ROBERT 
 M ANT ELL'S 
 ROMANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 BULLIET
 
 HOLLYWOOD 
 DENNY 
 
 T: 
 ' 
 
 ) 4099 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Walter 0. Schneider 

 
 PROPERTT 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED f . DFNNJEY 
 
 AIVD 
 
 LEOWGRA 6BAC DENNEY
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFFFD f . DRNNEY 
 LEONORA GR/.CE Df NNEV
 
 Robert Mantell's Romance 
 
 BT C. J. BULLIET 
 
 PROPERTT 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED F. DENNEY 
 
 ANC 
 
 LEONORA GRACE DENNflf
 
 Autographed Copies of the First Edition of 
 
 ROBERT MANTELVS ROMANCE 
 
 Limited to Two Hundred and Fifty 
 
 of Which This is 
 
 Number . 
 Signed: 
 
 Published March 1918
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S 
 ROMANCE 
 
 By C. J. BULLIET 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED F. DENNEY 
 
 . 
 
 LEONORA GRACE DENNEY 
 
 BOSTON 
 JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
 
 Copyrighted, 1918 
 by C. J. Bulliet
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 7M 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 MISS GENEVIEVE HAMPER 
 
 Whose Sunny Disposition Radiated at a Critical 
 Moment Saved from Gloom and Despair 
 
 A GREAT ACTOR 
 
 And Whose Constant Encouragement 
 
 and Inspiration Have Been 
 
 of Invaluable Aid to 
 
 THE WRITER 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED F. DFNNEY 
 
 AND 
 
 LEONORA GRACE DENNEY 
 
 mC<rj>~O 
 by/8
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue . . . . . v 
 Chapter 
 
 I. Introducing the Hero ... 1 
 
 II. An Interruption .... 8 
 
 III. The Ancestral Tree ... 12 
 
 IV. Wheatsheaf Inn .... 20 
 V. Early Education .... 27 
 
 VI. Red Rodger 36 
 
 VII. A Stage Career Begins to Forecast 
 
 Itself 45 
 
 VIII. Pausing on the Brink of Vagabondage 52 
 
 IX. On the Professional Stage at Last . 59 
 X. Four Young Noblemen at Fifteen 
 
 Shillings a Week ... 67 
 
 XI. First Impressions of America . . 75 
 
 XII. Last Days in the Old World . . 84 
 
 XIII. Leaping into a Blaze of Glory . 98 
 
 XIV. A New Star 107 
 
 XV. The Phantom of Shakespeare . .118 
 
 XVI. Exile 140 
 
 XVII. The Lowest Ebb . . . .149 
 XVIII. A Romantic Star Transformed into a 
 
 Classicist . . . . .163 
 
 XIX. Re-entry into the Limelight . . 178 
 
 XX. King Lear ..... 188 
 
 XXI. An Interlude of Anecdote . . 200 
 
 XXII. The Belated Shower of Gold begins 
 
 to Trickle 213 
 
 XXIII. The Postcriptum . . . .232 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 ALFRED], D^NNEY 
 
 LEONORA GR/,C D6NNY
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " Robert Mantell's Romance " . . Frontispiece 
 
 Facing Pag* 
 
 Early Recollections 22 
 
 Roles In which Mantell Startled New York . 100 
 
 Miss Ethel Mantell 142 
 
 Mantell and His Famous Dog " Rubber " . 158 
 
 Robert Bruce Mantell 164 
 
 Lear and the Dead Cordelia . . . 194 
 
 " Brucewood," the Mantell Estate . . 214 
 
 A Master of Make-up 218 
 
 Two Sharply Contrasted French Studies . 226 
 
 Miss Genevieve Hamper .... 238 
 
 The Two Robert Bruce Mantells 254
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Taking the Place of a Preface, which, how- 
 ever, you are not to Escape, but which 
 will Bob up Cunningly during the Course 
 of the Main Narrative. 
 
 NOTHING is more interesting to 
 mortals than gossip about their 
 fellow mortals. Some philosopher 
 may read these words of wisdom 
 who finds his own chief delight in the pur- 
 suit of an abstract hobby unconnected with 
 the daily toils and delights of humankind. 
 If such should desire to take up the cudgel, 
 an uncompromising peace-lover like myself 
 can only apologize, and excuse him from 
 my sweeping assertion. I am dealing with 
 normal humanity, not with ever-to-be- 
 pitied freaks. 
 
 I am content that the two charming 
 women who discuss their neighbors' private 
 affairs over the backyard fence know in- 
 stinctively and enthusiastically I am right. 
 James Boswell knew it, too, and his biog- 
 raphy of pompous old Dr. Johnson will 
 endure as long as there is a language into 
 which to translate it. Plutarch knew it 
 when he set down his lives of the great
 
 vi PROLOGUE 
 
 Greeks and Romans; and so did Suetonious 
 when he wrote his still more fascinating 
 lives of the Caesars, so full of intimate 
 episodes. 
 
 (Parenthetically, I am delighted that the 
 postal authorities have not discovered Sue- 
 tonious, just as they have not yet found out 
 those other entertaining gossips, Moses, 
 Samuel, King Solomon and St. Paul. What 
 a shame it would be, if all those rare old 
 chatterboxes were denied the use of the 
 mails !) 
 
 Herodotus knew I am right when he 
 stenciled on parchment the scandalous 
 doings of the ancient world, telling, for 
 instance, how a daughter of the Pharaohs 
 extracted from her lovers the price of a 
 pyramid. Michelet knew it when he hark- 
 ened to the mystic murmurings from the 
 age-stained manuscripts in the archives of 
 Paris. Tacitus knew it when he traced in 
 vitriol the most savagely awful indictment 
 of royal humanity ever penned. 
 
 I am pained that Voltaire, the most 
 scintillating intellect of modern times, for- 
 got it when he was working out his dull 
 biography of Charles XII of Sweden, a 
 general as able and perhaps as interesting 
 as Csesar or Alexander. Charles, alas, must 
 lie in a penumbral oblivion for want of a 
 Plutarch!
 
 PROLOGUE vii 
 
 Max Nordau, a new philosopher of his- 
 tory, deserves a new Dante to create for 
 him a new limbo of utter dullness. For 
 Nordau would reduce the human record to 
 the record of an impersonal species like the 
 ant or the bumble bee. He would eliminate 
 entirely the element of gossip. What, think 
 you, would history be without the "Et tu, 
 Brute?' 9 of Caesar, the little vanities and 
 weaknesses for femininity of the mighty 
 Napoleon, and the homely yarns of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln? Would the record that a 
 swarm of human ants flourished, built a 
 city and died take their place in human 
 interest? 
 
 So, therefore, go ahead with your gossip- 
 ping, good friends, with a conscience as clear 
 as a wedding bell. And if, in the midst of 
 your chattering, you can find time for a 
 few gossiping words from a good-natured 
 stranger, I should appreciate your giving 
 ear to the ensuing romance of Robert 
 Mantell, and I can assure you, on my 
 honor, that my hero, whom you have seen 
 oftenest on the stage in stern, tragic mood, 
 is as merry a gossip as any of us.
 
 Robert Mantell's Romance 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introducing the Hero of these Memoirs in the 
 Midst of Action, without so much as 
 Hinting at the Time and Place of his 
 Birthy thereby Establishing a Precedent 
 in Modern Biography. 
 
 WHEN the producer of drama sets 
 the stage for a tragedy, he sees 
 to it that externals conform. 
 Night moaning winds light- 
 ning flashes the roar of the hurricane. 
 
 Nature is not so melodramatic. If the 
 elements are in a turmoil when the moment 
 comes for her deed of destruction, she ap- 
 propriates the seething background. If not, 
 she proceeds calmly, and even with the 
 fastidious grace of the dilettante. 
 
 No one would have suspected her of 
 harboring ill to the meanest creature alive 
 on the last night but one of October, 1878, 
 when the steamer Helvetia glided through 
 the Irish Sea and into the channel toward 
 Queenstown. It was the middle of the golden
 
 2 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 season the ancients called Halcyon and 
 that we, this side the Atlantic, have pic- 
 turesquely rechristened Indian Summer. 
 The full moon shone ghostily on an un- 
 ruffled plane of water, bounded dimly in 
 one direction by a hazy line of land. 
 
 A tall young man standing on the forward 
 deck of the Helvetia drew his overcoat 
 tightly about him as the invigorating sharp- 
 ness of the October air penetrated to his 
 chest. He had thrust his seaman's cap 
 into his pocket, and his curly yellow hair, 
 worn of a length to delight the soul of an 
 artist, fled back from his forehead in the 
 wind created by the motion of the steamer. 
 Standing alone there in the moonlight, he 
 looked not unlike a youthful descendant of 
 the old Viking demigods, once lords of the 
 British seas. 
 
 He remained for a long time in deep 
 meditation of the glories of the night. 
 Then he began pacing slowly back and 
 forth, musing on the future. He was leav- 
 ing behind him an old world that had held 
 out little promise, for a new world of rose- 
 ate dreams. The good-bye kisses of a 
 mother were still on his lips, and the mem- 
 ory of her tears brought a tear to the brink 
 of his own eyes. 
 
 But the tear quickly sank back into the 
 wells of his heart as from somewhere in
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 3 
 
 the bowels of the steamer came huskily the 
 strains of the old song : 
 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 I lay me down in peace to sleep. 
 
 It was not the sentiment of the song that 
 inspired a bright smile, but a mental vision 
 of the singer. A convivial companion had 
 boarded the Helvetia at Liverpool who had 
 already on land sought to drown the pangs 
 of parting with friends in a genial glass or 
 two, and after coming aboard had industri- 
 ously continued the process of submursive- 
 pang strangulation. As a result, it had been 
 necessary to assist him to his bunk a few 
 minutes ago. 
 
 This, then, was the husky-voiced singer 
 who was now seeking repose in the cradle of 
 the deep. The young man on deck listened, 
 smiling more and more broadly, and occa- 
 sionally chuckling at a strident note, until 
 the strains died away prematurely with 
 the "sparrow's fall" as the songster dropped 
 off into oblivion. 
 
 Then the young man's face grew sober 
 as the sentiment of the song, still running 
 through his head, displaced the mental 
 vision of the singer: 
 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 I lay me down in peace to sleep. 
 Secure I rest upon the wave, 
 For Thou, O Lord, hast power to save.
 
 4 ROBERT MANTELL S ROMANCE 
 
 As he was humming to himself, there 
 grew out of the mist in front of him gradu- 
 ally the lights and then the phantom form 
 of a two-masted cutter. She was proceed- 
 ing as calmly through the night as was the 
 Helvetia. Her course was at right angles to 
 that of the big steamer. 
 
 The night was deceptive. Distances were 
 shorter than they seemed in the dreamy 
 October moonlight. The smaller vessel 
 glided in front of the steamer in an effort 
 to cut her course. There was a crash. 
 
 The tall young man darted to the rail. 
 He was already throwing a rope overboard 
 when the sailors of the Helvetia and the 
 passengers in their night-clothing rushed 
 on deck. A veteran seaman sprang to the 
 assistance of the young man. They felt a 
 tug at the rope. 
 
 "Now, me 'arty," said the old sailor, 
 "lend us a 'eave, " and the two, hand over 
 hand, drew an exhausted and badly fright- 
 ened seaman aboard. 
 
 "How many are down there?" asked his 
 rescuers. 
 
 "About twen-twen-ty-f-five, " chattered 
 the half-frozen sailor. 
 
 All ropes available were thrown over- 
 board. Boats were lowered and illuminated 
 lifebuoys, then a new invention, which 
 can be seen a considerable distance by a
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 5 
 
 struggling swimmer, were flung widely in 
 all directions. 
 
 The engines of the Helvetia were shut off, 
 but not reversed, the captain fearing to 
 dash the brains out of some possible strug- 
 gler in the water. This little breach of sea 
 regulations afterward cost him his certifi- 
 cate, which he had held with honor for 
 thirty-five years, and prevented a retire- 
 ment with glory, that he had planned after 
 this very voyage. 
 
 The little two-master, it was soon found, 
 had been cut clean through, as by a knife, 
 amidship, and the halves were clinging to 
 the sides of the Helvetia. The men at the 
 ropes could look right into the bunks laid 
 open by the fearful force of impact. The 
 seamen in these bunks, thus exposed, who 
 had escaped death from shock were readily 
 rescued. One, still hah* dazed with sleep 
 when taken aboard, was the source of a 
 little amusement in the grim scene when it 
 was found he still harbored in his cheek an 
 enormous cut of tobacco that he had 
 stowed away comfortably there for the 
 night. 
 
