mr. Carte. We were bidden to enter his room one by one. I, as one of the ring-leaders, was the first to go in. "This is very serious," said Mr. Carte, but having heard my explanation of the incident, and still looking exceedingly severe, he warned me that "this sort of thing must not happen again." Then, as a smile stole over his face, he added "All the same I might have done it myself!"

With that he told me, when I went out of the room, to put one hand on my temple and, with the other stretched out in the air, to exclaim "Oh! it's terrible—terrible." What the effect of this melodramatic posture was on those anxiously waiting outside may well be imagined. It could only mean instant dismissal for all of us. Then Mr. Carte had another culprit before him, and having formally rebuked him, commanded him to make his exit in much the same way. It was an excellent joke—except for those at the end of the queue.

It was Mr. D'Oyly Carte, by the way, who once did me the compliment of saying, "My dear Lytton, you have given me the finest performance I have ever seen of any part on any stage." Strange as it may seem to-day, the rôle which I was playing then, and which drew those most cordial words from one whose praise was always so measured and restrained, was that of Shadbolt in the 1897 London revivals of "The Yeomen of the Guard." It was impossible for a small man to play the part just as the big men had played it, and so my interpretation of it was that of a creeping, cringing little dwarf who in manner, in method and in mood was not unlike Uriah Heep. This seemed to me to be consistent with the historical figure from which the part was drawn. Gilbert, it is not generally known, took him from a wicked, wizened little wretch who, in the sixteenth century, so legend says, haunted the Tower when an execution was due, and offered the unhappy felon a handful of dust, which was, he said, "a powder that will save you from pain." For reward he claimed the victim's valuables.

When, by the way, Mr. Carte told me that mine was the best performance he had ever seen on any stage, I was so flattered by the compliment that I asked him if he would write his opinion down for me, and he readily promised to do so. Within a day or two I received a letter containing those words over his signature, and it remains amongst my treasured possessions. Only once did I know him to be guilty of forgetfulness, and that was when, meeting me in London, he said: "Oh! I think I can offer you an engagement, Lytton." I had to point out to him that I was actually playing in one of his companies. We were, I think, at Greenwich at the time, and I was making a flying visit to London.

Mr. Carte was a great stage manager. He could take in the details of a scene with one sweep of his eagle eye and say unerringly just what was wrong. Shortly before I was leaving town for a provincial tour he noticed that Ko-Ko's love scene with Katisha might be improved, and so we went together for an extra rehearsal into the pit bar at the Savoy. Mr. Carte said he would be Katisha and I, of course, was to be Ko-Ko. Now, to make love to a bearded man, and a man who was one's manager into the bargain, was rather a task but we both entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. "Just act as you would if you were on the stage," was his advice, "though you needn't actually kiss me, you know!" For this scene we had an audience of one. Little Rupert D'Oyly Carte was there, and before the rehearsal commenced I lifted him on to the bar counter, where he sat and simply held his sides with laughter watching me making earnest love to his father! I imagine he remembers that incident still.

That "eye" for stagecraft, which in Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte amounted to genius, has been inherited in a quite remarkable degree by his son, Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte. He, too, has the gift of taking in the details of a scene at a glance, and knowing instinctively just what must be corrected in order to make the colours blend most effectively, the action move most perfectly, and the stage arrangement generally to be in balance and proportion. I need not say that in all this he most faithfully observes all the traditions which have stood so well the test of time.

So far I have given in this chapter my random reminiscences of the chief three figures—the triumvirate, as I have called them—at the Savoy. But there was also a fourth, and it would be a grave omission were I not to mention one who, in my judgment, was as wonderful as any of them. I refer to Miss Helen Lenoir, who, after acting for some years as private secretary to Mr. Carte, became his wife. There was hardly a department of this great enterprise which did not benefit, little though the wider public knew it, from Mrs. Carte's remarkable genius. It was not alone that hers was the woman's hand that lent an added tastefulness to the dressing of the productions. She was a born business woman with an outstanding gift for organisation. No financial statement was too intricate for her, and no contract too abstruse. Once, when I had to put one of her letters to me before my legal adviser, though not, I need hardly say, with any litigious intent, he declared firmly "this letter must have been written by a solicitor." He would not admit that any woman could draw up a document so cleverly guarded with qualifications.

Mrs. Carte, besides her natural business talent, had fine artistic taste and was a sound judge, too, of the capabilities of those who came to the theatre in search of engagements. The New York productions of the operas were often placed in her charge. Naturally enough, the American managers did not welcome the "invasion" any too heartily, and her responsibilities over there must have been a supreme test of her tact and powers of organisation. Yet the success of these transatlantic ventures could not be gainsaid.

When her husband died Mrs. Carte took the reins of management entirely into her keeping, and it was one of her most remarkable achievements that, notwithstanding constant pain and declining health, this wonderful woman should have carried the operas through a period when, owing to the natural reaction of time, they were suffering a temporary eclipse. Long before she died in 1913 they had entered upon a new lease of life, and to-day we find them once more on the flood tide of prosperity, loved alike by those who are loyal to their favourites of other days and no less by those of the younger generation who have been captivated by all their joyous charm of wit and melody.

Our leader to-day is Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte. Of him I find it difficult to speak, as is bound to be the case when one is working in constant association with one who has the same cause at heart, and sharing with him the earnest intention that the great tradition of these operas shall be worthily and faithfully upheld. Upon Rupert D'Oyly Carte's shoulders has fallen the mantle of a splendid heritage. Speaking as the oldest member of his company, and no less as one who may claim also to be a friend, I can assure him that the happy family of artistes who serve under his banner, and who play in these pieces night by night with all the more zest because they love them for their own freshness and grace, will always do their part under him in keeping alight the "sacred lamp" of real English comedy that was first kindled into undying fires within the portals of the Savoy.

