Part 17 (1/2)

DEAR MOTHER:

Today Barrie gave a copyright performance of ”The Little Minister”

which Maude Adale bill in front of the Hayuineas We took in fifteen guineas, the audience being Charley Froh and a man Cyril Maude played the hero and Brandon Thomas and Barrie the t comedy parts--two Scotchmen of Thru it an aged negro with songs, Barrie and Frohed and let reat Maude played his part in five different ways and dialects so as to see which he liked best, he said It was a bit confusing Then one of the actors went up in the gallery and pretended to be a journalist critic who had sneaked in, and he abused the play and the actors with the exception of the ht showed great promise Maude pretended not to knoho he was and it fooled everybody Mrs Barrie played the gipsy and danced most of the time, which she said was her conception of the part as it was in the book Her husband explained that this was a play, not a book, but she did not care and danced on and off She played reat scene in which I cursed her, which got rounds of applause Lady Lewis's daughters in beautiful Paquin dresses played Scotch lassies, and giggled in all the sad parts, and one actress who had abonds”to act At one ti Scotch dialect and i at the same tioes back on Saturday with Drew to play a French e of Convenience” She is announced to be engaged to Hope, I see by the papers They are not engaged, of course, but the papers love toeither on the 31st on the St Louis or a week later With lots and lots of love

dick

In the late summer Richard returned to Marion and from there went to New York However, at this ti with my brother, and early December found him back in London

LONDON, December 29th, 1897

DEAR MOTHER:--

I had aChristmas, most of which I spent in Whitechapel in the London Hospital I lunched with the Spenders and then went doith thees for distribution to the sick I expected to be terribly bored, but thought I would feel so virtuous that I would the better enjoy my dinner which I had promised to take with the McCarthys-- On the contrary, I had thetime and much more fun than I had later The patients see sick, and some of them were very humorous and others very pathetic and I played tin soldiers with soifts, other people had paid for, with a lavish hand I also sat on a little girl's cot and played dolls for an hour She had so with her spine and I wept most of the time, chiefly because she s on toCaowns buttoned up the back who had pillow fights in honor of the day and took turns in playing on a barrel organ, those that were strong and tall enough In the next ward another baby in white was dying-- Itshat and pluirls wear at Piccadilly Circus The baby was yellow like old ivory and its teeth and gu it Theinto it out of red swollen eyes, and twenty feet off one of the red nightgowned kids was playing ”Louisiana Lou” on the barrel organ The nurse put the baby's arms under the sheets and then pulled one up over its face and took the teacup away from the mother who didn't see what had happened and I cairl Most of the nurses were very beautiful, and I neglected my duties as Santa Claus to talk to theet down on their knees and dust up the floor, which was , you couldn't very well ask to be let to help There was one coster who had his broken leg in a cage whichno matter how much he tossed He was like thehow the world washours in wrapt adht now, co no how Yer can't do it, that's all-- Yer can twist, and kick, and toss, and it don't do no good Yer jest can't do it-- Now you take notice” Then he would kick violently and the cage would run around on trolleys and keep the broken liht ”See!” he would exclai, yer just can't do it 'ere I've been ten days a trying and it can't be done”

We had a very fine Christmas dinner just Ethel, the McCarthy's and I

fanny, tell Charles, brought in the plu, and after dinner I read them the Jackall-- About eleven I started to take Ethel to Miss Terry's, who livesI said that all sorts of things ought to happen in a fog but that no one ever did have adventures nowadays At that we rode straight into a bank of fog thatsunshi+ne You could not see the houses, nor the street, nor the horse, not even his tail All you could see were gas jets, but not the iron that supported them The cabman discovered the fact that he was lost and turned around in circles and the horse slipped on the asphalt which was thick with frost, and then we backed into laot so scared she bit her under lip until it bled You could not tell whether you were going into a house or over a precipice or into a sea The horse finally backed up a flight of steps, and rubbed the cabby against a front door, and jabbed the wheels into an area railing and fell down

That, I thought, was our cue to get out, so we slipped into a well of yellow mist and felt around for each 'other until a square block of light suddenly opened in mid air and four terrified woh which the cabed us to co Christ” I had put on all my decorations and the tin star and I also wore rand good thing it is, too-- I took this off because the roo about the decorations and remarked in the saet to Barkston Gardens, and that we ht At this Ethel answered calmly ”yes, Duke,” and I became conscious of the fact that the eyes of the four women were riveted on my fur coat and decorations At the word ”Duke”

delivered by a very pretty girl in an evening frock and with nothing on her hair the four woht back the children, the servants, and the men, ere so overcome with awe and exciteot down on their knees in a circle

