The Savage Club of America—Thackeray and Lord Houghton—A Great Banquet—Mr. Whitelaw Reid on Irving and the Actor’s Calling—“Welcome to a Country where he may find not Unworthy Brethren”—An Answer to the Warnings of the English Traveller of Chapter I.—“Shakespeare’s Charles the First”—A Night of Wit and Humor—Chauncey M. Depew on Theatrical Evolution—The Knighting of Sullivan—The Delineator of Romance visiting the Home of America’s Creator of Romance—After-dinner Stories—Conspiring against the Peace of a Harmless Scotchman—A Pleasant Jest.

I.

The Lotos Club is the Savage of America, as the Century is its Garrick; each, however, with a difference. The Lotos admits to membership gentlemen who are not necessarily journalists, authors, actors, and painters, earning their subsistence out of the arts. They must be clubable and good fellows, in the estimation of the committee; and herein lies their best qualification. This combination of the arts proper with trade and finance has made the club a success in the broadest sense of the term. Their home is a palace compared with that of the Savage in London. The general atmosphere of the Century is more akin to that of the Garrick, and it is a far closer corporation than the Lotos. Mr. Thackeray spent a good deal of his time there when he was in New York; while Lord Houghton, it is said, preferred the more jovial fireside of the Lotos. In those days the younger club was in humbler, but not less comfortable, quarters than those it now occupies; while the Century, conservative and conscious of its more aristocratic record, is well content with the house which is associated with many years of pleasant memories.

The Lotos honored Irving with a banquet; the Century welcomed him at one of its famous monthly reunions. The Lotos dinner was the first public recognition, outside the press, of Irving in America. He had accepted its invitation before sailing for New York, and sat down with the Lotos-eaters on the Saturday (October 27) prior to his Monday night’s appearance at the Star Theatre. The club-rooms had never been so crowded as on this occasion. Dishes were laid for a hundred and forty members and guests in the dining-room and salon of the club, and fifty others consented to eat together in the restaurant and reading-room upstairs, and fifty or sixty others had to be content to come in after dinner. Mr. Irving sat on the right hand of the President of the club, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the “Tribune.” At the same table were Chauncey M. Depew, Dr. A. E. Macdonald, General Horace Porter, E. Randolph Robinson, Algernon S. Sullivan, R. B. Roosevelt, Thomas W. Knox, H. H. Gorringe, W. H. Smith, Rev. Robert Laird Collyer, and F. R. Lawrence. Among others present were Lawrence Barrett, Joseph Jefferson, William J. Florence, R. W. Gilder, Dr. Fordyce Barker, D. G. Croly, General Winslow, and A. Oakey Hall. In a window alcove behind the President’s chair stood an easel, holding a large portrait of Irving as Shylock.

Coffee being served, Mr. Irving was conducted upstairs to be introduced to the diners in his honor who were crowded out of the lower rooms. They received him with a loud cheer, and then accompanied him to join the other guests. The company broke up into groups, stood about the door-ways, and thronged around the President, who thereupon arose and addressed them as follows:—

“You must excuse the difficulty in procuring seats. You know the venerable story which Oscar Wilde appropriated about the sign over the piano in a far-western concert-hall: ‘Don’t shoot the performer; he’s doing the best he can.’ (Laughter.) The committee beg me to repeat in their behalf that touching old appeal. They’ve done the best they could. There are five hundred members of this club, and only one hundred and forty seats in this dining-room; they have done their utmost to put the five hundred men into the one hundred and forty seats. Don’t shoot! They’ll come down, apologize, retreat, resign,—do anything to please you. They’ve thoroughly tried this thing of putting two men in one seat and persuading the other three that standing room is just as good; and to-night, as the perspiration rolls from their troubled brows, their fervent hope and prayer is that the manager for your distinguished guest may be haunted by that self-same trouble all through his American tour! (Applause and laughter.)

“London appropriated our national anniversary, to do honor to its favorite actor as he was about to visit us. On that occasion, on the Fourth of July last, at a banquet without a parallel in the history of the British stage, and to which there are actually none to be compared, save the far less significant, but still famous, entertainments to Kean and Macready,—at that banquet your guest said: ‘This God-speed would alone insure me a hearty welcome in any land. But I am not going among strangers. I am going among friends.’ (Applause.)