V.
ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES.

Actors in real life—Reminiscences of my American visit—A thrill in Sing-Sing—The detective and the crook—Outwitting the Pirates—In "The Gondoliers" in New York—A cutting Press critique—Orchestral afflictions—Our best audiences—Enthusiasm in Ireland and a short-lived interruption—Exciting fire experiences—Too realistic thunder and lightning—"Hell's Full."

"Lytton," said a well-known man of affairs to me, "we are all actors. You are an actor. I am an actor. Come with me to a meeting at which I am to make a speech and I will show you a real-life drama truer than ever you will see or hear on the stage. The audience would kill me if they dare. They would rend me limb from limb. And yet in half-an-hour—mark my words, in half-an-hour!—they will be shaking me by the hand and everything will be ending happily."

We were in Holborn at the time and we took a short cab-ride into the City. My friend had to meet the shareholders of a company which he had promoted and which had not been prospering. No sooner had he entered the meeting room than he was met with a hostile reception. Epithets of an unequivocally abusive kind were flung at him from every side. Men shook their fists in his face. When he reached the platform the demonstration was redoubled, and at first he was not allowed to speak. Solidly he stood his ground waiting for the storm to subside. Eventually they did allow him to speak, and first to a crescendo and then to a diminuendo of interruption he told them how the failure of things could not be his fault at all, how he was ready to stand by the venture to the very end, how he would guarantee to pay them all their money back with interest, and how he would work the flesh off his bones to put the company right.

Here, indeed, was real drama—and at a company meeting. Here was a man fighting for his commercial existence, and by the force of wits, sheer self-confidence and personal magnetism gradually winning. Just after the meeting closed a number of those infuriated shareholders were on the platform shaking him by the hand and telling him what a fine fellow he was. Towards the end of his speech I had seen him look at his watch and flash a significant glance in my direction. "Well," he said, when he rejoined me, quite calm and collected, "I did it under half-an-hour—in fact, with just a minute to spare."

It is an incident like this which proves that histrionics is no theatrical monopoly. I once met another actor in real life—this time in America. I had gone to New York to do the Duke in "The Gondoliers." Amongst the many delightful people I met there was General Sickles. Sickles was a "character," and also a man of influence. Only a few weeks before he had met Captain Shaw, the chief of the London Fire Brigade, whom Gilbert has immortalised in the Queen's beautiful song in "Iolanthe." Shaw had argued with the General that America's fire-fighting methods were not as speedy as they were in England.

"Oh! aren't they?" was the reply. "Come and see." Forthwith the General, who was not a fire chief himself, but who had been Sheriff of New York and was thus a powerful individual, ordered out the New York Fire Brigade. No sooner had a button been touched than the harness automatically fell on the horses, the men came flying down a pole right on to the engine, and in so many seconds the brigade was ready. Long since, of course, all these methods have been adopted in this country, and I believe I am right in saying that the improvement followed this visit of Captain Shaw to the United States. I myself saw a turn-out of the brigade and thought their swiftness astonishing.

It was General Sickles who introduced me to Mr. Burke, a famous New York detective of his day, who took me on a most interesting tour of Sing-Sing Prison. He persuaded me to sit in the electric chair, and having put the copper band round my head and adjusted the rest of the apparatus, he took a big switch in his hand and said, "I've simply got to press this and you're electrocuted—dead in a jiffy!" I'll own up I did not share his affection for his plaything. The experience was not at all pleasant.

Burke, as an additional thrill, asked me if I should like to meet a notorious bank robber, whom I will call Captain S. It was arranged that the three of us should have dinner together. Captain S., the other real-life actor referred to, was at that time enjoying a spell of liberty, and to me it was amazing how cordial was the friendship between the great detective and the great "crook." When "business" was afoot it was a battle of wits, with the bank robber bringing off some tremendous haul and the detective hot on his tracks to bring him to justice, and probably it was because each had so much respect for the other's talents that socially they could be such excellent pals.

"Yes, Burke," I heard Captain S. say, "you've 'lagged' me before this and I expect you'll do it again." I found him a delightful companion, with a fund of good stories, and he played the violin for us most beautifully.

Captain S. told us how he planned one of his earlier exploits. It was his custom to pose as an English philanthropist, who was almost eccentric in his liberality and who made himself persona grata in society. Even the most suspicious would have been disarmed by one so benevolent both in manner and in appearance. In this particular case, having decided on the bank he intended to rob, he took a flat over the building. One part of the day was spent in preparing his gang for the coup and the other part in performing kindly acts of charity. "I really felt sorry," he told us, "when the time had come to do the trick. I had been spending a lot of money and thoroughly enjoying myself. Luckily, we had found that, although the bank had steel walls and a steel floor, it had just an ordinary ceiling. That, of course, helped us enormously, and we got away with a regular pile. I left a note on the counter: 'You must blame the designer of the bank for this, not me.'"

I have not yet explained the circumstances that took me to America. Shortly after "The Gondoliers" had been produced in London it was put on in the States. No sooner had any new Savoy opera been successfully launched in London than preparations were pushed forward for its production on the other side of the Atlantic. This, in point of fact, was done as a precaution. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte had learnt the need of that by bitter experience in their earlier ventures, which had been exploited by "pirates." These nimble gentlemen, having secured a rough idea of the new opera that was being produced in London, lost no time in bringing out a miserable travesty of it under the identical title that it was given at the Savoy. Thus not only did they trade on the reputation of these operas, but they were able to prevent the genuine production being given under its own title, inasmuch as this would have transgressed the law of copyright. So the "pirates" had to be forestalled by an immediate staging of the real operas, and in some cases these were put on in America simultaneously with, and in one case actually before, the productions in England.