 But while the work of rescue was going 
 on, the two fragments of the cutter let go 
 their hold of the Helvetia almost simul- 
 taneously, and plunged swiftly to the bot- 
 tom of the channel, carrying with them
 
 6 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 nineteen men who had either been killed 
 or stunned by the original shock or had 
 been unable to come within the range of 
 the rescuers. Only seven had been saved. 
 
 Such is a record of the destruction of the 
 revenue cutter, Fanny, by the transatlantic 
 steamer, Helvetia, in the early morning 
 hours of October 31, 1878, in the channel 
 that divides the Irish Sea from the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Nobody ever fully understood it. 
 Was the pilot of the Fanny dozing at the 
 wheel when she sprang in front of the 
 Helvetia? Or was his eye deceived, like a 
 landsman's, by the spectral lengthening of 
 distances in the October moonlight? The 
 only tongue that could answer has long 
 since disappeared from a gray-green skull 
 lying at the bottom of the channel. 
 
 The tall, fair-haired young man on the 
 deck of the Helvetia that night was Robert 
 Bruce Man tell. He was on his way to 
 America from England to fill his first 
 theatrical engagement in the New World. 
 In his pocket was a contract providing for 
 a tour of the United States with the 
 Countess Bozenta, whose name goes down 
 more familiarly in stage history as Mme. 
 Modjeska. 
 
 A fortnight after the channel disaster, 
 the youthful Robert Mantell made his first 
 appearance on the American stage at Al-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 7 
 
 bany, New York, as Tybalt in "Romeo 
 and Juliet." The exact date, O, ye disciples 
 of Rosa Dartle, was November 18, 1878. 
 A generation later, March 21, 1913, a 
 daughter, Ethel Mantell, made her pro- 
 fessional debut in the same city in a small 
 part in "Julius Caesar."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Interrupting the Flow of this Narrative to 
 Explain why Chapter I was Written and 
 to Fulfil a Threat. 
 
 WHERE is the sense of beginning a 
 biography with the subject al-* 
 ready a fully developed personage 
 of' twenty -four? Didn't anything 
 happen during that quarter of a century 
 worth recording? Is not the usual attempt 
 to be made to trace in the exploits of the 
 hero in his early youth the elements that 
 led to the development of his character in 
 later life? 
 
 Ah, gentle reader (or savage reader, I 
 fear me, if by unfortunate chance you be a 
 critic), I perceive you have forgotten your 
 "Tristram Shandy." Don't you remember 
 how the wicked and witty old clergyman 
 (heaven send us more as wicked and witty 
 as he!) set out conscientiously to record 
 the adventures of Tristram; but how he got 
 himself into a mess of trouble for his pains 
 in starting orthodoxically with the birth of 
 his hero, or rather a few preliminaries to 
 that important event? Page after page 
 flits by, until they count into the dozens,
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 9 
 
 yes, the scores, yea, the hundreds, and 
 still Tristram is only on the threshold of lif e 
 Tristram's father and mother and Uncle 
 Toby demand so much attention. 
 
 It was to avoid any such accident as 
 this (scarcely probable in our day of im- 
 proved literary obstetrics but well to 
 guard against just the same) that I intro- 
 duced to you my hero as a living, breathing 
 personage. Now, if I should happen to 
 skip about so long in his ancestral tree 
 that you become anxious to know whether 
 he is ever to be born, why, you can turn back 
 to Chapter I and discover him there as 
 large as life. And if I should linger too 
 fondly, which anciently meant foolishly, 
 over his childhood, and you should grow 
 impatient and ask, "Won't that kid ever 
 grow up and do something?" why, bless 
 your sweet temper, you can turn back again 
 to Chapter I and see how manfully he 
 threw a rope overboard to a helpless seaman. 
 
 And now, by way of the preface you 
 escaped in the beginning, here's what I 
 wanted to say principally. In gathering the 
 material for the biography of Robert Man- 
 tell, I came into possession of 6742 authentic 
 facts. Now, all the biographers put to- 
 gether of William Shakespeare, with whom 
 Mantell's name is so strongly linked in this 
 generation, have not succeeded in establish-
 
 10 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 ing more than seven and one-half facts, and 
 not one of even these so-called facts is so 
 well authenticated as my puny six-thousand- 
 seven-hundred-and-forty-second. 
 
 Now, it has come to pass that, from these 
 seven-and-one-half facts, more than one 
 biography of William Shakespeare, in two 
 or three huge volumes, has been written. 
 Now, also, with the aid of good Scotch 
 logarithms (in honor of my Scotch hero, for 
 his nationality you are soon to learn) I have 
 computed that, at that rate, with my 
 6742 facts, I could write a biography of 
 Robert Mantell to be comprised in 9,425,683 
 volumes, neatly bound in leather, not 
 including the index. 
 
 But don't get alarmed. I was not born 
 with the brutal instincts of a Sydney Lee. 
 I am going to submit my facts to hydraulic 
 pressure that will mould them into homeo- 
 pathic pellets for quick consumption. 
 
 Another thing. I had so much logic and 
 literary technique poured into me in my 
 college days that my mental makeup has 
 had some such revulsion as the stomach of 
 childhood experiences in time against light- 
 brown sugar lumps. Consequently, this 
 biography will refuse absolutely to adhere 
 to any symmetrical plan. Any time I feel 
 like interrupting the narrative to insert 
 something out of its order, or even some-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 11 
 
 tiling wholly irrelevant, I am going to do 
 it. Or maybe I'll turn the thing topsy- 
 turvy before I'm through with it. Heaven 
 only knows. If it should wind up in a 
 Dantesque dissertation of some phase of 
 the modern theatrical inferno, let no one 
 lose equilibrium. 
 
 But, when I have finished, I desire that 
 you shall know Robert Mantell somewhat 
 as you know David Copperfield or Tom 
 Jones not as you know the bloodless 
 heroes of the " Dictionary of National Biog- 
 raphy." Not, alas, that I flatter myself you 
 have so able an introducer, but I want you 
 to become acquainted with the Mantell of 
 flesh and blood, not the Mantell of news- 
 paper clippings. And, if I do any sort of 
 justice to the material in hand, you will 
 read here a tale of romantic adventure, not 
 unworthy, perhaps, to take a humble place 
 with the narratives of the novelists.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Peeking about Discreetly among the Leaves 
 of the Ancestral Tree. 
 
 IF ever there was a man supremely happy 
 after the old Hebrew idea that happi- 
 ness lies in the fathering of a prog- 
 eny that shall be like unto the 
 sands of the desert for multitude, that man 
 was Robert the Bruce, national hero of 
 Scotland. For there does not breathe a 
 loyal Scot by the name of Bruce who can- 
 not trace his ancestry back to the doughty 
 Robert. There may have been other Bruces 
 in Robert's day, but their descendants, 
 alas, have vanished from the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 Robert Bruce MantelPs mother, whose 
 maiden name (for the information of vil- 
 lage gossips who have a mania for maiden 
 names) was Bruce Elizabeth Bruce 
 was no exception to the general rule of the 
 Bruces. She firmly believed herself to be 
 of the blood of Robert, and, as there were 
 no records disproving the claim, she was 
 allowed to entertain it unmolested. 
 
 But, had there been a question, Elizabeth 
 Bruce was prepared to maintain her rights 
 
 12
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 13 
 
 of descent at the point of a pistol. The 
 pistol I speak of was a relic of Bannockburn, 
 and had been in the family, mouth-to- 
 mouth tradition said, from the time even 
 of the stirring battle. Nay, more, it was 
 carried that day by a Bruce, and tradition 
 was not so sure it wasn't the great Robert 
 himself. 
 
 About this same Bannockburn pistol 
 hangs a tale of Robert Mantell's amateur 
 days in Belfast, Ireland, which I am going 
 to tell here. 
 
 In Belfast there was a dramatic club, of 
 which young Bob Mantell, semi-clandes- 
 tinely, because of parental objections, was 
 one of the burning tapers. In this club was 
 also a young man by the name of Allen, 
 who believed himself the victim of a plot 
 to hide his very brilliant light under a 
 bushel. Anyhow, the directors of the club 
 would never give him important roles in 
 their productions. And so Allen, as many a 
 worthy actor has done before and since his 
 day, determined to break loose and shine 
 for himself as an independent star. 
 
 Allen chose "The Lady of Lyons" in 
 which to make his venture, casting himself, 
 of course, as Claude Melnotte. He engaged 
 two professional actresses to support him, 
 picked up some independent amateur talent 
 about town, and then made a raid on his
 
 14 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 old dramatic club to round out the cast. 
 Among the members he chose was Bob 
 Mantell, whom he offered ten shillings to 
 appear in a small part. 
 
 Bob's mother, a strict Scotch Presby- 
 terian, didn't object too strenuously to his 
 engaging in amateur theatricals, so long as 
 they were kept strictly amateur and private, 
 but she had a horror of the professional 
 stage. Bob knew she wouldn't let him play 
 with Allen in his money-making venture, so, 
 in a laudable determination to keep peace 
 in the family and avoid friction, he didn't 
 say anything to her or any of the others 
 about it. 
 
 It was the first tune he had been offered 
 money to appear on the stage, and he did 
 honor to the occasion by special exertions 
 to supply a suitable costume. He sewed up 
 with his own hands an old suit of yellow 
 underwear, converting it into tights. An 
 ancient pair of Wellington boots that had 
 been worn by his father, and a discarded 
 frock coat belonging to an. elder brother 
 completed his costume. He hired a wig and 
 bought a fierce black moustache. As a 
 finishing touch of villainous realism he 
 thrust the old Bannockburn pistol into his 
 hip pocket. 
 
 Thus accoutered on the night of the per- 
 formance, Robert walked on to the stage
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 15 
 
 confident nobody would recognize him. 
 His brother Louis, however, sitting in the 
 very front row, noticed something suspicious 
 about the black-bearded villain, and Bob 
 had said only a few words when Louis, all 
 excited, drawled out in a voice that could 
 be heard to the back of the hall: 
 
 " Holy Moses ! It's our Bob ! " 
 
 The youthful actor recovered the best 
 he could from the shock, and went nervously 
 on with his part. But when he tried to 
 draw his pistol to defend virtue or perpe- 
 trate vice, he never remembered which, it 
 stuck and wouldn't come out. A violent 
 wrench, however, brought the Bannockburn 
 relic into view, and Louis, as excited as 
 before, cried out still louder: 
 
 "Holy Peter! It's great-grandfather's 
 pistol!" 
 
 That came near breaking up the per- 
 formance, and Allen, with all the tempera- 
 ment, if none of the genius, of a real star, 
 became violently angry. Mantell, however, 
 displayed a first flash of the bulldog spirit 
 that long afterward was to spell success for 
 him against mountainous odds, and pulled 
 the show together. The performance pro- 
 ceeded to a finish without any further 
 interruptions from before the footlights. 
 
 Whether or not the Bannockburn pistol 
 be accepted as proof conclusive of Elizabeth
 
 16 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Bruce's ancient descent, matters little. 
 What really matters is that she was of the 
 sturdiest Scotch blood, as shall appear in 
 the course of this narrative, and in Scotland 
 a woman's a woman "for a' that," as well 
 as a man. She was a farmer's daughter, 
 honest, healthy, thrifty and canny, and her 
 children never regretted that James Man- 
 tell chose her to be their mother. 
 
 James Mantell was an Englishman who 
 patriotically hated the Scotch in general, 
 but who showed his good taste by falling 
 in love with one Scotch lass in particular. 
 
 The Mantell family is an old one. The 
 first ever-so-great-grandfather of which there 
 is a trace came over with William the 
 Conqueror. This ancient warrior's descend- 
 ants are not numerous, and the Mantells 
 of England and Scotland are all of fairly 
 close blood relationship. 
 
 One of the most distinguished men of 
 whom the family can boast is Dr. Gideon 
 Algernon Mantell, the geologist who im- 
 mortalized himself by the discovery of the 
 Dinosaurian reptiles. He lived from 1790 
 to 1852. The greater part of his splendid 
 collection of fossils was purchased by the 
 British Museum, and they form now a very 
 important section of the nation's geological 
 treasures. 
 
 But a few fossils from the Mantell col-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 17 
 
 lection are scattered through various other 
 museums of England and the United States, 
 and one of these was once the source of an 
 uncomfortable feeling in the breast of Dr. 
 Mantell's now famous cousin, Robert, who 
 was then a struggling young actor. 
 
 Robert was one day strolling about 
 Salem, Massachusetts, when his attention 
 was arrested by a fossil fish displayed in a 
 window where scientific instruments were 
 offered for sale. It was labelled "Mantell." 
 Robert thought somebody who had seen 
 the show the night before was "spoofing" 
 him. 
 