“Let us take him at his word. Once we were apt to get our opinions from the other side. If that grows less and less a habit now, with the spread among us, since we attained our national majority, of a way of doing our own thinking, we are still all the more glad to welcome friendships from the other side.

“We know our friendly guest as the man whom a great, kindred nation has agreed to accept as its foremost living dramatic representative. We know that his success has tended to elevate and purify the stage, to dignify the actor’s calling, to widen and better its influence. We know the scholarship he has brought to the representation of the great dramatists, the minute and comprehensive attention he has given to every detail alike of his own acting and of the general management. His countrymen do not say that if he were not the foremost actor in England he would be the first manager;—they declare that he is already both. (Applause.)

“We bid him the heartiest of welcomes to a country where he may find not unworthy brethren. Our greeting indeed takes a tone of special cordiality not so much from what we know of his foreign repute, or from our remembering the great assemblage of representative countrymen gathered to give him their farewell and God-speed. It comes even more from our knowing him as the friend of Edwin Booth (Applause), and Joseph Jefferson (Applause), and Lawrence Barrett (Applause), and John McCullough (Applause), and William Florence (Applause). And if anything else were needed to make the grasp of every man’s hand in this club yet warmer, it is furnished when we remember that his conspicuous friend among English actors is our friend, John Toole. (Applause.)

“It would not be fair to our distinguished but unsuspicious guest, adventuring into these foreign parts, if, before sitting down, I did not warn him that all this, and much more which he is likely to hear, is said around the dinner-table. Let him not think that he wholly knows us, and is fairly naturalized, until he has read the papers the morning after his first performance. What they may contain no living man knoweth (Laughter); but others have sometimes groaned that we treat our guests with too much attention; that we accord them, in fact, the same distinguished honor we give our national bird,—the turkey,—which we first feed and afterwards carve up. (Great laughter.)

“But the prologue is an antiquated device, now pretty well banished from the stage, because it merely detains you from what you came to hear. I will detain you no longer. I give you, gentlemen, Our Guest,—

“O trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!”

“Health to Henry Irving, and a hearty welcome.” (Great applause.)

II.

The toast was drank with ringing cheers, and in its report of the reply the “Tribune” says: “Mr. Irving spoke in measured tones, and with a singularly clear and effective enunciation, his frequent ironical sallies being received with bursts of laughter and applause.” He said:—

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—It is not in my power to thank you, with eloquence, for the reception that you have given me to-night. In spite of the comforting words and suggestions of our friend, the chairman, that on Tuesday morning my feelings may undergo a change, I am quite determined that to-night and to-morrow night, if all be well, I shall have a good night’s rest. I do feel naturalized; and, whatever may be said to the contrary, I shall always bear away with me the impression that I am among my own flesh and blood. (Applause.) The simile of the turkey did not affect me very much; for if the ill-omened bird (I do not know whether he is as familiar in your country as he is in mine), the goose, is not served up I shall be very content. (Applause.)

“You have received me, not as a stranger, but as a welcome friend (Applause), and that welcome I appreciate with all my heart and soul. In coming here amongst you I really had—I may as well confess it—but one terror. The Atlantic I would brave; the wind and weather I would scorn; even sea-sickness I would enjoy; but there was one terror,—the interviewer. (Laughter.) But I am very glad to tell you that that is passed; and I have said so much to the interviewer that I have very little left to say to you. I must, however, also tell you that I find the interviewer a very much misrepresented person. He seemed to me to be a most courteous gentleman, who had but an amiable curiosity to know a little about myself that he did not know before; and I was very well satisfied to gratify him as much as I could. I was told that he would turn me inside out; that he would cross-examine me, and then appear against me the following morning. (Laughter.) But I found nothing of the sort; and if I had any complaint to make against him, the comments with which he tempered his suggestions were so flattering and so gratifying to myself that I forgave him the suggestions that he made. The only thing that I would quarrel with him for was for saying that I reminded him of Oscar Wilde. (Laughter.) Oscar Wilde is a very clever fellow, and I am not going to descant upon him. You know more about him than I do; and I hope that when Oscar Wilde reads what I have said—as I suppose he will—he will take no offence. I am extremely indebted to the interviewer, also, for telling me that I was classed with Edwin Booth. With that I have no fault to find.