"The Gondoliers" in America was not a success. Mr. Carte, who was there at the time, tried to mend matters by completely re-casting the play. I was in York, and I received a cable "Come to New York." It was never my custom to question my manager's requests. Whenever he commanded I was ready to obey. So from York to New York I travelled by the first available steamer and was soon playing the Duke of Plaza-Toro. During my first interview with Mr. Carte after my arrival there occurred an incident characteristic of the great manager. "Lytton," he said, producing his note-book, "I believe you owe me £50." I admitted it—the loan had been for a small speculation. "Well," was his reply, striking his pen through the item, "that debt is paid." It was in this way that he chose to show his appreciation of my action in responding to his summons immediately.

What I remember most about "The Gondoliers" was the simply uproarious laughter with which the audience greeted the line in the Grand Inquisitor's song, "And Dukes were three a penny." It was quite different to the smiles with which the phrase is received in England. The significance of their merriment was the fact that no fewer than seven men had taken the part of the Duke of Plaza-Toro! I myself was there as the seventh! A Press critic, having drawn attention to this rather prolific succession, proceeded to place the seven in the order of merit—at least, as it appeared to his judgment. He gave six of the names in his order of preference in ordinary type, and then came a wide gap of space, followed by the last name in the minutest type. While I do not remember where I stood I do know that mine was not the name in such conspicuous inconspicuousness!

Speaking of Press criticisms, which in this country are almost invariably fair and judicious, it was my curious experience once to go into a barber's shop in a small town in which we were playing and to find the wielder of the razor very keen about discussing the operas. He then urged me to be sure to buy a copy of the Mudford Gazette. "I've said something very nice about you," he said. I looked perplexed. "Oh! I'm the musical critic, you know," explained the worthy Figaro.

Our "properties" in the small towns were sometimes a little primitive. Once in "The Gondoliers" our gondola was made of an egg-box on a couple of rollers, and we had to wade ashore. This was at Queenstown, where there was a strike, and we could not get all our baggage from the liner that had brought us from America. But often the chief affliction was the orchestra. I remember one violinist whose efforts were woeful. "You can't play your instrument," the conductor told him at last in exasperation. "Neither would you if your hands were swollen with hard work like mine," was his retort. "This job doesn't pay me. I just come here in the evening." It transpired that he was a bricklayer. At another place the musicianship of one instrumentalist was truly appalling. "How long have you been playing?" asked the conductor. "Thirty years man and boy," was the response. "It is thirty years too long," was the retort.

From time to time I am asked where our best audiences are found. Really it is hard to say. Except for one big city—and why not there it is impossible to explain—the company has a wonderful reception everywhere. The Savoy audiences in the old days, of course, were like no other audiences, and it was something to remember to be at a "first night." Long before the orchestra was due to commence—with Sullivan there to conduct it, as he usually was also at the fiftieth, the hundredth and other "milestone" performances—it was customary for many of the songs and choruses from the older operas to be sung by the "gods." And wonderful singers they were.

The London audiences of to-day are also splendid. Our welcome in the 1920 season was a memorable experience. Gilbert and Sullivan operas depend for their freshness and their spirit far more on the audience than do any of the ordinary plays, and as it happens this enthusiasm on both sides is seldom wanting. Yet now and then we find an audience that is cold and quiet at the beginning and then works up to fever-heat as the opera proceeds, whereas on the other hand there is the audience that begins really too well and towards the end has simply worn itself out, being too exhausted to let itself go.

The North, if not so demonstrative as the South, is always wonderfully responsive to the spirit of the witty dialogue and the sparkling songs, and two cities in which it is always a pleasure to play are Manchester and Liverpool. And those who declare that the Scots cannot see a joke would be disabused if they were to be at the D'Oyly Carte seasons at Glasgow and Edinburgh. Our visits there are always successful. But if I had to decide this matter on a national basis I should certainly bestow the palm on Ireland.

Nowhere are there truer lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan than the Irish. It may be that Gilbert's fantastic wit is the wit they best understand, and it may be, too, that their hearts are warmed by the "plaintive song" of their fellow countryman, Sullivan. Whatever the cause, we have no better receptions anywhere. One feature of our Dublin and Belfast audiences is, oddly enough, shared with those at Oxford and Cambridge. They do not merely clap, but openly cheer again and again, throwing all conventional decorum away. And when the Irish are determined to have encores—no matter how many for a particular piece—there is no denying them.

What we have found in the Emerald Isle—even during the unhappy times during and after the war—was that they kept their pleasures and their politics in watertight compartments. Sinn Feiners they might be outside the theatre, but inside it they are determined to enjoy themselves, as an interrupter found on one of our latest visits, when he tried to protest against the song, "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves." "No politics here," shouted someone from the stalls, and the audience agreeing very heartily with this sentiment the protestor subsided into silence.