 Upon inquiry, however, he learned that 
 the fossil was not meant as a symbol of 
 himself as an actor, but had belonged to 
 the original collection of Dr. Mantell, and 
 was highly prized by the owner. It was 
 from the pretty young clerk in this shop 
 that Robert first became definitely ac- 
 quainted with the fame of the cousin of 
 whom he had before only vaguely heard. 
 The girl, an enthusiast in science, showed 
 the young actor "The Wonders of Geology " 
 and "The Medals of Creation," two of Dr. 
 Mantell's books still highly prized by 
 geologists. 
 
 Before Robert Mantell, there is discover- 
 able only one showman in the family. He 
 flourished in the days of Joseph Grimaldi,
 
 18 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the most celebrated of all English clowns, 
 who scored so tremendously in "Mother 
 Goose" and other pantomimes at Covent 
 Garden in the latter days of the eighteenth 
 century. Grimaldi's most formidable rival 
 in pantomime was a Mantell, designated 
 in the prints of the period simply as "Man- 
 tell the Clown." The details of his history 
 are lost. Robert Mantell saw a crude picture 
 of "Mantell the Clown" in a tavern in 
 Drury Lane a few years ago. He tried to 
 buy it, but the innkeeper, who prided him- 
 self on his collection of stage oddities, 
 refused to part with it for any price. 
 
 To stroll back to the immediate parent- 
 age. Though of ancient lineage, the Man- 
 tells were not wealthy, and James Mantell 
 had to work for a living. As a youth he 
 learned the baker's trade, and he became so 
 proficient in the art that his services were 
 engaged exclusively by Lord Eglinton, 
 whose castle in Ayrshire is still recom- 
 mended to the attention of tourists by the 
 indefatigable Baedeker. 
 
 Lord Eglinton soon found that his baker 
 could do something more than turn out 
 pies and puddings. He heard James Man- 
 tell one day singing at his work, and dis- 
 covered that he had an excellent tenor 
 voice. Lord Eglinton was an extensive 
 entertainer. It was in the days before a
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 19 
 
 country host could take his guests for an 
 auto spin, broken by a box party at the 
 theatre of a neighboring city. Each mem- 
 ber of a congenial company did something 
 to entertain the rest. Singing was the most 
 popular exhibition of talent. When it 
 would come Lord Eglinton's turn, he would 
 say with a lisp famous all over Scotland : 
 
 "I canna' thing mythelf, but will have 
 one of my houthhold thing for you. " 
 
 James Mantell won so much applause 
 on such occasions with old Scotch folk- 
 songs that Lord Eglinton became very 
 proud of him. Finally, he promoted him 
 from baker to private secretary. There is 
 extant an old engraving of a famous race 
 at Epsom Downs between Flying Dutch- 
 man, Lord Eglinton's horse, and a French 
 contender Gladiateur, in which James 
 Mantell is standing beside Lord Eglinton 
 in his new capacity of secretary. 
 
 Robert Mantell inherited from his father 
 the fine voice that brought the elder Man- 
 tell such good fortune. Robert, however, 
 has chosen to build his own fortune and 
 fame on the dramatic rather than the oper- 
 atic qualities of his throat. Had he elected 
 otherwise well, as his best friends know, 
 he can sing an Irish song with a tenderness 
 that would thrill even the worshippers of 
 his old comrade, Chauncey Olcott.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Hanging a Sign on the Wheatsheaf Inn for 
 the Future Guidance of Tourists in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 NEXT time you are roaming about 
 picturesque Ayrshire, the country 
 of Robert Burns, take a little run 
 over to Irvine, the village of Robert 
 Mantell. I wish I had done so when I was 
 there, for then I could tell you just where to 
 look and what to expect. But, like you, I 
 had not even so much as heard of the Wheat- 
 sheaf Inn, and so you will have to ask 
 somebody in Irvine to point it out to you. 
 If the native should give you a blank stare, 
 hastily add that it is not now an inn, but a 
 crockery shop, and that you want to buy an 
 egg cup or an oatmeal bowl. 
 
 It was in the Wheatsheaf Inn that Robert 
 Bruce Mantell, the foremost classic trage- 
 dian of this generation, was born on the 
 seventh day of February, 1854. 
 
 When James Mantell fell in love with 
 the Ayrshire lass and decided to claim her 
 as his bride, his office as secretary to Lord 
 Eglinton began to shrink and shrivel in 
 his estimation. With the proud new dig- 
 
 20
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 21 
 
 nity he was about to assume he thought he 
 should have some better foundation for a 
 fortune. 
 
 He talked it over with Elizabeth Bruce, 
 and she thought so, too. Accordingly, they 
 decided to lease the little tavern of the 
 Wheatsheaf in the neighboring village of 
 Irvine, and there they began life together, 
 with the blessing of Lord Eglinton. 
 
 James Mantell and his pretty bride be- 
 came highly popular with the little souls in 
 Maeterlinck's "Kingdom of the Unborn," 
 and soon they had around them a flourish- 
 ing family. No satisfactory explanation 
 has ever been offered of Elizabeth Bruce 
 Mantell's long neglect of the illustrious 
 founder of her race, for it was not until the 
 third boy was born that she honored the 
 memory of the royal hero by naming him 
 Robert Bruce. Was it prophetic foresight? 
 Did the shade of the old Scot himself per- 
 chance inspire her at the right moment to 
 designate with his name the particular son 
 who was to become illustrious? 
 
 It was in this same Wheatsheaf Inn 
 where he was born that Robert Bruce 
 Mantell was "discovered," in the parlance 
 of the stage. The "discovery" was made 
 by no less a personage than Phineas Taylor 
 Barnum, who has also to his credit General 
 Tom Thumb and the Wild Man of Borneo.
 
 22 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Barnum, once upon a visit to Irvine with 
 a collection of his freaks, stopped over 
 night at the Wheatsheaf Inn. Just after 
 supper, the great showman saw a curly- 
 headed boy of three or four standing in a 
 corner of the dining room with great round 
 eyes regarding in awed silence "General" 
 Thumb. The wonderful seriousness of the 
 child made Barnum laugh. He walked over 
 to the corner of the room, sat down in a 
 huge chair, took Bobbie Mantell on his 
 knee, stroked his head, and remarked, 
 impressively: 
 
 "Some day, my lad, you will be a great 
 showman, too." 
 
 The boy never forgot Barnum's words. 
 Nor did he forget though he never 
 employed Barnum's methods, which even 
 then, child though he was, he dimly ap- 
 preciated. For, during that visit to Irvine, 
 some of Barnum's disciples put into practice 
 the showman's theory of "a fool born every 
 minute." They loudly proclaimed that 
 inside the stable of the Wheatsheaf Inn 
 could be seen the famous horse "with its 
 tail where its head ought to be." After 
 collecting a modest entrance fee, they ex- 
 hibited an ordinary horse backed against 
 the manger. They also told wonders of the 
 "great Red Sea" picture, and the gaping 
 Irvinites were shown a monstrous letter
 
 KAHLY RECOLLECTIONS
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 23 
 
 C, done in crimson paint. Barnum himself, 
 it seems, did not openly endorse these crude 
 fakes he was too much of an artist in 
 fakery for that but his followers raked in 
 quite a quantity of copper coin before the 
 indignant citizens of Irvine drove them out 
 of town. 
 
 When little Bobbie was five years old, 
 James and Elizabeth Mantell came to the 
 conclusion that the Wheatsheaf Inn was too 
 small for their growing family. Learning 
 that there was a more commodious public 
 house on the market in Belfast, Ireland, 
 they decided to emigrate. Accordingly, they 
 disposed of their interests in the Wheat- 
 sheaf, and journeyed across the Irish Sea. 
 
 When they got to Belfast and took pos- 
 session of their new hotel, they found that 
 its standing had been misrepresented to 
 them. It was little more than a resort for 
 disreputable characters. But the Mantells 
 were not to be discouraged by a bad bar- 
 gain, especially one they couldn't get out of. 
 They adopted vigorous measures. 
 
 They started by rechristening the hotel 
 the Eglinton-Winton, in honor of James 
 Mantell's illustrious patron, Lord Eglinton. 
 The Winton hah* of the name belonged to 
 the female side of the Eglinton family. 
 Then, when drunken revellers would come 
 to the door in search of lodging, the new
 
 24 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 proprietors drenched them with water from 
 an upstairs window as a gently persuasive 
 hint that their patronage was not wanted. 
 
 It was not long before the Eglinton- 
 Winton began to acquire respectability. 
 With respectability came increased patron- 
 age, and James Mantell soon discovered 
 that his seven bedrooms could not begin to 
 take care of his guests. Accordingly, as 
 adjoining houses became vacant, he leased 
 them and connected them with his central 
 inn by corridors. Eventually, he had a 
 comfortable-sized hotel of forty rooms. 
 
 The Eglinton-Winton became a popular 
 stopping place for theatrical people. From 
 these provincial actors and actresses, who, 
 to his imagination, wore the halos of gods 
 and goddesses, Bobbie Mantell drew inspira- 
 tion for rosy dreams of a future career on 
 the stage. 
 
 His vague ambitions were not long in 
 taking tangible form. James Mantell, al- 
 ways solicitous for the comfort and enter- 
 tainment of his guests, installed a billiard 
 table, among the first ever seen in an Irish 
 hotel. The billiard room was converted 
 into a theatre by Bob Mantell and his 
 brothers and sisters, with the table as a 
 stage. 
 
 The Eglinton-Winton was always de- 
 serted at Christmas time, the guests going
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 25 
 
 home to enjoy the holiday cheer. This fact 
 led the Mantell children to hit upon the 
 Christmas season for amateur theatricals. 
 At first their efforts were extremely crude, 
 but the little players rapidly improved, and 
 before many years the billiard-table stage 
 became the scene of quite respectable per- 
 formances. Friends were invited to attend, 
 and the youthful Thespians finally arrived 
 at the cGgnity of a printed program, on 
 which their names appeared opposite the 
 characters in various popular plays of the 
 period "Therese, the Orphan of Geneva," 
 "Alonzo the Brave," and "The Fair 
 Imogene." 
 
 Elizabeth Mantell was heart and soul 
 with her children in these Christmas enter- 
 tainments, but afterward she was greatly 
 shocked and grieved when Robert Mantell 
 proposed seriously to adopt the stage as a 
 profession. Her strong Scotch Presbyteri- 
 anism had difficulty in reconciling itself to 
 the professional theatre. 
 
 The death of James Mantell brought a 
 sadness into the little Belfast tavern, and 
 the shadow it cast over the billiard-table 
 stage was never lifted. Elizabeth Mantell 
 continued bravely to operate the house. 
 So successful and thrifty was she that she 
 was able to give to each of her four sons 
 and four daughters a tidy little sum when
 
 26 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the time came for them to go out into the 
 world. After her death, Jack Mantell, a 
 younger brother of Robert, ran the place 
 for a time, and then the Eglinton-Winton 
 passed out of the family. It still stands in 
 Belfast.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Being a Chapter on Education not after the 
 Manner of Pestalozzi or Any Other Pest. 
 
 THE publisher has been asked to 
 perforate the pages of this chapter 
 close to the inner edge, so they 
 can be torn from the volume like 
 checks from the check book of the happy 
 mortal who either has money in the bank 
 or is not afraid to take chances with the 
 law. 
 
 For there are parents who object to put- 
 ting before the eyes of their children any 
 account of boys and girls who do wicked 
 things and escape the devil. To such par- 
 ents let me say in my most melancholy 
 manner that I regret deeply Robert Mantell 
 in his school days was not a mirror of per- 
 fection. To you other more knowing ones 
 I join heartily in your chorus, "Thank 
 heaven, he wasn't!" 
 
 Robert was sent first to an infants' 
 emporium of learning in Belfast, known as 
 the Model School, and during his brief 
 stay there a little halo surrounded his 
 sunny head. 
 
 But alas for the halo! he was trans- 
 
 87
 
 28 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 ferred shortly to Gribben's Penny School. 
 There he became a "victim of the sys- 
 tem," to use the terrible words employed 
 by our modern social uplifters in recording 
 the downfall of wretched specimens of 
 humanity. 
 
 This particular system was the system of 
 tuition. A child was charged a penny a 
 week for instruction. Bob Mantell was 
 given each week the penny to carry to the 
 master for his share of the learning dis- 
 pensed. Between the Eglinton-Winton and 
 Gribben's school was a candy shop. One 
 morning, Robert, penny in pocket, with his 
 shining morning face was trudging like 
 snail unwillingly to school. He passed the 
 candy store. A particularly tempting 
 "sweetie" was in the window. He paused. 
 Gribben had never fortified the morals of 
 his pupils with stories of the beautiful boy- 
 hood of George Washington. (Pity the 
 Irish schoolboy he has no George Wash- 
 ington!) Robert Mantell was lost. Grib- 
 ben's school knew him not that week. 
 Little Bobbie spent seven days of mortal 
 terror. Next week the penny went to 
 Gribben. No questions were asked. The 
 sky didn't fall. Bobbie had "got away with 
 it." Five more pennies at intervals went 
 into the candy shop before he was dis- 
 covered. Here we ring down the curtain for
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 3d 
 
 a moment to give Bobbie's mother a chance, 
 being firmly convinced from extensive read- 
 ing of criminology that all punishment 
 should be inflicted in private. 
 