“To the courtesy and kindness of American gentlemen I have long been accustomed; for if you have not in London, as you have in Paris, an American quarter, it is really because Americans are found everywhere in London; and I think that everywhere in London they are welcome. (Applause.) Our interests are mutual; and in our art we are getting day by day more closely allied. London is now talking with raptures of your Mary Anderson (Applause); of your great tragedian, Booth (Applause); of your great comedian, Jefferson (Applause)—I dislike the words ‘tragedian’ and ‘comedian’; actor is so much better, and it is a household word. McCullough and Clarke, and my friends Florence and Raymond, have had amongst us the heartiest of welcomes. And I am quite sure that your famous actress, Clara Morris, need only come amongst us—as my friend, Lawrence Barrett, is coming—to have another welcome.

“Mr. Whitelaw Reid has spoken of my work in my art in the kindest and most appreciative way. If I have done anything to gain that commendation, it is because I have striven to do my duty; and but for the appreciation of many of my countrymen, who have thought so, and but for the appreciation that I receive now at this table, I am quite sure that my work would have been in vain.

“I do not intend to bore you with any ideas of mine about my art, either histrionically or pictorially. My method, histrionically, is a very simple one. I merely endeavor to go to the fountain-head to get my inspiration; and by what my work is I know that you will judge it, and judge it fairly. I am quite sure of this: that no people will go to a theatre with a greater desire to do justice to an actor than you will go to the theatre to see me on Monday night. (Applause.) If you like me you will express it; and, if you do not like me, still you will treat me kindly.

“Our art is cosmopolitan. Every actor has his own methods, as every painter has his methods, and every writer has his style. The best actor amongst us has a great deal to learn. It is only at the end of his career that he finds how short is his life, and how long is his art. Concerning the mounting of plays, I give to a play of Shakespeare the same advantage that I would give to any modern author; and until a greater man than Shakespeare arrives, I think I shall continue to do so. (Applause.)

“In my own dear land I am glad to tell you that the love for Shakespearian drama is very greatly increasing. Shakespearian societies throughout our land have done much to encourage that. You know very well that there was a time when Shakespeare was said by a London manager to spell ‘bankruptcy,’ and Lord Byron ‘ruin.’ I remember that at one of the revivals of Shakespearian plays at the Lyceum, a gentleman leaving the theatre was heard to express the opinion that the play was not a bad one; that he thought it might have a tolerable run, but that it would be very much improved if it had not contained so many quotations. (Laughter.) The play was ‘Macbeth.’ (Laughter.) I have been told that that gentleman is sometimes to be found in the British Museum, in the old reading-room devoted to Shakespearian manuscripts, and that he is very frequently found turning them over; but with what success I do not know. I also remember that once, when a play was produced, a friend of mine asked me what the subject of it was. I said to him that the subject was Charles I.; at which he hemmed and hawed and said, ‘Very good; very good; oh, capital! Charles I. Yes, I should think that would do very well. Let me see. Charles I. Do you mean Shakespeare’s Charles I.?’ (Laughter.) However, these things are improving, and even the old play-goer,—I do not know whether such a character exists amongst you,—who is amongst us a very dreadful creature; even he is beginning to tolerate the student who goes to the book, instead of to traditional characters, for his inspiration.

“We are very hypocritical, however, some of us, in England. We go to the Crystal Palace to see the play of ‘Hamlet,’ and go to the Crystal Palace because it is not a theatre; and when we would not go to a theatre to see the play of ‘Hamlet,’ we will go to the Crystal Palace, or some other such place, to see the ‘Pink Dominoes.’ (Laughter.) We will crowd sometimes to the French theatre, without understanding the nationality, the gesture, of the actors, or a word of their language, when we will desert our own theatres where these pieces are being played. But fortunately no such difference as that can exist between us; and I cherish the hope that it will be my good fortune, and more especially the good fortune of my fellow-workers, and especially of my gifted companion and friend, Ellen Terry (Great applause),—I say that I cherish the hope that we shall be able to win your favor. (Applause.) I dare say that you will find many of us very strange and very odd, with peculiarities of speech, and with peculiarities of manner and of gesture; but it would, perhaps, not be so pleasurable if we were all just alike. (Laughter.) It is not our fault, you know, if we are Englishmen.