Looking back on the reference earlier in this chapter to fire brigades, I am reminded that I have more than once been on the stage at times when events have occurred which might have had terrible results, though my success as a panic-fighter is a distinction I would rather have foregone. One incident of this kind was at Eastbourne when we did "Haddon Hall." It will be remembered that in one part there are indications of an oncoming storm of thunder and lightning. Nowadays the authorities take care that effects of this kind are contrived with absolute safety to all concerned, but in those times the lightning was produced by a man in the wings taking pinches of explosive powder out of a canister, throwing these on a candle flame, and so securing a vivid flash over the darkening stage. Well, our man had done this so often that he had grown contemptuous of danger, and this time he took such an ample helping of the powder that the flash caught the canister, and there was a tremendous explosion. The canister went right through the stage and embedded itself in the ground.

In "Haddon Hall" I was McCrankie, dressed in a kilt and playing the bagpipes when the explosion occurred. It plunged both stage and auditorium into darkness. I could hear the injured stage-hand groaning near the wings. Somehow I managed to grope my way to the man, pick him up in my arms, and carry him to one of the exits from the stage. I remember that a number of the chorus ladies, who could not find the door in the darkness, were clawing the walls of the scenery, for in their panic that was the only way they thought they could make their escape. The strange thing was that the door was not a yard away.

Still dressed as a kilted Scot, I carried the injured man into the street, and already a crowd had gathered in the belief that there had been a terrible disaster. If not as serious as that, it had been quite bad enough, and it was a miracle that there had not actually been a calamity. In one of the boxes was one of those hardy playgoers who attended our shows night after night. We had nicknamed him "Festive." The concussion had lifted him out of his seat on to the floor. He complained that the thunder had been far too realistic!

Fortunately we were able to go on with the performance, though many of us were suffering from nerves very badly. The stage hand had been speedily taken to hospital with serious injuries. It was typical of Mr. Carte's kindness that, although the man had been guilty of a very grave fault, he did not dismiss him from his service, but on his recovery made him a messenger and afterwards gave him a pension.

Early in my career as a D'Oyly Carte principal on the provincial tours, we had a fire on the stage at the Lyceum, Edinburgh. It was the week before Henry Irving was due there to give his first production of "Faust." I remember that because we had his great organ behind the stage. Our piece that night was "Ruddigore" and while I was singing one of my numbers I became aware that something was amiss. It proved to be an outbreak of fire in the sky borders over the stage, and small smouldering fragments were falling around me in a manner that was entirely unpleasant. The steps at the back also caught fire, and it was a lucky thing that, the piece being then a new one, the audience should have taken it as a bit of realism added to the ghost scene. Otherwise nothing could have avoided a panic.

I remember the stage manager shouting to me from the wings "Keep singing, keep singing." It was not easy, I can assure you, to keep on with a humorous number in circumstances like those, and with sparks dropping over one's head, but I did keep on with the song until they decided to ring down the curtain. Then I was told to run upstairs to warn the girls, whose dressing-rooms were near the flies. Now, as a young man I had made a reputation for myself as a practical joker, and one of my favourite antics was to tell this person or that, quite untruly, "You're wanted on the stage." Thus, when I rushed up to sound the real alarm, it was treated as a cry of "wolf." I banged the doors and entreated them to come out, but it was not until the smoke began to creep into the rooms that the girls knew positively that there was a fire, and promptly scurried for safety. Fortunately the outbreak was speedily subdued and the performance proceeded.

A minor incident of this kind may be worth mentioning. We were in "Erminie" at the Comedy, and at the close of one of the acts the chorus, the ladies dressed as fisher girls and holding lighted candles, were singing a concerted "Good Night." Suddenly I noticed that one of the girls who was not paying much attention to her work had let the candle ignite the mob cap she was wearing. If the flame had reached her wig—and wigs in those days were cleaned with spirit—she must have been seriously burnt. So I ran up and tore off her cap, only to be rewarded with a haughty, "How dare you!" Later, when she realised what her danger had been, her apology and thanks were profuse.

It may not, I think, be amiss if to these combustible reminiscences is added just one more story, though in a much lighter vein. It occurred in "The Sorcerer." John Wellington Wells, the "dealer in magic and spells," disappears at last into the nether regions, as it were, through the trap-door in the stage. One night the trap, having dropped a foot or so, refused to move any further, and there was I, enveloped in smoke and brimstone, poised between earth and elsewhere. So all I could do was to jump back on to the boards, make a grimace at the refractory trap-door, and go off by the ordinary exit. "Hell's full!" shouted an irreverent voice from the "gods." The joke, I know, was not a new one, for legend has it that a similar incident occurred during a performance of "Faust." Whether it did or not I do know that it occurred in that performance of "The Sorcerer."

VI.
PARTS I HAVE PLAYED.

List of my Gilbert and Sullivan Rôles—Parts in Other Comedies—Excursions into Vaudeville—A Human Shuttlecock—When Gilbert Appeared before the Footlights—Essays as a playwright—A Burlesque of Shakespeare—Embarrassing Invitations—A Jester's Hidden Remorse—My Life's Helpmate.

It is my melancholy distinction to be the last of the Savoyards. Numbers of my old comrades, of course, are playing elsewhere or living in their well-earned retirement, but I alone remain actively in Gilbert and Sullivan. In all I have played thirty parts in the operas—no other artiste connected with them has ever played so many—and it may interest my innumerable known and unknown friends if I "put them on my list." In the following table I give incidentally the date of the original production of the comedies in London.

