Interviewing in England and America—Rehearsing Richard and Lady Ann—Reminiscences of a Christmas Dinner—A Homely Feast—Joe Robins and Guy Fawkes—He would be an Actor—The Luxury of Warmth—“One Touch of Nature.”

I.

There is interviewing and interviewing. How it comes out depends upon the interviewer and the interviewed. Every phase of the difficult art is shown in American journalism. Mr. Yates, in the “World,” has given us the best modern form of interviewing in “Celebrities at Home.” Mr. Blowitz, of the “Times,” and other foreign correspondents, have frequently shown England how admirably the American system fits a certain class of news. “The Pall Mall Gazette” has lately adopted the method of our cousins more in detail than has been hitherto popular with the London press. I have always held that interviewing, conducted with discretion and a sense of journalistic responsibility, would be a valuable and entertaining feature of English newspaper work.

I am prompted to these remarks by the contents of this chapter. Said Mr. Stephen Fiske, the dramatic editor of “The Spirit of the Times,” and the author of a clever book on England, “I am anxious to have Mr. Irving write a short story for our Christmas number. Wilkie Collins, as you know, is a constant contributor, and we have the assistance of some of the best pens, English and American. Irving has written for several English publications.”

“He has a wonderful amount of energy, and can do more mental work in a given time than any man I know; but when he is going to get an opportunity to sit down and write a Christmas story is more than I can tell.”

“I only want a personal reminiscence, an anecdote or two,” said Fiske; “but I must have him in the Christmas number.”

“Why don’t you interview him, with Christmas as the pivot of your interrogations?” I asked.

“He has been interviewed almost to death, I should think.”[32]

“Oh, no; I believe he likes it! I am sure he does when a really bright, clever fellow comes along and engages his attention. Though he does not say so, and, perhaps, has not thought about it, he is doing good every time he has a real earnest talk to a reporter about the stage and its mission. No actor ever set people thinking so much in England, and he is proving himself quite an art missionary on this side of the Atlantic.”

“That’s true,” said the dramatic editor; “but for my purpose I only want him to be simply entertaining,—a bit of personal history, apropos of Christmas.”

“Play the rÔle of an interviewer, and write the stories yourself,” I suggested.

“I will,” said Fiske. “Your plan has this advantage,—I shall get the copy in proper time for the printer.”

II.

And this Christmas chat is the result of the dramatic editor’s decision.

“It was a gloomy, rainy, miserable day. The theatre, always a dreary place in the morning, seemed even more depressing than usual. Mr. Irving was rehearsing the first act of ‘Richard III.,’ possibly with a view to Baltimore or Chicago.

“With that infinite patience which some philosophers define as genius, Mr. Irving went over and over the lines of Richard and Lady Ann, and acted all the business of the scene. His street costume and tall silk hat appeared ridiculously incongruous with his sword and his words. He knelt upon the stage and showed Lady Ann how to take hold of the weapon and threaten to kill him. He rose and repeated her speeches with appropriate gestures. He knelt again, gave her the cues, and watched her from under his heavy eyebrows, while she again rehearsed the scene.

“Repeated a dozen times, this performance became as monotonous as the dripping of the rain without, or the slow motions of the cleaners in the front of the theatre. At last, with a few final kindly words, the Lady Ann was dismissed, and Mr. Irving sat down wearily at the prompter’s table.

“‘Where shall you eat your Christmas dinner?’ I inquired.

“‘At Baltimore,’ replied Mr. Irving. ‘Several of my company have brought their home-made Christmas puddings over with them, and are to carry them about, with the rest of the luggage, until the day arrives. I have determined to try the American Christmas puddings, which, I am told, are very good indeed,—like most things American.’

“‘Oh, our people manufacture them by thousands! After all, a Christmas pudding is only a mince-pie boiled.’

“Just so,’ said Mr. Irving, laughing in his silent, interior, Leatherstocking manner. ‘I am thinking,’ he exclaimed, ‘of the Christmas dinner I gave last year, in the room of the old Beefsteak Club, which, you know, is now part of the Lyceum Theatre. We had talked the matter over,—a few friends and myself,—and decided that we were tired of professional cooks and conventional bills of fare, and that the best stimulus for our jaded palates was a return to plain, homely dishes.