“Gentlemen, I thank you with all my heart for the greeting you have given me. I thank you for the brotherly hand that you have extended to me. And if anything could make one feel at home, and comfortable, and sure of having a real good time amongst you, it is the cordiality with which I have been received to-night. The very accents of your hearty greeting, and the very kindness of your genial faces, tell me that there are in your hearts good and kind overflowing wishes. Gentlemen, I thank you with all my heart; and I feel that there is a bond between us which dates before to-night.”

The speaker sat down amidst great applause. His manner and matter had evidently given great satisfaction. How he had been misrepresented as to his mannerisms is unconsciously admitted by the note of the “Tribune” reporter that he spoke clearly. He did, and in that quiet, self-possessed, conversational style which was remarked as so effective at the London banquet.

III.

As it was generally admitted that the speaking on this night had never been exceeded in wit and humor, and for its cordiality towards a famous Englishman, at any of the Lotos dinners, I make no apology for printing portions of the other addresses. Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, General Porter, and ex-Mayor Oakey Hall, have long since made distinct reputations for themselves as American orators. At an English dinner men speak to set toasts. In America they are called upon, frequently without warning, to speak to a sentiment, or “to say a few words.” It was in this fashion that the speakers at the Irving banquet were brought into the extemporized programme, and with the most agreeable results. Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, being asked by the chairman to speak, rose promptly, amidst the clouds of many Havanas, and said:—

“Mr. President,—The best criticism that was made upon the speech of our guest to-night was, ‘He talks like an American.’ I am sure that this memorable night will be recollected from the fact that, in the midst of the din of wars and contests and controversies about us, this is simply a peaceful tribute on behalf of this club to one of the chief and most devoted of the exponents of the drama. We have welcomed to this country recently many eminent Englishmen, and among them Lord Coleridge, whom we were glad to see and to honor, both for what he is and what he represents. We have received, at the same time with Mr. Irving, Matthew Arnold, and, while as a great thinker we give him welcome, we warn him that orthodoxy has for him its scalping-knife sharp, and that the theological hatchet is thirsting for his gore. (Laughter.)

“The whole town is in a din and furore with the operatic war, and tenors are peeping over high ‘C’s’ to get at each other, while sopranos are hauled before the courts. (Laughter.) Mapleson walks around with the chip on his shoulder, and Abbey calls upon the police to prevent him from hurting somebody. (Laughter.)

“But, while this controversy rages, we meet here to-night, with one voice and one accord, to welcome the most eminent dramatic scenic painter of this century and the most eminent English actor of this generation. (Applause.) We have welcomed to this board many men from beyond the seas, and while they have poured something into this vast reservoir of intellectual wealth, we have done more for them. Lord Houghton asserts that his health and longevity after his reception here were largely due to the fact that he learned at this place the way to longevity by a cheap and frugal meal. (Laughter.) From this board Sullivan arose to become a knight. (Laughter and applause.) We are all of us familiar with the oratory which usually characterizes an expression of the relations between the old country and the new. There is nothing better known in the whole range of eloquence than that which refers to the interdependent relations, in respect to literature and science and art, between America and England. While this chord is familiar there is one string which is not often touched, and that is the debt we owe to the English thinkers, Huxley, Tyndall, and Darwin, who have created the shibboleth, known in all the schools of America, that evolution is the great principle of modern science.

“While the most of us believe in evolution in theory, in practice we have seen it only upon the stage. The Englishman, from whom our Yankee inherits commercial instincts, saw our want and supplied it. First he sent to us Lydia Thompson and her troupe. (Laughter.) And then the shrewd Englishman sent us ‘Pinafore.’ We were at first fascinated, then charmed, and then annihilated. We could stand ‘Pinafore’ for six hundred consecutive nights in all the theatres, to the exclusion of everything else; in the parlor, upon the piano, in the school-room, on the hurdy-gurdy and on the hand-organ; but when the church choir could do nothing else, then there rose a cry for relief from one end of this country to the other. (Great laughter.) The like of that cry has never been heard since the children of Israel sought to escape from Egypt. (Renewed laughter.) Then, in recognition of his great service, Queen Victoria summoned the author to her presence, and said to him: ‘For one hundred years I have sought to subdue those children of ours beyond the seas, but without avail; but for your grand success arise and take your place with the knights of armor.’ (Great laughter.)