My connection with the D'Oyly Carte company falls into three periods. The first of these was in 1884 and 1885, when I went on tour for twelve months with "Princess Ida," to be followed by the heart-breaking time I have recounted in the "Vagabondage of the Commonwealth." Then, in 1887, I rejoined it to win my first success as George Grossmith's understudy in "Ruddigore." That period was destined to continue almost without interruption until 1901. For most of this time I was touring in the provinces, though I was in London for many of the revivals, as well as for several of the plays not by Gilbert and Sullivan produced by Mr. D'Oyly Carte. Eventually this latter enterprise was brought to an end by the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1900, and by that of Mr. Carte himself four months later in 1901. London saw the Gilbert and Sullivan works no more until 1906, though the suburban theatres were sometimes visited by the provincial company, which in the country kept alight the flickering torch that was to burn once more with all its accustomed brightness.

Shortly after my old chief had passed away, I closed my second period with the company in order to throw in my lot with the musical comedy stage, and it was my good fortune to play leading comedy parts under several successful managements. Looking back on those years, I regard them as amongst the most prosperous and happy in my career, and yet it is no affectation to say that all other parts seemed shallow and superficial when one has played so long in Gilbert and Sullivan. Shall I say I was anxious to return to them? In a sense that would be true. Certainly the yearning was there—if not the opportunity. Then, in 1909, Sir William Gilbert earnestly invited me to rejoin the company, and I relinquished a very profitable engagement in order to play once more the parts I loved so well. Thus began my third period with the operas. This period has still to be finished.

Sir William, I ought to say, was at this time an ageing man, and he had retired with a comfortable fortune. Grim's Dyke and its beautiful grounds gave him all the enjoyment he wanted, and to the end he had the solace and companionship of his devoted wife, Lady Gilbert. He died in 1911. Following a visit to town, he had gone to bathe in the lake in his grounds, and had a heart seizure whilst swimming. He was rescued from the water and carried to his room, but there life was found to be extinct. The curtain had fallen.

But to proceed. I propose to give a list of the comedies in which I played between 1901 and 1909. Lacking a good memory for dates, I cannot guarantee at all that the order in which they appear is correct, though approximately this may be the case:—

In the opinion of many friends, my best piece of pure character acting was that as Pat Murphy, the piper in "The Emerald Isle." Without a doubt it was a fine part. I had to be blind, and in contrast to the manner in which most blind characters were played at that time, my eyes were wide open and rigid. From the moment I entered I riveted my gaze tragically on one particular spot, and my eyes never moved, no matter who spoke or however dramatic the point. Naturally the strain was tremendous. Then, at last, Pat's colleen lover began to have suspicions that he was not really blind—that the idle good-for-nothing fellow was shamming. And when Pat admitted it, the subterfuge had been kept up so long that, both to those on the stage and to the audience, the effect was marvellous to a degree. I loved playing the piper and speaking the brogue. "The Emerald Isle," as is now generally known, was the last work that Sir Arthur Sullivan composed, and on his lamented death the music was completed by my gifted friend, Edward German. I remember that when, later on, the piece was taken to Dublin, we had doubts as to whether anything in it might offend the susceptibilities of the good people of the "disthressful counthree." Strangely enough, no objection of any kind was raised until the jig in the second act, and as it was believed that this was not done correctly and that the girls were lifting their heels too high, the dance was greeted with an outburst of booing. This was quelled by the lusty voice at the back of the pit. "Shame on ye," he shouted. "Can't ye be aisy out of respect for the dead?" And another voice: "Eh, an' Sullivan an Oirishman too, so he was!" The appeal was magical. The interruption died away and the performance proceeded.

"The Earl and the Girl," the most successful of all the musical comedies in which I appeared and the one which gave me my biggest real comedy part, ran for one year at the Adelphi, and then for a further year at the Lyric. When it was withdrawn I secured the permission of the management to use "My Cosy Corner," the most tuneful of all its musical numbers, as a scena on the music-halls, and with my corps of Cosy Corner Girls it was a decided success.

One other venture of mine on the music-halls was in conjunction with Connie Ediss when we had both completed an engagement at the Gaiety. "United Service," in which we figured together, ran for fourteen weeks at the Pavilion, and it provided me with one of the best salaries I ever drew. The idea of this piece was a contrast in courtships. First we would imitate a stately old colonel paying his addresses to an exquisite lady, and then a ranker making love to the cook, with an idiom appropriate to life "below-stairs." Eighteen changes of dress had to be made by each of us, and the fun waxed fast and furious when the colonel commenced pouring his courtly phrases into the ears of the cook, and when, by a similar deliberate mishap, the soldier in his most ardent vernacular declared his passion for m'lady.

Connie Ediss and I might have done as well with a successor to "United Service." But the theatre, she said, "called her back," and accordingly we went our separate ways in "legitimate."

Some reminiscences still remain to be told of my struggling early days on the stage. One of these concerns my brief and boisterous connection with the well-known Harvey Troupe. I was chosen as deputy for their page boy, whom these acrobats threw hither and thither as if he were a human shuttlecock, and a very clever act it was, however uncomfortable for the unfortunate youngster. I scarcely relished the job, but old Harvey told me "All you've to do is to come on the stage; leave the rest to us; we'll pull you through." It was not a case of pulling me through. They literally threw me through. For half-an-hour I was thrown from one to another with lightning speed, and that was about all I knew of the performance. "You did very well," they told me afterwards, "didn't you hear the laughs?" I am afraid I hadn't heard them. I had been conscious only of an appalling giddiness and of feeling bruised and sore. Next day I was black and blue, and unable to perform, but in those hard days, when food was scarce, one had to be ready for anything.

It was about this time in my career that I secured a pantomime engagement at the Prince's, Manchester, though my rôle was merely that of standard-bearer, in the finale, to the "show lady," before whom I walked with a banner inscribed, "St. George and the Dragon." Unfortunately, in my nervousness, I marched on with the reverse side of the banner to the front, and at the sight of this piece of tawdry linen the audience laughed uproariously.