“‘You can fancy Stoker saying that. He said it over and over for at least a month, and kept humming, “There’s no place—or no dinner—like home,” in the most disquieting way, whenever the matter was mentioned. He also undertook to arrange the whole affair.

“‘Well, it was arranged. There were to be no professional caterers, no professional waiters, no luxuries of any kind,—except the wines, which I took under my own care, being cast for the part of the butler. Stoker was to buy the material. The property-man’s wife was to roast the beef and the turkey. The mistress of the wardrobe undertook to boil the pudding. An usher, born with a genius for cookery, who was discovered by Stoker, had charge of the soup, fish, and vegetables. We were to wait upon ourselves,—a genuine family party. A suggestion to order ices from Gunter’s, in case the pudding was a failure, was voted down indignantly.

“‘As Christmas approached I became quite interested in this home dinner,—hungry for it days in advance, as one may say. I began by inviting one friend who had a reputation as an epicure; then another asked to be allowed to share our homely feast. Presently our family party grew to thirty. I began to have forebodings. You see, a small family can wait upon themselves, but not a family of thirty.

“‘However, Stoker appeared cheerily satisfied and mysteriously complacent, and seemed to think that our motto should be “The more the merrier!” I imagined that he had secretly tested some of the home cooking beforehand, and rather envied him his position as taster.

“‘The guests were met; the table set. I had made sure that the wines were all right. As I looked along at the happy, friendly faces I felt that a home dinner was the most pleasant, after all. The soup tureen was before me, and I lifted the cover with the anxious pride of a Wellington firing the first gun at Waterloo.

“‘The chance simile of a battle holds good; for the soup was awfully smoky. Somebody said that it tasted like a chimney on fire. The fish was worse. The roast beef was uneatable. Persistent as I naturally am, I gave up the attempt to carve the turkey. The pudding was as hard as a stone. What little appetite remained to us was lost while carving the meats and passing the plates around. I had felt like Wellington before Waterloo; but, when the dinner was over, I could appreciate the despair of the defeated Napoleon.

“‘Had we been only a family party the fiasco would not have been so fatal; but, as I told you, I had invited epicures; I had dragged my friends from their comfortable homes on Christmas Day to partake of this terrible repast. Some of them have never quite forgiven me. Some have forgiven me, because I had a chance to take them aside and put all the blame upon Stoker. But nobody who was present can ever have forgotten it.

“‘Like Napoleon, I retreated to Fontainebleau,—I fell back upon the wines. One of the guests won my heart by loudly eulogizing the cheese and the crackers. They were not home-made. They had not been cooked in the theatre!

“‘Here comes Stoker,’ continued Mr. Irving, relapsing into his curious solemnity of manner; ‘let us ask him about it.

“‘I say, Stoker, do you remember the home dinner you gave us at the Lyceum last Christmas?’

“Mr. Stoker stopped on his way across the stage, and stood like a statue of amazement, of indignation, of outraged virtue. ‘The dinner I gave you?’ he at last exclaimed. Then his loyalty to his chief triumphed, and he added, ‘Well, you may call it my dinner, if you like; but I have the original copy of the bill of fare in your own handwriting.’

“‘Ah!’ resumed Mr. Irving, quite placidly, as his acting manager dashed away, ‘I thought Stoker would remember that dinner!’

“‘This Christmas you will dine upon roast canvas-backs, instead of roast beef, and stewed terrapin, instead of smoked soup,’ I observed.

“‘Yes,’ replied the English actor; ‘I am told that Baltimore is the best place for those delicacies. But they will not seem strange to me; I have eaten canvas-backs at Christmas before.’

“‘In England?’

“‘Certainly. My first American manager—Papa Bateman you used to call him—had many good friends in this country, who kept him liberally supplied with almost all your American luxuries. Under his tuition I learned to like the oysters, the terrapin, and canvas-backs, upon which my generous hosts are feasting me now, long before I ever thought of coming to America.

“‘But perhaps the most remarkable Christmas dinner at which I have ever been present,’ continued Mr. Irving, after reflecting for a few moments, ‘was the one at which we dined upon under-clothing.’