 Robert next was sent to Miss Smith's 
 school for boys and girls. Miss Smith one 
 day undertook to chastise Robert's smaller 
 brother, Jack. The blood of old Robert 
 the Bruce stirred in the arteries of his 
 sturdy little namesake. He made a rush at 
 Miss Smith and seized hold of her to drag 
 her away from Jack. In the struggle, he 
 tore her clothing and broke a gold chain 
 she wore around her neck. But sex an- 
 tagonism was aroused in the little girls of 
 Miss Smith's school. The tiny Amazons 
 sprang to their heroine's assistance. They 
 fell upon Robert and pushed and beat him 
 out of the room. Robert Bruce Mantell 
 never in his palmiest days of matinee idol 
 was the victim of such another mad rush of 
 femininity. 
 
 Robert quite naturally did not go back 
 to Miss Smith's school, even for his slate 
 and pencil. After a family council of war 
 in which brother Jack stoutly upheld his 
 champion, it was decided to send him to 
 Dr. Rennie's school for boys, where the 
 discipline was reputed strict. 
 
 For a time he was bluffed by the severe 
 masters employed by Dr. Rennie; and was
 
 30 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 making some little progress in the elements 
 of learning, which had been his last con- 
 sideration in school heretofore, when a 
 conspiracy was hatched. Robert, whose 
 fame had been established by the episode 
 at Miss Smith's school, was chosen ring- 
 leader. The boys all agreed to get up and 
 walk out when a certain class was called. 
 Robert, at the appointed time, started for 
 the door, but nobody followed. The others, 
 apparently, were paralyzed by a common 
 impulse or lack of impulse. Robert was 
 opening the door when the headmaster 
 seized him. The pedagogue wasted no 
 words. Guessing shrewdly at the truth, he 
 started to flog the arch conspirator. But 
 Robert, savagely angry at both the teacher 
 and his cowardly associates, picked up a 
 heavy slate, which had no wooden frame as 
 slates have now-a-days, and hit the master 
 such a blow on the knee that he split the 
 flesh to the bone, cracked the kneecap and 
 sent the pedagogue to the hospital for 
 repairs. 
 
 Bob Mantell's stock as battler in a good 
 cause shot sky high with the schoolboys 
 of Belfast, and he became the idol of the 
 hour. It was with difficulty, however, that 
 his long-suffering family kept him out of 
 the clutches of the law, and with even 
 greater difficulty that they found a school-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 31 
 
 master willing to undertake his future edu- 
 cation. 
 
 But queer old William Campbell decided 
 to take a chance. Campbell might have 
 stepped out of a page of Dickens, with all 
 the embellishments of Cruikshank. He 
 was bald, with the exception of a tuft of 
 hair above each temple. These tufts he 
 allowed to grow long, and tied them to- 
 gether across the top of his head. A thin, 
 studious, dried-up face, bordered by strag- 
 gling sideburns, completed the picture of 
 his globule of intelligence. He was lame, 
 and walked with a crutch heavily shod with 
 iron. An incomprehensible vanity in a 
 creature so chastised by nature decreed an 
 immaculate white shirt with ruffled front 
 and a starched waistcoat on all occasions. 
 
 Master Campbell had a deplorable weak- 
 ness, of which his boys often took ad- 
 vantage. He was apt to fall asleep in the 
 schoolroom any moment. One day, when 
 he was all oblivious of his surroundings, 
 some of the boys stole up to him, carefully 
 untied the tufts of hair and left them lying 
 on top his bald pate. They then stole as 
 quietly back to their places. Bob Mantell 
 had no hand in this mischief, not because he 
 would have hesitated to help, but because 
 he happened to be busy at the time filling 
 desk inkwells from a big bottle.
 
 32 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Campbell woke up with a sneeze that 
 brought the loosened tufts down his cheeks. 
 He glared around. Bob Mantell, the assail- 
 ant of Miss Smith and of Rennie's head- 
 master, was standing in front of him, with 
 his back turned, filling an inkwell. It was 
 a case of the dog and the bad name. Camp- 
 bell picked up his crutch, took deliberate 
 aim, and hit the boy a sharp blow on the 
 ear with the iron nib. Bob whirled round 
 with a howl, dashed the ink from his big 
 bottle into the face and over the ruffled 
 shirt and white waistcoat of the master, and 
 fled from the room. 
 
 So ended his schooldays at Campbell's. 
 But here he must have learned something 
 by absorption, as he never took the trouble 
 to study. 
 
 Campbell thought well of him as a 
 pupil, as was proven years later when 
 Robert Mantell, then famous as a tragedian, 
 was playing an engagement in Portland, 
 Oregon. There he met a Dr. William Camp- 
 bell, who turned out to be a grandson of the 
 quaint old Belfast schoolmaster. Dr. Camp- 
 bell showed Mr. Mantell a letter written to 
 him by his grandfather, who had Chester- 
 field's habit of narrating events and con- 
 veying moral reflections in epistles. This 
 particular letter was written some little 
 time after the youthful Mantell had shocked
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 33 
 
 his relatives and friends by adopting the 
 stage as a profession. 
 
 "One of the brightest boys I ever had," 
 said the schoolmaster, "was a lad named 
 Robert Mantell. But, alas, he has thrown 
 his life away by going onto the stage, and 
 consequently to the devil." 
 
 Mr. Mantell, in the maturity of years, is 
 inclined to look upon this observation as 
 on the flattering epitaphs cut into the white 
 marble of the tomb. 
 
 "After I went on the stage," he remarked 
 to me, "I was as good as dead in poor old 
 Campbell's opinion, and I am grateful to 
 him for that epitaph. It is the only way I 
 can account for his remark about my 
 brightness. For I was certainly as idle and 
 worthless in his school as anybody could 
 be. I marvel I ever learned to read and 
 write." 
 
 But the wicked Mantell boy did learn to 
 read and write, and it was in McClinton's 
 Seminary, where he went after Campbell's, 
 that the youthful reprobate began to dis- 
 appoint those doleful well-wishers who could 
 see only the gallows stretched across the 
 path of his future. 
 
 Perhaps it was athletics that absorbed 
 the surplus deviltry in his nature and made 
 possible the gentle upwelling of more re- 
 spectable qualities. Anyhow, the friends of
 
 34 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 athletics are given gratis this hint for a 
 text. If they fail to preach a convincing 
 sermon from it, it is not my fault. 
 
 Bob Mantell turned his energies to strenu- 
 ous games, and it wasn't long before he 
 began winning fame for himself and for his 
 school by his achievements. The climax 
 came when he was presented with a silver 
 cup by Lord Waverly as the winner of a 
 250-yard race. As a cricketer he became 
 so proficient that he was given a place on a 
 semi-professional team that defended the 
 honor of Belfast against all comers. 
 
 A school friend of those days was the 
 athlete Dunlop, credited with the invention 
 of the bicycle having wheels of equal size, 
 and certainly the inventor of the pneu- 
 matic tire which bore his name. This tire 
 will, or will not, be remembered by the 
 readers of the nocturnal adventures of the' 
 amateur cracksman, Raffles, according to 
 the retentive powers of their brain cells. 
 As for the bicycle wheels of equal size, 
 Dunlop appears to be in the predicament 
 of the Chinese so famous for being robbed 
 of their ancient inventions long afterward. 
 The story of Dunlop and his bicycle is 
 too good to be left untold, especially as 
 Mantell was an eye-witness of his sensa- 
 tional triumph in a famous race. This race 
 was to be held on a turf track just outside
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 35 
 
 Belfast. There had been a rain the night 
 before, and the track was softer even than 
 it would have been naturally. 
 
 The racers appeared with their high 
 front wheels and narrow iron rims. Just 
 before they were to start, out lumbered 
 Dunlop on a crazy machine of his own 
 invention a bicycle with wheels of equal 
 size and monster rubber tires inflated with 
 air. There was a general laugh. The judges, 
 joining in the merriment, gave Dunlop the 
 limit of the handicap on account of the 
 crudity of his mount. 
 
 Of course, it happened as it always does 
 in a well-regulated athletic romance. The 
 hard, narrow rims of the other racers cut 
 into the turf, while Dunlop's machine sped 
 lightly along to an easy victory. 
 
 Dunlop, it seems, patented his bicycle, 
 but there was an irregularity in the patent, 
 and he never reaped from it the fortune that 
 was his due.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Reciting the Thrilling Episode of Red Rodger , 
 the Daffy King of the Fairies. 
 
 LET me now embalm a military 
 document whose hero, Red Rodger, 
 is worthy of figuring in an ambi- 
 tious ballad of Erin. Alas! I can 
 offer him nothing more now than a humble 
 secondary place in this biography. The 
 author of the tale of Rodger's exploits is 
 Corporal Hamilton H. Dobbin of the San 
 Francisco police force, a boyhood friend of 
 Robert Mantell, and a veteran of the Bel- 
 fast wars you are now to read about. I 
 intend to make you more particularly ac- 
 quainted with Corporal Dobbin, who can 
 " spot " a pretender to Shakespearean knowl- 
 edge as readily as a pretender to civic 
 honesty, after you have read his account of 
 this battle dreadful. Here it is, in his own 
 words, just as he wrote it to me: 
 
 "In Belfast in the days of our wild youth, 
 there were several factions or gangs for- 
 ever ready to engage in hostilities at the 
 drop of a hat. The one to which Bob 
 Mantell and I belonged, while long on style, 
 finance and courage, was short in numbers. 
 
 36
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 37 
 
 The gang to which we were particularly 
 hostile had the numbers and plenty of 
 courage besides. 
 
 "One day there arose a dispute over some 
 matter, I've forgotten what, perhaps ' to 'ell 
 with the Pope or King William' or maybe 
 both. It was decided that it should be 
 fought out on the day following. 
 
 "After school hours, the leaders of the 
 two gangs got together to arrange the rules 
 of the conflict. It was agreed that sticks, 
 stones and fists would be allowed, and that 
 only knives and firearms should be barred. 
 
 "Mantell was the leader of our gang, and 
 you will see how good a general he proved 
 himself to be. Owing to our scarcity of 
 numbers, the majority of us felt that we 
 were doomed to sure defeat. But Bob 
 proposed in our secret council that we 
 engage the services of Red Rodger. To this 
 we all enthusiastically agreed, leaving the 
 whole matter of arrangement to Bob. 
 
 "Red Rodger was a town character. He 
 never recognized any gang. He was looked 
 upon as being simple-minded, but, in reality, 
 was more knave than fool. He was a great 
 admirer of Bob, because the Mantell boy 
 was kind to him. When Rodger chanced 
 to meet him, he would salute by doffing 
 his ragged cap and giving his foretop of 
 very bright red hair a jerk and exclaiming,
 
 38 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 'Purty Montle! Purty Montle!' (his way of 
 pronouncing 'Mantell'). This elaborate 
 salute seldom failed to draw a copper or 
 two from the pocket of Bob. The only 
 failure I remember was an occasion on 
 which Mantell was 'broke.' Then, instead 
 of a copper, Bob slipped a peppermint 
 lozenge into the hand of Rodger. Red 
 started his usual scrape and bow of thanks, 
 but, upon discovering the imposition, went 
 off along a tangent of as rich profanity, in 
 which 'North of Ireland' and 'Orangeman' 
 were mingled, as ever was heard in Belfast. 
 Instead of 'Purty Montle,' Bob was the 
 vilest rogue unhung. 
 
 "In appearance, Rodger was a sight to 
 behold. No stage Irishman ever approached 
 him in rough make-up. His red hair grew 
 through the top of his cap ; his breeches were 
 all out at the knees and frayed at the 
 bottom, with several patches of foreign 
 cloth of various patterns and designs about 
 the legs, and his bare feet were knarled and 
 knotty. When somebody would give him a 
 pair of shoes, he seldom wore them, but 
 tied them together and slung them over 
 his shoulder. His face, besides being dotted 
 with big freckles, was bleached in spots. 
 
 "Bob immediately got in touch with this 
 sorry specimen of humanity. He told him 
 of the battle to be fought next day, and
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 39 
 
 came easily to terms with him through the 
 magic of a couple of coppers. He got his 
 promise to be on hand at the appointed 
 place with as many boys as he could collect 
 to follow him. 
 