When the Second Demon was absent I was chosen as his understudy, and it seemed to me to be a wonderful honour, because it gave me eight words to speak. I had the comforting feeling of being a big star already. How well I remember those lines:—

Second Demon (sepulchral and sinister): Who calls on me in this unfriendly way?
Fairy Queen (in a piping treble): A greater power than yours; hear and obey!

Coming to a much later date, I include in my list of memorable theatrical occasions the benefit matinee given in the Drury Lane Theatre for Nellie Farren, for many years the bright particular star at the Gaiety. The stage was determined to pay the worthiest tribute it could to the brilliant artiste who, once the idol of her day, was now laid aside by sickness and suffering, and never had such a wonderful programme been presented. King Edward, then Prince of Wales, gave the benefit his gracious patronage, and it was in every way a remarkable success. The D'Oyly Carte contribution to the entertainment was "Trial by Jury." Gilbert himself figured in the scene as the Associate. It was, I believe, his only appearance before the footlights in public, and it was a part in which he had not a line to speak. I played the Foreman. Amongst other benefit performances in which I have taken part were those to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dacre and Miss Ellen Terry. We gave "Trial by Jury" on these occasions also, and my part was Counsel.

Speaking of King Edward, I am reminded that when, by going to the Palace Theatre after his accession, His Majesty paid the first visit of any British Sovereign to a music-hall, the occasion coincided with the run there of an operetta of my own, called the "Knights of the Road." It was a Dick Turpin story, for which I had written the lyrics, and the music had been provided by my good friend Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. I conceived the idea that pieces of this kind, based on English stories and typically English alike in sentiment and musical setting, might be made an attractive feature on the music-halls, and in point of fact, all that was wrong with the experiment was that it was a little too early. To-day, when the better-class music-halls have attained a remarkable standard of taste, they would be just the thing. Nevertheless, my "Knights of the Road" had a successful career, and it served to give Walter Hyde, now one of our leading operatic tenors, one of his first chances to sing in the Metropolis.

I wrote about eight of these pieces altogether. The libretto and the scores are still in existence, and for better or for worse, they may be produced even yet. One of them is written round the well-known picture, "The Duel in the Snow." This depicts a beautiful woman rushing between the two swords in a duel, and my object was to fill in the dramatic significance of the picture, representing how it came about that the men were fighting in those wintry surroundings for the hand of the lady.

"For one night only" I appeared with the Follies. I was at the Palace in "My Cosy Corner," and Pellissier asked me to come on, garbed as the poet, in their burlesque on Shakespeare. Leaning from my pedestal, I had to reproach them for daring to take such liberties, and we finished up with a boxing match. Our jokes on that occasion were mainly extemporised. Nobody in the audience knew that I was acting deputy, but those in the wings had heard that a conspiracy of some kind was afoot, and they entered heartily into the spirit of the burlesque.

It is far easier, I think, to improvise on the stage than it is away from the footlights, and I well remember my dilemma when I was once invited to an "at home." It was a children's party, and my hostess had told the youngsters that they were going to see Ko-Ko, the "funny man" in "The Mikado." No doubt if I had come in my Oriental costume it would have been less difficult to act up to the part, but it was quite another thing to arrive in an immaculate frock-coat and silk hat, to be escorted at once into the circle of children, and invited then and there to act the clown in the circus with "jibe and joke and quip and crank." For some moments I stood almost tongue-tied. Luckily, as it happened, my hostess handed me a cup of tea, and in my nervousness I dropped it. The children giggled hugely. With that trivial incident the ice was broken.

Enjoyable as it is to meet so many people in the social sphere, our good friends who see us from the auditorium, and then shower their invitations upon us, are at times a little embarrassing. Kind as they undoubtedly are—and we do appreciate the hospitality so readily offered to us wherever we go—they are perhaps forgetful that every week we have to get through seven or eight hard performances. With rehearsals taken into account, we have not over-much leisure for social enjoyment, and certainly no great reserves of energy. A Scotch lady was once most pressing that I should attend a dance she was arranging. Now, much as I love dancing on the stage, I have never had any taste at all for the conventional ball-room dancing, and really how could one have after doing, say, the courtly gavotte in "The Gondoliers?" "I never dance," I told my Scottish friend, "unless I'm paid for it." Evidently she mistook my meaning, for with her invitation to her dance she enclosed me—a cheque for £5. I returned it with my compliments.

From time to time on these social occasions we are prevailed upon to give one or two of our songs from the operas. Songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, nevertheless, seldom sound well away from the stage and their familiar surroundings, and long ago most amateur vocalists dropped them from their repertory. I, personally, have found that the most suitable of my numbers for private circles are the Lord Chancellor's "Dream Song"—it is so dramatic that it goes quite well as an unaccompanied recitation—and King Gama's "I can't tell why." Here I must note a remarkable fact. When I am on the stage, I know not only my own lines, but the lines of everyone else, but away from the stage and the atmosphere of the play my otherwise excellent memory is not always so amenable to discipline. Indeed, I can recall an occasion when, at a garden party, I was asked to sing "Tit Willow." I cheerfully undertook to do so, but half-way through I stumbled, and try as I would even with the promptings of obliging friends, I could get no further than the middle of the second verse. And yet on the stage I have sung "Tit Willow" without a fault many thousands of times.