So, we fled out into the night followed by minute directions as to where ”Your Grace” and ”Your Ladyshi+p” should turn For years, no doubt, on a Christmas Day the story will be told in that house, wherever it may be in the millions of other houses of London, how a beautiful Countess and a wicked Duke were pitched into their front door out of a hanso partaken of their Christ The only direction Ethel and I could reht e ca our way by the walls we finally reached a church we continued going on around it until we had encircled it five times or it had encircled us, ere not sure which After the fifth lap we gave up and sat down on the steps Ethel had on low slippers and was shi+vering and coughing but intensely amused and only scared for fear she would lose her voice for the first night of ”Peter”-- We could hear voices so in a dream, and so ”Perlice” in a discouraged way as if he didn't ularly like a fog siren-- I don't kno long we sat there or how long we ht have sat there had not a man with a bicycle lamp loomed up out of the mist and rescued us He had his reat pride that her boy could find his way anywhere So, we clung to her boy and followed A cab his horse with one of his lamps in his other hand and I turned for an instant to speak to hih the earth had opened So, I yelled after them, and Ethel said ”Here, I am,” atand disappearing until he made Alice dizzy We finally found a link-boy and he finally found the McCarthy's house, and I left the Ethel quinine and whiskey They wantedSo I felt ot lost twice The Arch on Constitution Hill gave ht it was the Marble Arch, and hence-- In Jer di my footsteps ”where a--”

I told him he was in Jermyn Street with his horse's head about twenty feet fro dramatic silence and then the voice said-- ”Well, I be blowed I thought I was in Pi letter that I shall have to skip any more I have NO sciatica chiefly because of the fur coat, I think, and I got two Christaret Fraser and one froaret to the matinee of the Pantomine and it lasted five hours, until six twenty, then I dressed and dined with the Hay's and ith theht and lasted until twelve It was a busy day

Lots of love

dick

LONDON, March 20, 1898

DEAR MOTHER:

The Nellie Farren benefit was the finest thing I have seen this year past It was an at twelve o'clock on Thursday, but at ten o'clock Wednesday night, the crowd began to gather around Drury Lane, and spent the night on the sidewalk playing cards and reading and sleeping Ten hours later they were adalleries would hold Arthur Collins, the anized the benefit, could not get a stall for his mother the day before the benefit They were then not to be had, the last having sold for twelve guineas I got TWO theof the benefit for three pounds each, and now people believe that I did get into the Coronation! The people who had stalls got there at ten o'clock, and the streets were blocked for ”blocks” up to Covent Garden with hansoes and holders of tickets at fifty dollars apiece It lasted six hours and brought in thirty thousand dollars Kate Vaughan cae of twelve years Irving recited The Drea Mrs Hawkins, Dan Leno gave Ha The Jewel of Asia and Hayden Coffin sang To in the chorus, and for an encore singing ”Oh, Nellie, Nellie Farren, may your love be ever faithful, may your pals be ever true, so God bless you Nellie Farren, here's the best of luck to you” In Trial by Jury, Gilbert played an associate judge; the barristers were all playwrights, the jury the principal coirls fro ladies like Miss Jeffries and Miss Hanbury, who could not keep in step But the best part of it was the pantomime Ellaline came up a trap with a diahts all over her, and said, ”I am the Fairy Queen,” and waved her wand, at which the ”First Boy” in the panto, now, do, we know your tricks, you're Ellaline Terriss”; and the clown said, ”You're wrong, she's not, she's Mrs

Seymour Hicks” Then Letty Lind came on as Columbine in black tulle, and Arthur Roberts as the policeman, and Eddy Payne as the clown and Storey as Pantaloon

The rest of it brought on everybody Sam Sothern played a ”swell” and stole a fish Louis Freear, a house men appeared as policeave the audience tinize him or her The composers and orchestra leaders caot half through the Washi+ngton Post before the policemen beat them off Then Marie Lloyd and all the Music Hall stars appeared as street girls and danced to the an Hayden Coffin, Plunkett Greene and Ben Davies sang as street musicians and the clown beat them with stuffed bricks After that there was a revue of all the burlesques and comic operas, then the curtain was raised froe, and Nellie Farren was discovered seated at a table on a high stage with all the ”legiti on benches around her

The set was a beautiful wood scene well lighted Wyndham stood on one side of her, and he said the yell that went up when the curtain rose orse than the rebel yell he had heard in battles In front of her, below the stage, were all the people who had taken part in the revue, forroup who had not been known for a year by posters or photographs: Letty Lind as the Geisha, Arthur Roberts as Dandy Dan The French Girl and all the officers froirls from the pantomime, the bareback-riders from The Circus Girl; the Empire costumes and the monks from La Poupee, and all the Chinese and japanese costue cried and all the old rounders in the boxes cried

It was really a wonderfully drairls weeping down their grease paint Nellie Farren's great song was one about a street Arab with the words: ”Letyou please to give--thank'ee, sir!” She used to close her hand, then open it and look at the palh when she said, ”Thank'ee, sir!” This song was reproduced for weeks before the benefit, and played all over London, and when the curtain rose on her, the orchestra struck into it and the people shouted as though it was the national antheood address and so did Terry, then Wyndhaet her to speak She has lost the use of her hands and legs and can only ith crutches, so he put his arm around her and her son lifted her fro like children You could hear the people sobbing, it was so still She said, ”Ladies and Gentle at the stalls and boxes, then she turned her head to the people on the stage below her and said, ”Brothers and Sisters,” then she stood looking for a long ti there twenty hours You could hear a long ”Ah” froallery when she looked up there, and then a ”hush”

from all over it and there was absolute silence Then she ser to her bonnet and said, ”Thank'ee, sir,” and sank back in her chair It was the e The orchestra struck up ”Auld Lang Syne” and they gave three cheers on the stage and in the house The papers got out special editions, and said it was the greatest theatrical event there had ever been in London

dick