 "That same evening, arrangements were 
 completed for the battle. Stones were 
 gathered into little heaps along the road 
 where they could be got at handily, and 
 choice billets of wood were hidden in out- 
 of-the-way, but convenient, places. 
 
 "Next day at the hour appointed, both 
 gangs mobilized at a safe distance from 
 each other. Our gang stood where we were, 
 killing time by every device we could con- 
 trive, waiting for Red Rodger, who was 
 late, but who, we were confident, would 
 not fail us. The other fellows advanced up 
 the road by short stages, until they reached 
 a point about a hundred yards from where 
 we were stationed. There they halted, fear- 
 ing some trickery from our immobility. 
 They yelled for us to come on, but we 
 didn't stir. 
 
 " While the puzzled enemy was debating 
 a plan of action, who should rush down the 
 road at our rear but our ally, Red Rodger, 
 followed by a gang yelling like wild Indians. 
 And such a sight! I have described Rodger's 
 appearance and make-up. Well, Rodger, in 
 comparison with his followers, looked like
 
 40 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 an East Indian Prince in the full regalia of 
 his splendor. A rougher, tougher-looking 
 bunch never cut a throat nor scuttled a 
 ship. 
 
 "Rodger ran up to our general with his 
 usual bow and scrape and his salutation of 
 'Purty Montle.' Bob quickly formed his 
 reinforcements in line of battle, and hur- 
 riedly instructed them as to their position 
 and duty in the coming conflict. Then, he 
 gave sharp command to all his troops to 
 advance. 
 
 "The enemy had been apparently stunned 
 by our accession of allies. When we came 
 to within fifty yards of them, and they got 
 a good look at Rodger and his band, their 
 general gave the word to retreat. As they 
 slowly backed away, we, in our turn, taunted 
 them to come on. But, after a brief con- 
 sultation among themselves, they threw 
 down their clubs and stones, and came 
 toward us displaying white handkerchiefs. 
 
 "We grounded arms, but did not dis- 
 card them, and waited for the enemy to 
 open negotiations. Their general declared 
 the fight off, and gave as the reason that 
 they were not going to battle with elves and 
 fairies. They were perfectly willing to go 
 against 'humans,' but drew the line at 
 demons led by that daffy Red Rodger. 
 
 "As they would not go into action, we
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 41 
 
 declared ourselves victors, and admonished 
 the enemy never to trespass in our part of 
 the town. After they had solemnly agreed, 
 both armies disbanded. 
 
 "On the following day, Red Rodger was 
 arrayed like the main guy at a royal wed- 
 ding. The clothes were the gift of our gang 
 in celebration of our famous bloodless 
 victory. Rodger even consented to wear 
 shoes on this occasion. 
 
 "Just where or how Red Rodger re- 
 cruited his gang of heathenish ragamuffins 
 was never learned. Some said he picked 
 them up in Ballmacarret; others thought 
 they came from the Falls Road. The ma- 
 jority of our opponents stoutly maintained, 
 and the survivors among them doubtless 
 will insist to this day, that they were real 
 fairies, and that Red Rodger was in league 
 with the elvish band."' 
 
 The fortunes of peace perhaps no less 
 renowned certainly no less intricate 
 than the fortunes of war, separated Bob 
 Mantell and Ham Dobbin not long after 
 this exploit. Mantell, AS will be made mani- 
 fest in these memoirs, became a famous 
 actor. Dobbin went to sea, and for years 
 sailed "beyond the sunset and the path of 
 all the western stars." 
 
 We find Dobbin in the spring of 1878 
 going ashore in San Francisco to see a per-
 
 42 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 formance by Mme. Modjeska, whom Man- 
 tell was to join the following autumn for 
 his first tour of America. Dobbin left his 
 ship in the bay to attend the theatre with 
 the captain and his wife, and to row them 
 back to the vessel after the performance. 
 
 Some years afterward, Dobbin put into 
 the port of San Francisco for good. There, 
 like many a loyal and faithful Irishman who 
 had gone before, he joined the police force. 
 
 Mantell, now famous, frequently visited 
 the San Francisco theatres. But Dobbin, 
 while he went to witness every performance 
 of his former playmate, had not the courage 
 to call upon him and introduce himself. 
 He, a lowly policeman, was uncertain of 
 the reception that would be accorded him 
 by the illustrious matinee idol. 
 
 It was not until the visit of Mantell to 
 San Francisco in 1907 that Dobbin finally 
 screwed his courage to the sticking point. 
 Mantell and his wife had taken apartments for 
 the two weeks of their stay in a house in Ful- 
 ton Street, directly opposite Alamo Square. 
 
 Dobbin formed a plan of action. He 
 would call on Mantell. If he found the 
 actor supercilious and snobbish, like too 
 many idols of the stage, he would transact 
 some trivial business and leave without 
 disclosing his identity. But if . 
 
 He reached the door of the house and
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 43 
 
 rang the bell of the Mantell apartment. 
 The door was opened by Mantell's little 
 Japanese valet, Wieda. 
 
 "Does Mr. Mantell live here?" asked 
 Dobbin. 
 
 Before Wieda could reply, a voice from 
 the top of the stairs answered heartily : 
 
 ; *You bet he does; come right on up - 
 I know the dialect!" 
 
 The cheery voice and outstretched hand 
 convinced Dobbin. He sprang up the stairs 
 two steps at a time. 
 
 "Well! Well," said the actor, grasping 
 his old friend by the shoulders at arm's 
 length. "Come out to St. Michael's field, 
 and I'll gi' ye a Hogan!" 
 
 Dobbin shrugged his shoulders with a 
 laugh. He, too, remembered the drubbing 
 Mantell had given him on St. Michael's 
 common just a day or two before their 
 parting in Belfast. Tears in Dobbin's eyes 
 were mingled with the laughter. In his 
 wildest dreams he had not pictured such a 
 greeting from his old friend of thirty years 
 ago. This was the man who, for a score of 
 years, he had longed yet dreaded to meet. 
 He told Mantell so. 
 
 "Why, you old stiff," cried the actor, 
 mingling modern American slang with an- 
 cient Scotch poetry, "don't ye knaw a man's 
 a man for a' that?"
 
 44 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 That's the reason Robert Mantell can 
 now commit anything short of murder in 
 San Francisco.
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 In Which a Stage Career Begins to Forecast 
 Itself with the Famous Inevitableness of a 
 Greek Tragedy. 
 
 WHEN knowledge did eventually 
 begin to find some sort of lodge- 
 ment in Bob Mantell's head, it 
 immediately sought vent at his 
 mouth, and so it was decided that the boy 
 should become a barrister, the logical fate in 
 those days of a youth given to "spouting." 
 
 Consequently, he was turned over to a 
 "grinder" named Smiley, who was com- 
 missioned to "grind" into his head all of 
 the law of the realm in and out of Black- 
 stone. Smiley was considered the most 
 expert tutor in Belfast. Mr. Mantell still 
 looks back at him with an awe forty years 
 have not diminished. Smiley knew every- 
 thing there was to be known about all 
 subjects. Mathematics, history, law, medi- 
 cine, literature nothing had escaped him. 
 Smiley bombarded Mantell for months 
 with the most intensive shrapnel from the 
 arsenal of learning, and then one day went 
 quietly to his mother and told her it was 
 
 45
 
 46 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 no use. Her son had never been cut out for 
 aK. C. 
 
 The boy was now fifteen years old, strong, 
 robust and athletic. It was decided, after 
 Smiley's report, to put him to work. Ac- 
 cordingly, he was apprenticed to a whole- 
 sale liquor dealer named Neill. Here he 
 was employed for five years, largely in 
 connection with the customs side of the 
 business, and so successful was he that, 
 in time, boy though he was, he had the 
 direction of sixty men. 
 
 But, though the work was not hard, 
 there were disagreeable features to it. It 
 was badly paid, for one thing. Then, among 
 his sixty workmen were too many threats 
 of what a young man with a natural taste 
 for the contents of the vats might come to, 
 himself, in time. Man tell still has a vivid 
 remembrance of the more maudlin of these 
 wrecks of humanity, who would conceal in 
 their clothing short sections of slender gas 
 pipe, through which they would suck liquor 
 from the vats when their youthful overseer 
 turned his back for a moment. 
 
 But it was the comparative independence 
 he acquired through his apprenticeship at 
 Neill's an apprenticeship that finds a 
 parallel in stage history in David Garrick's 
 occupation as wine-seller that paved the 
 way for Mantell's future as an actor. He
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 47 
 
 had rid himself of the disagreeable thought 
 of a career as a lawyer. He knew he could 
 make a living at his present trade, and 
 worry on the score of mere subsistence was 
 discarded. He had not forgotten Barnum's 
 prophecy of his destiny as a showman; he 
 had not forgotten the halo that glowed 
 round the heads of the touring actors and 
 actresses who visited the Eglinton-Winton; 
 he had not forgotten his pleasure in his own 
 performances on the billiard-table stage 
 during the Christmas seasons. 
 
 Now, while still at Neill's, he groped 
 about vaguely in search of a threshold to a 
 stage career. The door he entered was 
 Robert Houston's elocution class, whose 
 meetings, fortunately, were at night. 
 
 Here, at last, Robert Mantell made 
 progress in a branch of learning, and made it 
 fast. Houston, who afterwards won dis- 
 tinction in New York as a teacher of elocu- 
 tion, discovered unusual talent in the boy, 
 and developed it so rapidly that it was not 
 long before Mantell became one of his 
 assistant readers on tours of surrounding 
 towns. 
 
 Upon one occasion, Houston, Mantell 
 and a singer by the name of Pat Kearns 
 went over to the village of Larne to give an 
 entertainment. Houston had a class at 
 Larne, and naturally expected a good crowd.
 
 48 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 But it happened that certain Larnites were 
 giving an entertainment of their own this 
 very night, and everybody in the village 
 went to that, except two elderly women and 
 a small boy, who evidently preferred big 
 city talent. 
 
 Houston was not to be discouraged by 
 such a little accident as an empty house, 
 and started the entertainment. The two 
 elderly ladies and the small boy appeared 
 mightily pleased. Rarely in the world's 
 history has there been so unanimously 
 sympathetic an audience. Houston and 
 Mantell were amused. Kearns was dis- 
 gusted. He took Mantell aside. 
 
 "Bob," he whispered, "we must get rid 
 of that * crowd* some way they'll sit 
 through the whole bloomin' program, if 
 we don't do something. Houston'll go 
 right on through with it. It's up to you or 
 me." Then, after a moment's pause: "I 
 have it when it comes your turn again, 
 don't recite, but sing something." 
 
 Mantell agreed, and, sure enough, as he 
 was finishing his song the old ladies and 
 the little boy quietly stole away. 
 
 Another time, Mantell and Billy Laird, 
 both of whom had won gold medals at 
 Houston's school, were engaged, for two 
 pounds, to give an entertainment in a 
 neighboring town. Much was expected of
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 40 
 
 them, as Belfast "gold medallists" were 
 highly regarded. 
 
 When they got to the town, the two 
 young men found they were to give their 
 entertainment in a church, and, to make 
 matters worse, not from a platform, but 
 from the pulpit. They were taken aback, 
 as their repertoire wasn't exactly of the 
 Sunday school variety. 
 
 But they decided to risk it. Laird made 
 the first venture with "Toby Tosspot," a 
 humorous poem of the bibulous variety, 
 highly popular in that day. As Laird got 
 deeper and deeper into a really excellent 
 drunken impersonation, Mantell noticed 
 the brows of the minister contracting into a 
 darker and darker frown. 
 
 When the poem was finished, the rever- 
 end gentleman, with aggressive dignity, got 
 up and announced quietly that Mr. Laird 
 would have nothing more to do with the 
 entertainment, but that Mr. Mantell would 
 give the entire program. Mantell racked 
 his brains for churchly numbers, and, by 
 dint of judicious selection and impromptu 
 expurgation, saved the day. He got his 
 sovereign, but Laird got nothing but an icy 
 shoulder from the entire congregation. 
 
 Mantell's success as a public entertainer 
 added fuel to the flame of his desire to go 
 on the stage. He was one of the moving
 
 50 EGBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 spirits in the organization of an amateur 
 dramatic club that began eventually to 
 give performances of a highly meritorious 
 character. They rented scenery and cos- 
 tumes from the regular theatres and staged 
 their productions ambitiously. The ex- 
 penses were defrayed by contributions from 
 the members, and afterwards by a shilling 
 admission fee to the performances. 
 
 A disturbing element of the club was 
 Dick Davis, a royal good fellow at heart, 
 but gifted by nature with a disposition that 
 could never lie parallel with any other 
 disposition. This budding young Roscius 
 finally became so troublesome, that, by 
 unanimous vote, he was expelled. 
 