“‘Do you mean upon your under-clothing or in your under-clothing?’ queried the astonished ‘Spirit,’ conjuring up visions of Christmas dinners on uninhabited islands, at which shipwrecked mariners had been known to devour their apparel, and of the tropical Christmas dinners in India and Australia, at which scanty costumes are appropriate to the climate.

“‘Both!’ replied Mr. Irving. ‘It is not a story of wonderful adventure; but I’ll tell it to you, if you have five minutes more to spare. Do you remember Joe Robins,—a nice, genial fellow who played small parts in provinces? Ah, no; that was before your time.

“‘Joe Robins was once in the gentleman’s furnishing business in London city. I think that he had a wholesale trade, and was doing well. However, he belonged to one of the semi-Bohemian clubs; associated a great deal with actors and journalists, and, when an amateur performance was organized for some charitable object, Joe was cast for the clown in a burlesque called “Guy Fawkes.”

“‘Perhaps he played the part capitally; perhaps his friends were making game of him when they loaded him with praises; perhaps the papers for which his Bohemian associates wrote went rather too far when they asserted that he was the artistic descendant and successor of Grimaldi. At any rate, Joe believed all that was said to him and written about him, and when some wit discovered that Grimaldi’s name was also Joe, the fate of Joe Robins was sealed. He determined to go upon the stage professionally and become a great actor.

“‘Fortunately Joe was able to dispose of his stock and good-will for a few hundred pounds, which he invested so as to give him an income sufficient to prevent the wolf from getting inside his door, in case he did not eclipse Garrick, Kean, and Kemble. He also packed up for himself a liberal supply of his wares, and started in the profession with enough shirts, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings, and under-clothing to equip him for several years.

“‘The amateur success of poor Joe was never repeated on the regular stage. He did not make an absolute failure; no manager would entrust him with parts big enough for him to fail in. But he drifted down to general utility, and then out of London, and when I met him he was engaged in a very small way, on a very small salary, at a Manchester theatre.

“‘His income eked out his salary; but Joe was a generous, great-hearted fellow, who liked everybody, and whom everybody liked, and when he had money he was always glad to spend it upon a friend or give it away to somebody more needy. So, piece by piece, as necessity demanded, his princely supply of haberdashery had diminished, and now only a few shirts and under-clothes remained to him.

“‘Christmas came in very bitter weather. Joe had a part in the Christmas pantomime. He dressed with other poor actors, and he saw how thinly some of them were clad when they stripped before him to put on their stage costumes. For one poor fellow in especial his heart ached. In the depth of a very cold winter he was shivering in a suit of very light summer under-clothing, and whenever Joe looked at him the warm flannel under-garments snugly packed away in an extra trunk weighed heavily upon his mind.

“‘Joe thought the matter over, and determined to give the actors who dressed with him a Christmas dinner. It was literally a dinner upon under-clothing; for the most of the shirts and drawers which Joe had cherished so long went to the pawnbroker’s, or the slop-shop, to provide the money for the meal.

“‘The guests assembled promptly, for nobody else is ever so hungry as a hungry actor. The dinner was to be served at Joe’s lodgings, and, before it was placed on the table, Joe beckoned his friend with the gauze under-clothes into a bedroom, and, pointing to a chair, silently withdrew.

“‘On that chair hung a suit of under-wear which had been Joe’s pride. It was of a comfortable scarlet color; it was thick, warm, and heavy; it fitted the poor actor as if it had been manufactured especially to his measure. He put it on, and, as the flaming flannels encased his limbs, he felt his heart glowing within him with gratitude to dear Joe Robins.

“‘That actor never knew—or, if he knew, he never could remember—what he had for dinner on that Christmas afternoon. He revelled in the luxury of warm garments. The roast beef was nothing to him in comparison with the comfort of his undervest; he appreciated the drawers more than the plum-pudding. Proud, happy, warm, and comfortable, he felt little inclination to eat, but sat quietly, and thanked Providence and Joe Robins with all his heart.’

“‘You seem to enter into that poor actor’s feelings very sympathetically,’ I observed, as Mr. Irving paused.

“‘I have good reason to do so,’ replied Mr. Irving, with his gentle, sunshiny smile; ‘for I was that poor actor!’”