“There is nothing which more clearly indicates the development of this American people from provincialism and its bigotry than the welcome given to Macready, and that which we accord to Irving. To secure a hearing for Macready required that the soldiery should march with fixed bayonets and shotted guns, while the blood of the mob poured through the gutter. But now the American people have developed into a recognition of the fact that to be a great people they must adopt that catholicity that embraces men all over the world; that, while they may believe in Protection for textile fabrics and manufactures, there must be Free Trade in genius. (Applause.)

“We hail, with the gladdest acclaim and heartiest welcome, the German Barnay, the Italian Salvini, and the English Irving, because we wish to have the best the world has of art in any of its departments, and because we want to show them that their success is incomplete until they have passed the ordeal of American criticism. (Applause.) The very best tribute of recent times to the sentiment of right-minded men of culture and intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, notwithstanding what demagogues may say, is that a London audience crowded the house and rose to the highest enthusiasm to greet the appearance, and applaud the acting, of the American, Edwin Booth (Applause); and its counterpart will be the reciprocity manifested by the American people in crowding the house and applauding the acting of Henry Irving. (Applause.) Still, in illustration of the same idea, while London renders her most generous tribute to the beauty and genius of Mary Anderson, we here, with an equal chivalry, will receive with our best loyalty that beautiful, charming, and genial woman, that brilliant actress, that great genius, Ellen Terry.” (Great applause.)

General Horace Porter, being called up by the President, assured the company that he was really not prepared to speak. He said he felt considerably embarrassed. His audience evidently did not believe him, and he amply justified their scepticism. In an easy, conversational manner he said:—

“I do not even feel that security which was enjoyed by Daniel in the lions’ den, for he had the comfortable assurance that as these animals had their original programme, although he might be eaten, it was not likely that he would be called upon for an after-dinner speech. (Laughter.) But if there is any stimulus which can arouse the most sluggish mind it has been abundantly furnished to-night by the finished and chaste address which has fallen from the lips of our distinguished guest. He has shown us to-night how well qualified he is to furnish us with that dish which I know is so much relished in his own country,—after-dinner tongue garnished with brains. Standing, as we do, in the presence of so distinguished a representative of that profession which is accustomed to speak the carefully prepared words of the dramatists, I would not be surprised to hear our guest say, in the language of Romeo to Juliet in the balcony scene, as he listens to my ill-considered words, ‘He speaks, yet he says nothing.’ (Laughter.) I hope Mr. Irving is beginning to understand that speech is the peculiar form of insanity that comes upon the American mind after dinner, and that here men keep silent only when they are salivated. (Laughter.) Our guest, no doubt, begins to realize what this martyrdom is. By the time he is ready to depart from us he will, no doubt, have greater respect than ever before for the beneficence of that Providence which has endowed us with two ears and only one mouth, (Laughter.) But this martyrdom to-night does not seem to be of the nature of the martyrdom of Charles I., for throughout it all he has not lost his head. It seems to be rather that martyrdom of Cranmer,—he has been so thoroughly toasted on every side. (Laughter.) But there is one privilege that Mr. Irving must not expect to enjoy. When German and French artists came here they enjoyed a special and peculiar privilege; they were not able to understand a word that was said by the speakers. (Laughter.)

“But I cannot sit down without saying a few words in all seriousness. It is that this club considers that it enjoys a peculiar privilege in having the distinguished guest of the night partaking of his first family meal within our land in these walls. (Applause.) It has been a cherished desire on the part of this club to press the cup of greeting to his lips. We recognize in him the masterly interpreter of the sublime works of that prince of dramatists whom both countries claim as their own. He comes amongst us with a name that is no stranger to our hearts. In his coming here I see the great delineator of romance visiting the land of our most charming creator of romance,—Henry Irving visiting the home of Washington Irving. The American people feel under a deep sense of obligation to our guest, because when that great representative of the American drama set foot upon foreign shores the lips that gave him the warmest greeting, the hands that led him to the boards of London’s most distinguished temple of the drama, were those of Henry Irving. He shared equally with Booth the honors of his own stage; and laid down the principle that has become a law, which declares the path of ambition is never so narrow that two cannot walk abreast upon it.