 Davis resolved on an exquisite revenge. 
 His opportunity came at the next public 
 performance of the club. The gallant young 
 Thespians of Belfast had made it a rule 
 that ladies, accompanied by male escort, 
 should be admitted free to their entertain- 
 ments. Davis sized up the capacity of the 
 hall where the performance was to be given, 
 and then went around to all the young 
 women of his acquaintance and invited 
 them to accompany him to the show. 
 
 His unexampled popularity with the 
 sweeter sex is attested by the fact that, on 
 the night of the performance, fully fifty 
 girls were on the steps bright and early at
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 51 
 
 the invitation of Davis. When the door 
 opened, Davis bought a ticket, and took 
 in on it all his female friends, giggling at 
 the joke. They filled every seat in the little 
 hall. When the curtain went up, Davis, 
 sitting in the front row with a grin all over 
 his face, beamed brightly at his former 
 fellow players. 
 
 It was in this club, with as merry a crowd 
 as ever lived, that Robert Mantell gained 
 his first real experience as an actor. His 
 lessons in elocution at Houston's, combined 
 with a naturally good voice and a handsome 
 face and figure, made him a leading spirit of 
 the club. 
 
 When, finally, in the last year of his 
 apprenticeship at Neill's, "Richelieu" was 
 staged by the club at the Theatre Royal in 
 Belfast for a church benefit, Robert Mantell 
 was cast for the role of De Mauprat. It 
 was his first appearance in a real theatre. 
 Heretofore, he had played only in halls. 
 The year was 1873. Mantell was nineteen.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Pausing on the Brink of the Horrible Realm 
 of Vagabondage before Taking the Final 
 Fatal Plunge. 
 
 WHEN he left the wholesale liquor 
 house, Robert Mantell's mind 
 was made up. He would be an 
 actor. His mother was heart- 
 broken. His old nurse, when she heard his 
 resolution, cried, "O, Bobbie, Bobbie boy!" 
 and went weeping to her own little room. 
 A funeral in the house could not have been 
 more depressing. Almost as well be dead 
 as fall into eternal disgrace. 
 
 In order to appreciate the force of these 
 lamentations, it is necessary, and not un- 
 interesting, to glance at the social status 
 of the actor in England and the English 
 dependencies in 1873. For the Scotch 
 Presbyterianism of Elizabeth Bruce Man- 
 tell, strict as it was, will not account fully 
 for the effect produced by the resolution of 
 her son. 
 
 In those days, the actor was looked upon 
 as little better than the vagabond the law 
 of the realm classed him. No respectable 
 person liked to be caught on the street with 
 
 5t
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 53 
 
 one of these picturesque strollers. It was 
 all right to ask him to take a drink with 
 you at the bar of a public house. Even, 
 under certain circumstances, you could 
 invite him into your home for a few hours, 
 but distinctly as a social inferior. Mantell's 
 own brothers, once when he returned home 
 for a visit after a season on the stage, were 
 squeamish about walking down the street 
 with him, although they treated him de- 
 cently enough at home. Mantell had many 
 of these "left-handed friends" in Rochdale, 
 where he first played. 
 
 In those days, too, it was hard to find in 
 the rural districts a public house that would 
 keep an actor over night. Many and many 
 a time Mantell had the door of an inn 
 slammed in his face when he revealed his 
 profession. 
 
 On one occasion, after he had been sleep- 
 ing in haystacks for several nights, he 
 applied at a neat-looking rooming house 
 for lodging. He was asKed his business. 
 He said he was traveling for a London firm, 
 which was the truth, so far as it went. He 
 was given a soft, clean bed, and soon forgot 
 his troubles. When he awoke in the morn- 
 ing, however, he found his portmanteau 
 neatly packed and sitting on the doorstep 
 outside. Upon inquiring the reason, the 
 proprietor of the inn told him kindly enough
 
 54 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 that, during the night, he had learned he 
 was an actor, and he couldn't keep him 
 any longer. He had let him have his sleep 
 out and wouldn't accept any money for 
 his night's lodging, doubly proving his 
 humanity. But prejudice was prejudice, 
 and actors couldn't stay and disgrace his 
 house. 
 
 In spite of the rapid strides toward re- 
 spectability stage people have made in 
 forty years, some such prejudice as this is 
 still traceable in rural England and America. 
 I have found relics of it in small towns in 
 the South, where hotel proprietors would a 
 little rather that the stage folk would stop 
 at a rival hotel, and leave their commercial 
 custom unmolested. 
 
 Prejudice dies hard in the Anglo-Saxon 
 breast perhaps, also, in the Hottentot 
 and the Malay and I am tempted to 
 trace here this most interesting one through 
 history. 
 
 The Regulations of the "Ancient Cus- 
 tomary of Brittany," of venerable but 
 uncertain date, contain this article: 
 
 "Among those who are regarded as in- 
 famous in the eye of the law, and incapable 
 of acting as witnesses, are lewd women, 
 hangmen of thieves, horse-knackers, hawk- 
 ers of pastry, and, among others, * retailers 
 of wind,' that is to say any performers on
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 55 
 
 the violin and bagpipe, mountebanks and 
 players, who lead a Hfe full of infamy and 
 scandal. Because, in point of fact, there is 
 no profession more infamous and more 
 remote from the natural duty of all men 
 than that of devoting one's life to the 
 amusement of others." 
 
 This severe indictment, the teeming root 
 of trouble to English-speaking players 
 throughout dozens of generations, has not 
 been lived down completely to this day. 
 The opinion was reflected in a law of 1572, 
 which sought to suppress all acting except 
 that under the patronage of great person- 
 ages, by pronouncing unattached players 
 "rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars," 
 and threatening any one who should Harbor 
 them with the punishment of being "grevi- 
 ously whipped and burnt through the 
 gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of 
 the compass of an inch about." 
 
 (If the innkeeper who set Mantell's 
 portmanteau outside had even the vaguest 
 of atavistic sensibility in his makeup, can 
 you wonder at his action?) 
 
 It was in the cheerful times of the law of 
 1572 that the star of Shakespeare arose. 
 Richard III, whom Shakespeare has grate- 
 fully held up to the detestation of all future 
 generations, was the first powerful English 
 friend of the players, and it was through
 
 56 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 his example, in attaching actors to his house- 
 hold, that the modifying clause exempting 
 from punishment those under the patronage 
 of great personages was made possible. 
 
 Elizabeth, who now sat on the throne, 
 and her successor, James, were of as broad 
 mind as Richard had been with regard to 
 the stage, and they were lax in the enforce- 
 ment of the more severe clauses of the laws 
 against the players. 
 
 But the Reformation gave birth to still 
 more drastic legislation, and these laws, 
 religiously enforced, all but wiped the stage 
 out of existence. 
 
 The Restoration brought the actor back, 
 and with him an institution new to the 
 English theatre, the actress. But licentious- 
 ness, general in this period of reaction 
 against Puritanism, reached its climax on 
 the stage, and while the players found 
 themselves no longer subject to persecu- 
 tion, they were in profound moral disrepute. 
 
 From the period of Charles II to the 
 present day, the English-speaking actor 
 has been climbing slowly and painfully to 
 his present position of decent citizenship. 
 As late as 1875, when players were invited 
 to great functions in England to use their 
 talents in the general merry-making, a 
 silken cord was stretched across the draw- 
 ing-room to separate the stage people from
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 57 
 
 the rest of the guests. But the cord was 
 abolished in time, and the actors began to 
 mingle with the men of letters, the states- 
 men and the lords and ladies of the realm. 
 
 Then, in 1895, Queen Victoria, the most 
 liberal-minded woman who ever sat on a 
 throne, raised an actor, Henry Irving, to 
 the peerage. The fight for respectability 
 was won. 
 
 It was in 1873 and in the very teeth of 
 the "Ancient Customary of Brittany" that 
 Robert Mantell resolved to go on the 
 stage. He made one concession to his 
 mother. He would not disgrace the family 
 name by dragging it into the mire of vaga- 
 bondage behind the footlights. He would 
 call himself Robert Hudson. 
 
 More than that he would go to Amer- 
 ica, and nobody need ever know of his 
 disgrace. His brother James was purser 
 on the steamer Samaria, plying between 
 Liverpool and Boston. He would work his 
 way across the Atlantic. 
 
 Elizabeth Mantell gave in. She presented 
 Robert with the same little sum of money 
 she had given his older brothers when they 
 started out into the world, and with it her 
 blessing. 
 
 The voyage to Boston was uneventful. 
 Robert landed on American soil, and walked 
 whistling up the street in search of a suit-
 
 58 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 able theatre in which to make his debut. 
 The name of the street, he doesn't know. 
 Nobody, except a sleep-walker, ever suc- 
 ceeded in retracing his first steps in Boston. 
 
 It was in May, 1874, that Robert Mantell 
 began calling on the Boston theatrical 
 magnates. Much to his astonishment, none 
 of them appeared effusive over the yellow- 
 haired Scotch elocutionist with the Irish 
 brogue. The tenth day he counted his 
 money. There was just enough left to buy 
 a return ticket to Queenstown, and a few 
 shillings over. 
 
 Mantell became panic-stricken. He 
 rushed to the steamship office. Yes, the 
 Hecla was leaving that very day. He 
 bought a ticket. Then he ran back to his 
 little hotel, packed his belongings, paid his 
 bill, and a few hours later was steaming 
 away from America. 
 
 The land of promise had repulsed him 
 coldly. He had found out all about America 
 in ten days.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 On the Professional Stage at Last, Happy 
 but Penniless. 
 
 IT wasn't exactly as the conquering 
 hero he had pictured to himself that 
 Robert Mantell returned to Belfast. 
 But one person was secretly glad of it, 
 and that was Elizabeth Mantell. She hoped 
 the little adventure had cured her boy, and 
 that now he would settle down to the life 
 of a respectable tradesman. 
 
 Robert, indeed, made some such resolu- 
 tion, for he wasn't particularly proud of 
 his exploit. But the old fever was too strong, 
 and he began looking about for a theatrical 
 engagement. He didn't want to go on the 
 stage in Belfast, because of his mother's 
 objections to a stage career, and because, 
 also, of a secret uneasiness concerning his 
 talents. He did not relish registering any 
 brilliant failure at home. 
 
 He learned from a friend, Frank Clements, 
 of a small opening in a stock company at 
 the Theatre Royal, Rochdale, Lancashire, 
 England. He applied for it and got it. 
 There, on the night of October 21, 1876, 
 without flourish of trumpet or clash of 
 
 59
 
 60 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 cymbals, Robert Bruce Mantell made his 
 professional stage debut. But he was regis- 
 tered as Robert Hudson, and his name 
 appeared opposite the Sergeant in Dion 
 Boucicault's "Arrah-na-Pogue." 
 
 Some idea of Mantell 's ability as an actor 
 at the outset of his career can be gathered 
 from a story he is fond of telling. 
 
 Years afterward when he had won his 
 spurs in "Fedora," Mantell and a number 
 of brother actors were sitting one night 
 around a table in the old Morton House, 
 New York. In the circle was the veteran 
 George Clarke, a leading member of 
 Augustin Daly's company. The conversa- 
 tion turned on the ludicrous in acting. 
 
 "George," somebody asked Clarke, "who 
 was the worst actor you ever saw?" 
 
 The veteran pondered. "I've seen so 
 many bad ones," he said, "that I really 
 can't answer off-hand. Oh, yes," suddenly 
 brightening, "I know now. I was playing 
 once in a little town in England, Rochdale, 
 I think. I was visiting star in 'The Shaugh- 
 raun.' There was a callow young galoot, a 
 member of the local stock company, who 
 was cast as Father Doolan. That young 
 man was the very worst actor I ever saw!" 
 
 "The drink's on me, Mr. Clarke," spoke 
 up Mantell. "I was that Father Doolan." 
 
 The night of the first presentation of
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 61 
 
 "The Merchant of Venice" by the stock 
 company in Rochdale came near proving 
 the Waterloo of the "callow galoot." A 
 few kind words from the stage manager, 
 Richard Edgar, saved a career. 
 
 Mantell was cast for Salarino. When he 
 walked on, in the first act, and opened his 
 lips to speak, he noticed some people in 
 the audience holding the book on him. It 
 was his first experience of the kind, and a 
 sudden fear that he would make a mistake 
 in his lines rendered him speechless. The 
 others on the stage, experienced stock 
 actors, sized up the situation, and quickly 
 "faked" across his lines. 
 
 Mantell walked off the stage cast down 
 to the lowest depths. He was a failure. 
 His career was ended. With his head bowed 
 in the misery of defeat, and looking neither 
 to the right nor the left, he made slowly for 
 the stage door, opened it, and started out. 
 