I think I was only once in any danger of forgetting my lines on the stage. It happened in "The Mikado." Behind the scenes, unknown to me, Pooh Bah had fainted, and one of his entrances had to be made by Pish Tush. Well, I was on as Ko-Ko at the time, and the sound of an unexpected voice was so strange, so bewildering, that for a moment it seemed to me that my reason had gone! "Get off! It's Pooh Bah" I whispered, excitedly. Pish Tush managed to give me a hint that something had happened, and we continued our comedy scene, though in my frame of mind this might easily have come to grief!

Speaking of memory, I am reminded that my first recollection in life was that of listening, as a very small child, to a lad playing a quaint little tune on a banjo. I never heard that tune again, but it has ever since remained in my mind, and only a few years ago I was talking about it to a man who had spent nearly all his life in Australia. When we were children we were neighbours in the same village. "Yes," said my long-lost friend, "I was the lad who played that tune on the banjo, and you were lying in a cot in the garden!" Between that incident and our mutual recollection of it nearly fifty eventful years for both of us had passed.

Before I close this chapter of random reminiscences I feel I must pay my tribute to the best, the oldest and the truest of all my friends—my helpmate in life, "Louie Henri." As Albert Chevalier would put it, "We've been together now for (almost) forty years, and it don't seem a day too much." Louie Henri, as I have already told, secured me my first engagement, and from that time to this she has been the intimate sharer in whatever troubles and successes have fallen to me in what is now a long and eventful career. Optimistic as I may be in temperament, there were times when her encouragement meant a great deal, and to my wife I pay this brief tribute (as brief it is bound to be). Our family has consisted of three sons and two daughters. Our two elder sons served during the war in the Royal Air Force, and one of them was lost whilst flying in a night-bombing raid in France. I well remember the time when my boy was first reported missing. With that anxious sorrow weighing on my mind, it was no small trial to keep alive the semblance, at least, of comedy.

Oh, a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumour.

Jack Point's song appealed to me with peculiar poignancy during that time of heavy anxiety. But to return to my wife.

Louie Henri, as the older generation well remembers, is able to count herself amongst the distinguished Savoyards. Before she retired she had probably played a greater number of parts—soprano, contralto, and soubrette—than any other lady connected with the company. I am sure it will be of interest if I enumerate here the rôles she has played:—

Mrs. Lytton, apart from her success as an actress, has always been an accomplished musician, and in that respect I owe much to her for the way in which, during the preparation of my new rôles, she has helped me, "a lame, unmusical dog, over the stile." Our pianoforte at home is the one on which Sir Arthur Sullivan first played over his music for "The Mikado." It is a handsome satinwood grand, designed for Mr. D'Oyly Carte by the late Sir Alma Tadema, R.A., and this most interesting and valuable souvenir was presented to me by Mrs. D'Oyly Carte.

VII.
FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE.

Lessons to the Prince on the Bagpipes—A Charming and Lovable Personality—Queen Alexandra's Compliment—An Afternoon with Fisher—Stories of the Great Seaman—George Edwardes and His Genius for Stagecraft—His Successes on the Turf—"Honest Frank" Cellier—A Model Conductor—Traditions of the Savoy—Rutland Barrington—An Admiral in Disguise—Fred Billington—A Strange Premonition—Our War-Time Experiences—Caught in the Toils of the Dublin Rebellion.

It was my great privilege and pleasure, when we were at Oxford on one occasion, to be introduced to the Prince of Wales, who was then in residence at Magdalen. Nothing impressed me more than his sunny nature and the wonderful knack he had of putting everybody at their ease immediately. Since then it has been just those qualities which have made him so immensely popular in his tours of the Empire.

Our first meeting was in His Royal Highness's own rooms, where he was accompanied by his tutor, Mr. H. P. Hansell. I remember that as I was speaking to him the members of a college team were brought in to be presented. "Ah!" exclaimed the Prince, "that's the best of being a celebrity, Lytton. I could not draw a muster like this." It was just a little pleasantry, this suggestion that it was myself who was the attraction, but it was an example of his happy knack of putting everybody at their ease immediately. I recall, too, that the Prince at that time was learning the chanter, with which one proceeds to the full glory of playing the bagpipes. Greatly to his surprise, I took the chanter and proceeded to give him a lesson, to which he listened most attentively, and then played a skirl, with which he was delighted. It so happens that, although I am no musician, I do know how to handle the bagpipes, and once a group of Scottish yokels who were listening to me stood open-mouthed with astonishment that such skill should be possessed by a trousered Englishman. This was when I visited my old colleague Durward Lely's place in the Highlands. The Scotties were enjoying a homely dance in a barn, and as the piper had been hard at it and seemed tired, I volunteered to act as his deputy. I don't want to be boastful, but my performance was regarded as a tour de force, at least for a Saxon.

The Prince came to the theatre frequently during our stay, and one night he came round to our dressing-room, where once more one fell irresistibly under the spell of his lovable and attractive personality. He invariably addressed me as "Ko-Ko." The Prince told me then, as he had done on other occasions, how really delightful he thought the operas were, and he said he looked forward to seeing them again and again. Then he asked to be introduced to a member who, in more than one sense, is one of the stalwarts of the choristers, Joe Ruff. Seeing that Joe had been with us so many years, I thought this special "recognition" was particularly happy, and it was a very great pleasure to me to be allowed to introduce my colleague to the Heir-Apparent.

From time to time, both during my connection with D'Oyly Carte and when temporarily away from the company, I have played before Royalty. Especially do I recall a night when Queen Alexandra occupied a box at the Savoy. It was in the "Yeoman of the Guard" revivals and my rôle was Shadbolt. Her Majesty was kind enough to send Sir Arthur Sullivan to my dressing-room to compliment me on the clearness of my enunciation, and I need hardly say how gratifying such praise was to me.