“It was my privilege a year ago to hear Mr. Irving in his own home. It was my privilege to feast my vision upon the masterly creations of the stage of the Lyceum. There one saw at once the reality of painting. There the curtain rises upon absolute perfection. If I were asked the secret of his success I should say it is owing to his constant aspirations after the highest realms of dramatic art. I would that words or deeds of mine could add to the warmth of the welcome he has received.” (Loud applause.)

Dr. A. E. Macdonald, ex-Mayor A. Oakey Hall, Dr. Robert Laird Collier, Mr. Joseph Jefferson, and other gentlemen, also responded to the chairman’s call. Dr. Macdonald indulged in some good-humored sallies at the expense of Mr. Depew. He also spoke of the New York press having “only just arrived at a proper estimate of its true value,—the result being a general reduction in price to two cents.” Mr. Oakey Hall, referring to the many streets and buildings he had been officially called upon to name, said, “I now, in memory of this night, declare that the window recess in which our illustrious guest is sitting shall, from henceforth, be known as ‘The Henry Irving!’” Mr. Jefferson said, “Gentlemen, Charles Lamb is reported to have declared that there are only two classes in the world,—one born to borrow, and the other to lend. So do I think there are two classes of speech-makers,—one born to get into it, the other to get out of it. I belong to the latter crowd. Nevertheless on this occasion I rise cheerfully to do my best among the born talkers. Mr. Irving must be getting tired of hearing his name mentioned so often with words of welcome and admiration, and I will only say that I join heartily in all the kind and worthy things that have been said of him.”

IV.

It was late before the Lotos-eaters parted, although London clubmen take more out of the night than is the habit with New-Yorkers. The raciness of the evening’s speeches was repeated in the stories that were told by the genial few, who sat and talked and smoked with their guest until Fifth avenue was as quiet and deserted as it was when a crowd of admiring friends went out to meet the “Britannic” a week previously. Apropos of an amusing anecdote, with a practical joke in it, which was related, I think, by Colonel Knox, the courteous honorary secretary of the club, Irving said, “I am not much of a hand at that kind of fun, but I remember an incident in which my old friend Toole, a Glasgow doctor, and myself were engaged that may amuse you. Some years ago we found ourselves with a holiday forced upon us by the church of Scotland. We utilized it by going out a short distance into the country and dining together at a famous roadside inn. The house was quite empty of guests, and we claimed the privilege of travellers, on our way to the next town, to sit over our dinner a trifle later than it was the custom to keep the bar open. The landlord was very civil, and we had an excellent dinner. The waiter who attended to our wants was a quaint old fellow,—one of those rugged sort of serving-men with whom Sir Walter Scott has made us all so well acquainted. While he was respectful, he was, nevertheless, very talkative. He told us there had been of late many robberies in the neighborhood. The constabulary, he said, were quite out of their reckoning in regard to tracing the thieves. He wondered if the country was going back again to the coaching days when cracksmen and highwaymen had it all their own way in those parts. The old fellow was a little superstitious too, and a lover of the marvellous, as many of the country people who live outside great cities are apt to be.

“‘You seem a trifle hipped,’ I said; ‘take a glass of wine.’

“‘I am just a wee bit low,’ he said; ‘what wi’ the bad weather, the dull times’—

“‘And the robberies you’ve lately had about here,’ I suggested.

“‘Ah, weel, they’re nae calculated to raise one’s sperits. Good health to you, gentlemen!’

“We thanked him and I filled his glass again.

“‘This house,’ said Toole, ‘is rather a lonely place; you don’t have many guests staying here?’

“‘Not at this time o’ the year,’ he replied; ‘only just chance customers.’

“I filled his glass again before he went for the cheese. When he came back I took up a fork, and expressed some surprise that his master should, in these thieving days, entrust his guests with real silver plate.

“‘I dinna bring it oot for everybody,’ he replied; ‘but for a pairty o’ gentlemen like yoursels, it’s a defferent thing.’

“‘Is the salver there,’ asked Toole, taking up the running and pointing to the sideboard, ‘real silver?’