 "Where are you going?" asked Edgar, 
 who was decked in the gaudy parapher- 
 nalia of Launcelot Gobbo. 
 
 "Home," answered Mantell, drearily. 
 
 "Hadn't you better leave those clothes, 
 then?" said Edgar, but with a kindly 
 humor in his voice. 
 
 "Pardon me," replied Mantell, hastily. 
 "I forgot. I was so worried I didn't know 
 what I was doing."
 
 62 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "What are you worried about?" asked 
 Edgar, who already knew. 
 
 * My career's all over," answered Mantell, 
 tragically. : 'You saw how I spoiled the 
 performance. I'm not fit for the stage." 
 
 "Oh, come," cried Edgar, slapping him 
 heartily on the back. ;< That was nothing. 
 Cheer up, my boy. We all go through things 
 like that. The best of us are liable to go 
 up in our lines at any moment." 
 
 The youth, with grateful tears in his 
 eyes, grasped the hand of the stage man- 
 ager. He never forgot that little experience, 
 and many a raw beginner in his own com- 
 pany has blessed, without knowing it, the 
 kindly spirit of Edgar. 
 
 And so Robert Mantell was a full-fledged 
 actor, though truly, as Shakespeare would 
 say, only a fledgling still. He was given 
 small rdles in all the productions, and when 
 the Christmas season came round, he cele- 
 brated the anniversary of his billiard- 
 table performances by taking part in 
 the Rochdale pantomime. Complimentary 
 words from his fellow players, and occa- 
 sionally from the great Edgar himself, 
 caused him to feel that he had made no 
 mistake in the choice of a profession. He 
 was happy in the feeling. He was blissfully 
 ignorant of George Clarke's opinion of his 
 Father Doolan.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 63 
 
 But his happiness was not of the tainted 
 variety that comes, according to the ortho- 
 dox moralists, with great riches. His con- 
 tribution to the gayety of Rochdale was 
 rewarded with less than four American 
 dollars a week. 
 
 How did he manage to live on that? 
 Easily enough, with dreams of a rosy future 
 as an aid to subsistence. He and three 
 other young men drawing the same salary 
 took a couple of rooms in a cheap lodging 
 house that wasn't above giving shelter to 
 actors. They bought their own provisions, 
 and the lady of the house cooked them. 
 Meat was a luxury. They would buy it 
 in chunks and cut it into slices thin as 
 paper for frying. They learned to play a 
 joke on their stomachs. They would put a 
 small bit of the bacon in their mouths. 
 Then, while eating several slices of bread, 
 they would roll the bacon about with their 
 tongues, occasionally even biting it be- 
 tween their teeth. After appeasing their 
 hunger with the bread, they would swallow 
 the oacon. 
 
 The season at Rochdale wasn't over- 
 whelmingly successful to the impresario of 
 the stock company, in spite of his diminutive 
 salary list, and early in the spring Mantell's 
 first engagement ended with the disbanding 
 of the players.
 
 64 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 But he wasn't long without work. There 
 was an open-air celebration a sort of 
 fair in honor of Eastertide at Bolton, a 
 distance of only ten or fifteen miles. Thither 
 trudged the young actor with confidence 
 born of a season of experience. 
 
 The tragedian, Heffernan, was holding 
 forth in a tent at the fair. To him Mantell 
 applied for a job. Heffernan's company was 
 short, and when he found he could get the 
 handsome young applicant for mere living 
 expenses, he engaged him. 
 
 Heffernan was a character. He was an 
 actor of high talent and infinite resources, 
 lacking nothing but the final touch that 
 spells success. He was popular throughout 
 provincial England, but could never succeed 
 in London. 
 
 Heffernan's exhibitions at the fair were a 
 sample of his resourcefulness. He had made 
 versions of "Macbeth," "Othello," "Rich- 
 ard III," "Hamlet" and the rest, so hy- 
 draulically condensed that he could give 
 ten or a dozen performances a day. He did 
 his work so well that his audiences usually 
 went out with the impression that they had 
 seen Shakespeare. 
 
 Before the start of one of these tabloid 
 performances, Harlequin, Pantaloon, Colum- 
 bine and the rest would come out in front 
 of the tent and give a characteristic exhi-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 65 
 
 bition of foolery and sentiment that would 
 cause a gaping crowd to assemble. The 
 Columbine Mr. Mantell remembers par- 
 ticularly as a deliciously exquisite creature 
 who seemed the very fairy she impersonated. 
 When the little open-air performance was 
 over, the Clown would announce: 
 
 "Now, good people, step inside and see 
 the famous drama of Master William 
 Shakespeare, called * Macbeth.' The best 
 seats are only tuppence, and a single penny 
 will admit you to witness the marvelous 
 blood-curdling tragedy ! " 
 
 Usually the crowds would flock into the 
 tent on the trail of Columbine. Inside were 
 rough wooden benches. The penny seats 
 were separated from the twopence by a 
 row of spikes turned toward the rear. 
 Presently the curtain would go up, and 
 Heffernan, assisted principally by mem- 
 bers of his own family, would wade in 
 blood to his eyes through the most harrow- 
 ing of Shakespeare's scenes. His acting 
 was intensely vivid, if not artistically 
 finished. 
 
 One day, Heffernan was raving through 
 "Macbeth." He was in the midst of the 
 scene following the murder of Duncan. 
 
 "Is this a dagger which I see before me?" 
 he shrieked in frenzy. 
 
 "Naw," drawled a raw-boned Scot, seated
 
 66 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 in the front row. "It's the skin o' a finnan 
 haddie!" 
 
 "I'll finnan haddie ye!" yelled the 
 tragedian, and, leaping across the foot- 
 lights, he sprang upon the Scotchman, gave 
 him a sound drubbing, and then kicked him 
 up the aisle and out of the tent. 
 
 Heffernan then went back to the stage, 
 plunged once more into the role of Macbeth, 
 and finished the performance as if nothing 
 out of the ordinary had happened. Of such 
 stuff were made the tragedians in the school 
 of hard knocks where Robert Mantell 
 learned his art. Is it any wonder then, 
 that, at the turning point of his career, 
 Mantell more than duplicated the exploit 
 of Heffernan against a gang of ruffians who 
 sought to nullify his' acting as shall be 
 told in its proper place? 
 
 The engagement with Heffernan lasted 
 only during the two weeks of the Easter 
 fair, and then Mantell joined Charles 
 Mathews for small parts in "My Awful 
 Dad" and "The Clock-Maker's Hat." This 
 engagement, too, was brief, and the early 
 part of April found the adventurous young 
 actor in the company of Alice Marriott.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Episode of the Four Young Noblemen at 
 Fifteen Shillings a Week, with Other 
 Matters Pertinent to this Biography. 
 
 IT was a merry gang of happy-go-lucky 
 vagabonds that constituted Alice Mar- 
 riott's company. The repertoire of this 
 really accomplished tragedienne was 
 extensive, but the mainstay was "Queen 
 Elizabeth." 
 
 Mantell had the r61e of Lord Howard of 
 Effingham. He quickly struck up an inti- 
 mate friendship with Sir Francis Drake, the 
 Earl of Essex and Francis Lord Bacon. 
 The four noblemen became as inseparable 
 as D'Artagnan and his three comrades, 
 Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Lord Bacon 
 was our old friend Richard Edgar, stage 
 manager at Rochdale no longer "the 
 great Edgar," but now just an associate 
 actor of normal proportions. The Earl of 
 Essex was, in private life, MantelTs par- 
 ticular chum ("and I loved him like a 
 brother," Mantell told me), Frank Clem- 
 ents, who afterwards won distinction on the 
 stage in America. Sir Francis Drake be- 
 er
 
 68 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 came, in the wings, plain Gerald Eyre, if 
 so romantic a real name can be called plain. 
 
 These noblemen had fallen on evil days 
 since the intriguing times of good Queen 
 Bess, when they held all England in the 
 hollow of their hands. Their average earn- 
 ings now were only fifteen shillings a week. 
 But no one, seeing them in then* gorgeous 
 stage attire, would have guessed it. They 
 were even more suave and polite and pros- 
 perous looking than in the days of the 
 Spanish Armada. 
 
 Outside the theatre, the difference was 
 apparent. It was no uncommon sight to 
 behold the four friends trudging along the 
 street to their lodgings, Lord Howard with 
 a loaf of bread under his arm, Sir Francis 
 Drake with a joint of meat, Lord Bacon with 
 a string of sausages, and the Earl of Essex 
 with a bunch of onions. They themselves 
 realized how far they had fallen in the social 
 scale when even the majority of cheap inns 
 closed their doors to peers of the realm, and 
 often forced them to hunt for hours when 
 they struck a new town for a place to put 
 up for the night. 
 
 One day the four noblemen, then playing 
 in Hull, decided to improve their fortunes. 
 Sir Francis Drake, whose "head for figures" 
 had caused him to be appointed treasurer 
 of the quartet, lashed his brain into a
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 69 
 
 financial delirium, during the course of 
 which he came to the conclusion that he 
 had discovered a way to "beat the races." 
 He announced to his associates so confi- 
 dently that he knew "all about the horses" 
 that he convinced them. They, accordingly, 
 scraped all their savings together, and took 
 a trap to the race track eight miles away. 
 
 When they got there, they all turned over 
 their money to Sir Francis. He, with a 
 smile of superior and supreme confidence, 
 bided his time, and then laid every penny 
 on a "dead sure thing." The horse non- 
 chalantly strolled under the wire fifth or 
 sixth. 
 
 The smile on Sir Francis' face vanished 
 as quickly as if Queen Elizabeth had 
 suddenly turned off the electric current of 
 her favors. Clouds gathered on the brows 
 of the other three noblemen, but scarcely a 
 mutter of thunder was heard. 
 
 They were eight miles from Hull, and the 
 evening performance was less than four 
 hours off. There was no money in pocket 
 to pay for a trap in advance, and none at 
 home to pay the driver on arrival. The 
 four noblemen did the only thing left 
 they girded up their loins and started for 
 Hull after the manner of pilgrims of eld. 
 
 Away they trudged across ditches and 
 through ploughed fields, taking advantage of
 
 70 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 every short cut they could discover. Never 
 in the days when intrigue ran the highest 
 was Sir Francis Drake so unpopular as on 
 that dusty afternoon of early summer. 
 
 They reached the theatre only a few 
 minutes before time for the curtain, and 
 quickly exchanged their travel-stained gar- 
 ments for the regal attire of the Court of 
 Elizabeth. Nobody in the audience that 
 night suspected how hungry and footsore 
 were Lord Howard of Effingham, Sir Fran- 
 cis Drake, Francis Lord Bacon and the Earl 
 of Essex. 
 
 On the night of his debut with Miss 
 Marriott, Robert Mantell or Robert 
 Hudson, as he was still calling himself 
 had the second and last real stage fright of 
 his life. The first, it will be remembered, 
 was on the night of the premiere of "The 
 Merchant of Venice" at Rochdale. 
 
 Shakespeare again was responsible. The 
 play was "Hamlet." Mantell was cast for 
 Francisco. To him and Bernardo fell the 
 duty of breaking the ice. Mantell remem- 
 bered his Rochdale experience, and felt 
 nervous. Just before time for the curtain 
 to go up, he sought out the property man. 
 He slipped a shilling into a hand that, from 
 long experience, closed automatically over 
 the coin, and whispered : 
 
 "Turn the gas as low as you can."
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 71 
 
 The property man, without a why or 
 wherefore, did as he was told. But he 
 turned the flame too low, and the swish of 
 the curtains in parting blew it out. Ham- 
 let's father's ghost was forced to come un- 
 timely from his dread abode and relight it. 
 
 The humor of the situation touched 
 Mantell on his ever-present funny spot 
 and he forgot his fears. From that 
 moment to this, he has been a good "first 
 nighter." Many a time he has been vio- 
 lently nervous, but the nervousness has 
 always put fire into his veins. When much 
 has depended on a new venture, he has been 
 so excited he could not eat, but hunger has 
 had on him the savage effect it exerts on 
 the tiger. 
 
 Mantell rose rapidly in the good graces 
 of Miss Marriott. From Francisco, with 
 whom he doubled Guildenstern, the second 
 actor and the priest, she promoted him to 
 the ghost, and when she staged " Macbeth " 
 she assigned to him the parts of Ross and 
 Malcolm. 
 
 But the ch'max of her favors came a few 
 months later, after he had finished his first 
 tour with her, when she re-engaged him 
 especially for the r61e of Richard the Lion- 
 Hearted in a new production of "Ivan- 
 hoe." 
 
 The first performance was in Liverpool.
 