Seldom was "H.M.S. Pinafore" staged during the 1920 season without Lord Fisher coming to chuckle over Gilbert's clever satire on the "ruler of the Queen's Navee." He revelled in that opera. It was not only, I think, that it smacked of the sea, but he loved the gibes at the politicians and the hearty loyalty of the honest salt who, "in spite of all temptation," firmly resolves to "remain an Englishman." It was after he had seen me several times as Sir Joseph Porter that he invited me to bring a few of my colleagues and spend an afternoon with him at his home in London. I reproduce his very typical letter on another page. My recollections of that afternoon are very delightful. Lord Fisher was a wonderful veteran, and it was difficult afterwards to realise that a fortnight later he was stricken down with his last illness, to which he succumbed in the following July.

I remember that we did not have to do much of the talking. Lord Fisher walked up and down, up and down the room as if it were the quarter-deck, and he was telling us all the while such capital stories that we forgot that we, too, were still standing up! Of his yarns there were two that were very typical of the man and his ways.

"One day," he began, "I was walking through Trafalgar Square, and as I always do, I looked up at the statue of the greatest man that ever lived. Then a woman who was munching a bun came along. 'Here, master,' she said, 'who's 'e?' 'That's Lord Nelson,' I answered. 'Is it?' she returned, 'and who's 'e?' Fancy! Never heard of Nelson! Such ignorance! 'Well,' I said, 'if it had not been for him, that bun would have cost you, not a halfpenny, but fourpence. Good day!' And I walked on. I suppose she thought she had been talking to a lunatic."

Then Lord Fisher spoke of the exertion needed in our dances on the stage. "Energy! Energy! That's what we want," he declared. "Why, I was fed by my mother until I was quite a big baby. I refused to be weaned—I was so determined even in those days! You must have good natural food when you are born. It means everything. It gives you stamina—it makes a man of you."

From that interview I brought away a signed portrait of the great seaman. "I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?" he reflected, sadly, as he handed it to me, "but I'm good." Candour would have compelled one to admit that he was anything but strikingly handsome, but in that small, intensely sallow face there was, after all, something that was extraordinarily kindly and strong. In that sense his face was the faithful mirror of his character.

"Jackie Fisher's" candour reminds me of a frank admission made to me by a statesman who still wields a leading influence in present-day politics. I think I had better not mention his name, although he is numbered amongst my friends, and he has often been exceedingly kind in his appreciation of my work on the stage. He told me he once met a lady whom he had not seen for several years, and having cordially greeted her, he said, "I'm so delighted to see you, Sybil." That he should have remembered her, and still more, that he should have remembered her first name, pleased the lady immensely. She said she was charmed that he had not forgotten her name. "Oh," responded the statesman, with the best of intentions, "I've a remarkable memory for trifles." The next moment he realised he had committed an awful faux pas. What was more, he saw that he, though a politician, could not explain it away.

Not many people remember now that Mr. George Edwardes, who created the vogue for musical comedies as we now know them, and who made a fortune out of his connection with the Gaiety and Daly's, was in his early days Mr. D'Oyly Carte's manager at the Savoy. When he became a producer his flair for stage effect amounted to genius. He could decide in a moment to make the most revolutionary changes in a production. For instance, I have heard him give orders that the first act should be made the second one and the second the first, because he saw that it would better work up the interest in the play. He would transpose a certain scene from here to there because he knew instinctively that there was its proper place. "I don't like that man singing that song," he said once, just before a new comedy was due to have its first performance, and when even the dress rehearsals were almost complete, "We'll give it to a lady." "But," it was objected, "it's a man's song—a military song." "Never mind," he answered in that familiar drawling voice of his, "we'll dress her in a red coat, and we'll bring the chorus on as soldiers too." And his judgment was absolutely right. That girl's soldier song was the great hit of the piece.

George Edwardes was a generous, kindly-natured man, accessible to everybody, and a splendid companion. Keenly interested as he was in his theatrical ventures, he never made these his sole and only pre-occupation. Upon the Turf, as every sportsman knows, he was a shining light, and many horses from his stables won the biggest prizes of their year. He often invited me to join him at the races, and never failed to tell me the winners—"well, hardly ever." One day he gave me three running. Just then I was arranging to play under his management for a term of three years, and he said those three winners proved that we could make money together both on and off the stage, and that we must sign up the contract, which we did the next day.

One of my closest friends was Francois Cellier, of whom it would be literally true to say that he devoted his life, his talents and all his enthusiasm to the operas at the Savoy. For thirty-five years he served them as conductor, to the exclusion of all the fame he might have won in a wider field, for he was a musician of surpassing accomplishments. He was the younger brother of Alfred Cellier, who was the composer, amongst other delightful comedies, of "Dorothy." Both men were Bohemians, and both of them might have been the architects of their own fortunes if they had put only their own goal in front of them, and pursued it steadily.

Francois Cellier—Honest Frank they called him, and the name suited him well—was a prince of good fellows and a most charming and helpful companion. I can never tell the debt I owe to him for all the advice he gave to me regarding our performances. He knew Gilbert's and Sullivan's ideas to the minutest detail, and, with all his love of the operas, he wanted those ideas carried through exactly on the stage. Even with the audiences he had a magnetic personality. Unlike most conductors, who feel they must allow just as many encores as the audience demands, he could indicate by some strange method to those behind him that an encore would be unreasonable or inconsiderate, and immediately the applause would subside and the play would proceed.