“‘Indeed it is, and all the plate aboot is silver, and I ken they dinna mak’ sich silver nowadays.’

“‘Bring us a little whiskey!—a pint in a decanter; a drop of the best,’ I said.

“Having planted the right kind of seed in his mind for the working of a little jest I had in my own, my companions and myself entered into a conspiracy against the peace of this harmless Scotchman. Invited to take a nip of whiskey, he readily complied, and just as readily took a seat. We drew him out about all the robberies and murders he could remember, and then deftly got from him the statement that his master had gone to bed, leaving up only himself, the bar-maid, and his wife. Presently the doctor looked at his watch, and said it would soon be time for us to go. ‘I think you had better get our bill, Sandy,’ I said, for by this time I was quite on familiar terms with him, and he with me. ‘You need not be in a hurry; let us have it in about a quarter of an hour,’ added Toole, somewhat mysteriously. ‘We are not quite ready to go yet.’

“‘Vary weel, and thank ye,’ he said, at the same time making us a bow which was quite a study of manner, combining independence and servility. He was a fine old fellow, straight as a poplar, but with a face full of wrinkles, and a characteristic gait that some people would call a mannerism.

“The moment he left the room each of us seized a piece of plate until we had cleared up every bit of silver in the room. We noted the exact places from which we took every piece; then we opened the window. It was a very dark night, but we had noticed that close by the window there were some thick shrubs. We put out the gas, but left alight two candles on the table, so that we could see from our hiding-place what Sandy’s face would look like when it should dawn upon him that we were a pack of thieves—perhaps part of the gang of swell mobsmen who had become the terror of the district.

“I shall never forget the bewildered expression of the poor fellow’s face as he stared at the empty room. Amazement gave place to fear, and fear to indignation, when he discovered that the silver had been carried off.

“‘Great heevens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thieves! berglers! robbers! An’ if the rogues hae nae carried off the plate and gan awa’ wi’out payin’ their score into the bargain, my name is nae Sandy Blake!”

“He rushed to the open window and peered wildly out into the darkness.

“‘The scoundrels were just fooling me, like any softy.’

“Then he began to shout ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ and ran off, as we hoped and expected he would, to alarm the house. We all crept back to the room, closed the window, drew down the blind, relighted the gas and our cigars, put each piece of silver back into its proper place, and sat down to wait for our bill. We could hear Sandy, at the top of his voice, telling the story of the robbery; and in a few minutes we heard, evidently the entire household, coming pell-mell to the dining-room. Then our door was flung open; but the crowd, instead of rushing in upon us, suddenly paused en masse, and Sandy exclaimed, ‘Great God! Weel, weel! Hae I just gane clean daft?’

“‘Come awa’, drunken foo’, come awa’!’ exclaimed the landlord, pulling Sandy and the rest back into the passage and shutting the door; but we could hear how both master and wife abused poor Sandy, who did nothing but call upon his Maker and declare, if he had to die that minute, when he went into the room it was empty of both guests and silver. He was told to go to bed and sleep off his drunk, and thank his stars that his long service saved him from instant dismissal.

“We rang the bell. The landlord himself answered it. We asked for an explanation of the hubbub. It was nothing, he said, only that his man had got drunk and made a fool of himself. Was that all, we asked. Well, yes, except that he was very sorry to have so disturbed us. To have all the house burst in upon us, we said, was such a strange proceeding, that we begged he would explain it. He said he did not like to do so. It was the first time Sandy had ever been known to get so drunk as to lose his senses, and all he could do was to express his regret that his servant had made a fool of himself; but he would not insult his guests by telling them how great an ass the fellow was. We coaxed him, however, to explain the entire business; and at last, with many apologies, he told us how the drunken fool had mistaken us for a pack of thieves, and swore we had run off without paying our bill and taken the plate with us. We humored the landlord for a time, and when he was at last in a genial temper we told him the true story, and he enjoyed the joke as well as any of us. Then we had him send for Sandy, who was so glad to discover that he had not lost his wits that a couple of sovereigns left him, at our departure, just as happy and contented a man as he was before making the acquaintance of ‘a parcel of actors,’ who are still regarded in some remote corners of Great Britain as the ‘rogues and vagabonds’ they are proclaimed in our ancient statute-books.”