 72 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Mantell was in his glory. He strutted on to 
 the stage and spoke his lines with all the 
 unction of his best days in Robert Houston's 
 elocution school in Belfast. 
 
 When he walked off to the delightful 
 music of the first vigorous round of ap- 
 plause he had ever earned, he was met in 
 the wings by Miss Marriott in the garb of 
 Rebecca. 
 
 "You're doing fine, Bobbie," she whis- 
 pered proudly, "but," she added delicately, 
 "remember, lad, Richard was an English 
 king, not an Irish schoolmaster." 
 
 During the Christmas season of 1877, 
 just previous to this second engagement with 
 Miss Marriott, Mantell played in panto- 
 mime at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Here occurred 
 the first of a series of love adventures that 
 have made MantelPs stage career so pictur- 
 esque in the eyes of the feminine half of 
 humanity. 
 
 He fell desperately in love with a young 
 girl of wealthy family, and she returned 
 his affection just as desperately. But papa 
 was more desperate still. He had no more 
 use for stage vagabonds than the majority 
 of fond fathers in rural Britain in that day. 
 Mantell, though of Scotch blood, had all 
 the romance of Italy in his veins. Not 
 content with meeting his lady love dis- 
 creetly, he conceived the brilliant idea of
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 73 
 
 serenading her at her home, and one night 
 put the idea into effect. 
 , Father-in-law-not-to-be had ideas of his 
 own about the romantic customs of Italy. 
 He threatened to shoot the impassioned 
 young serenader if he didn't cease his 
 "screeching" and "caterwauling," as he 
 was unsympathetic enough to term the 
 exquisite tenor vocalizations, and all but 
 carried out the threat. 
 
 Mantell left Newcastle-on-Tyne with a 
 broken heart. But it was not primarily to 
 bind together the shattered fragments that 
 he went to Glasgow. He had been engaged 
 by Miss Ellen Wallis, a capable actress- 
 manager, for "responsible business," and it 
 was to fill this engagement that he returned 
 to his native Scotland. He was not long 
 with Miss Wallis, however, before his 
 former manager, Miss Marriott, drafted 
 him for her production of "Ivanhoe," 
 launched in Liverpool, as has already been 
 related. 
 
 MantelTs engagement in Liverpool 
 marked a turning point in his career. For 
 it was in this metropolis of Western Eng- 
 land that H. J. Sargent, then abroad look- 
 ing for talent to support Mme. Modjeska 
 on an ambitious American tour, saw the 
 handsome young Scotchman. Sargent was 
 not long in placing him under contract at
 
 74 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 twenty-five dollars a week, which looked 
 like a huge sum alongside the four dollars 
 he had been receiving, and the eight or ten 
 dollars he was getting now. 
 
 Upon concluding his Liverpool engage- 
 ment with Miss Marriott, Mantell went to 
 his old home in Belfast to spend the sum- 
 mer before starting for the New World, 
 again to seek his fortune, but this time with 
 better prospects of success. He had gained 
 now a foothold on the stage, though, as 
 yet, the future looked none too bright to 
 a Scotch instinct of thriftiness. England 
 held promise only of slow advancement. 
 America, in spite of the Boston disaster, 
 was a land of golden dreams. 
 
 And so it came about that on October 30, 
 1878, Robert Mantell again set sail across 
 the Atlantic, on the steamer Helvetia. 
 And this brings us up to Chapter I of this 
 authentic biography, in which is recorded 
 the disaster of the revenue cutter Fanny. 
 
 Robert MantelPs adventures from now 
 on belong chiefly to America. We shall 
 accompany him back to the Old World for 
 an exciting or an amusing experience or 
 two, but for the most part we must zigzag 
 with him across this continent.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 First Impressions of America by the Blonde 
 Tybalt. 
 
 ON the very opening night of his 
 engagement in America at the old 
 Leyland Opera House in Albany 
 Robert Mantell excited the ad- 
 miration of the one person whose opinion 
 counted with him just then more than that 
 of anybody else Mme. Modjeska herself. 
 The play was "Romeo and Juliet." Man- 
 tell was the Tybalt. Instead of making up 
 with the traditional black wig, Mantell 
 presented Tybalt in his own natural blonde 
 curly hair. 
 
 "You are charming," said Modjeska, 
 with her little sprightly jerk. " You are a 
 stunner, and should not be killed." 
 
 Long years afterward the mature Mantell 
 returned the compliment in these words: 
 
 "Mme. Modjeska was the loveliest star 
 I ever supported. She was a sweet, good 
 woman, and an artist to her finger tips." 
 
 On this opening night in Albany, Mantell 
 played for the first time under his own 
 name. Heretofore he had always appeared 
 as Robert Hudson. Sargent was responsible 
 for the change. 
 
 75
 
 76 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "What shall we call you on the pro- 
 gram?" he asked Mantell. 
 
 "Robert Hudson, I suppose," was the 
 reply; "that's what I have been calling 
 myself all along." 
 
 "But your own name is more distinctive," 
 said Sargent; "there are hundreds of 
 Hudsons in America." 
 
 "All right," returned the actor, "put it 
 Mantell. We are a long way from Belfast." 
 
 And Mantell it has been ever since. 
 And it wasn't many years before his bril- 
 liant success caused his family to forgive 
 the "disgrace" into which he had plunged 
 the name. 
 
 Apropos of Modjeska and "Romeo and 
 Juliet," Mr. Mantell was an eye witness of 
 an amusing incident in London a few years 
 later, when Shakespeare's Italian romance 
 was being played with Modjeska as Juliet 
 and Forbes-Robertson as Romeo. 
 
 It was the scene in which Romeo and 
 Count Paris, played on this occasion by 
 Herbert Standing, fight the duel at the 
 tomb of Juliet. Romeo had just slain the 
 unfortunate young nobleman and had placed 
 him, in accordance with his dying request, 
 by the side of the rigid Juliet, when the 
 dim lamp over the scene flickered up and set 
 fire to some drapery. 
 
 Romeo tried, with as little departure
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 77 
 
 from the poetry of the situation as possible, 
 to put out the fire. Juliet, with iron nerve, 
 retained her pose of death, in spite of the 
 fact that the drapery was burning directly 
 above her and a detached bit of the flaming 
 cloth might drop on her at any moment. 
 Count Paris, however, was seized with 
 nervous qualms. He picked himself up and 
 quietly stole away. Then, a stage hand 
 with a long hook gathered in the burning 
 drapery and easily extinguished the fire. 
 Thereupon, Count Paris, amid the titters 
 of the audience, quietly glided back, lay 
 down and died a second time, and the 
 pathetic scene went on. 
 
 Robert Mantell kept a diary of his first 
 tour of America. It was the first and only 
 diary he ever kept in his life. As a veracious 
 biographer, I am compelled to state that it 
 resembles more the diary of Samuel Clemens 
 than that of Samuel Pepys. 
 
 You remember the extract Mark Twain 
 published from the diary he started in his 
 boyhood days, at the instigation of a pious 
 aunt or some other relative, who thought 
 it would be the making of him, if he could 
 turn his hare brain to serious introspection, 
 and record his daily deeds and thoughts. 
 The result ran like this : 
 
 Monday Got up, washed, went to bed. 
 
 Tuesday Got up, washed, went to bed.
 
 78 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Wednesday Got up, washed, went to 
 bed. 
 
 Thursday Got up, washed, went to 
 bed. 
 
 Friday Got up, washed, went to bed. 
 
 Next Friday Got up, washed, went to 
 bed. 
 
 Friday fortnight Got up, washed, went 
 to bed. 
 
 Following month Got up, washed, went 
 to bed. 
 
 Now, compare this extract from Robert 
 Mantell's diary of his voyage to America: 
 
 Nov. 1 Fine weather. 
 
 Nov. 2 Fine weather. 
 
 Nov. 3 Fine weather. Passed sailing 
 ship. 
 
 Nov. 4 Blowing pretty hard. 
 
 Nov. 5 The sea going down. Rolling 
 yet. Fog whistle. 
 
 Nov. 6 Nearly calm. 
 
 Nov. 7 Cold and cloudy. 
 
 Nov. 8 A little stormy. Passed two 
 steamers. Very stormy at night. 
 
 Nov. 9 Awful stormy. 
 
 Nov. 10 The sea has gone down, and 
 our bark goes well. 
 
 Or, better still, take this extract: 
 
 Mar. 3 Terre Haute, Indiana Small 
 place. 
 
 Mar. 4 Lafayette, Indiana Small place.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 79 
 
 Mar. 5 Fort Wayne, Indiana Small 
 place. 
 
 Mar. 6 Springfield, Ohio Small place. 
 
 But this waste of inanities, which is a 
 sample of ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 diaries kept by ambitious youth wishing to 
 curry favor in the eyes of their elders, is 
 relieved here and there by an interesting 
 observation or adventure. 
 
 On January 6, the young Scotchman 
 found Baltimore a "great place for oysters." 
 The next week he visited our beloved 
 Washington City, whose White House and 
 Capitol and Monument inspire such surg- 
 ings of patriotism in the breasts of the 
 youth of America. He found it a "great 
 place for oysters and ten pins." That is his 
 entire impression, as recorded in his diary. 
 
 He was "greatly disappointed" in New 
 Orleans and "wouldn't live in it for any- 
 thing," and Pittsburg (which then had not 
 arrived at the dignity of the final "h") 
 was, as he expressed it, a "dirty hole." 
 The mature Mantell has changed his opinion 
 of both these cities. 
 
 He was favorably impressed with Indian- 
 apolis, which appeared "something like 
 Belfast," and Louisville he found "a very 
 nice city." Cincinnati was "one of the 
 most ungodly places he was ever in." 
 
 In Kalamazoo he ate frogs for the first
 
 80 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 time and found them "splendid." In De- 
 troit he got his first taste of real Ameri- 
 can winter. In Grand Rapids he enjoyed 
 his first sleigh ride "great value!" he 
 exclaims. 
 
 At Norfolk, Mme. Modjeska invited him 
 to go aboard the American flagship, Pow- 
 hatan, with her, and he found the trip very 
 interesting. At Savannah, he and a number 
 of other members of the company went 
 horseback riding. Atlanta he describes as 
 "a busy place." 
 
 Near Montgomery, Alabama, he experi- 
 enced his first railroad wreck, and the only 
 one to date in his entire career. The private 
 car in which Modjeska and her company 
 traveled ran off the track and came near 
 plunging down an embankment. Count 
 Bozenta, husband of the star, an important 
 little man, ran about highly excited when 
 the danger was all over, much to the 
 aggravation of Modjeska and the amuse- 
 ment of everybody else. 
 
 In Memphis, Mantell experienced his 
 first hotel fire. "Don't like this town at 
 all," is the entry in the diary. " Will be glad 
 to leave it. Fire in the hotel. Devil of a 
 fright. I shall never forget this place as 
 long as I live. One cannot imagine what a 
 fright one gets when the hotel is on fire. 
 I don't wish it to occur again." For the
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 81 
 
 benefit of the superstitious, it might be 
 added that it was the thirteenth of a month 
 February, 1879. 
 
 St. Louis impressed the youthful visitor 
 as a " very important city." " Some say," he 
 adds, "that the population is larger than 
 Chicago." 
 
 Chicago is given more space in the diary 
 than any other city. The company re- 
 mained here two weeks. "We are doing 
 splendid business," says our chronicler. 
 "Indeed, we do good business everywhere. 
 As for the city, it's one of the finest, in my 
 humble opinion, I have seen. The hotels 
 are the finest I ever saw. I went to church 
 on Sunday. It was the finest Presbyterian 
 church I ever saw. There were fifty in the 
 choir. The preaching was good and the 
 singing elegant. Our time was very pleas- 
 antly spent one way or another in Chicago." 
 
 It is recorded that "nothing wonderful 
 happened " in Rochester. There was "plenty 
 of rain" in Syracuse. "One of the finest 
 hotels in America" was visited in Utica. 
 "One of the worst hotels anywhere" was 
 encountered next day in Troy. 
 
 Boston had "greatly improved" since 
 his visit there five years before, when, for 
 ten days, he had trudged the streets in 
 search of work. Rosy spectacles, doubt- 
 less. But the thing that impressed the
 
 82 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 diarist most was the fact that there were 
 38,000 more women than men in the New 
 England metropolis. 
 
 From Boston, Modjeska jumped to New 
 York. "Fine city, I am delighted with it," 
 says the diary. At the Grand Opera House 
 on the night of April 28, 1879, Robert Man- 
 tell made his first appearance in the capital 
 of New World theatredom. His first part 
 in New York was Old Dill in "East Lynn." 
 Mme. Modjeska hated this play to the 
 bottom of her artistic soul, but it was a 
 money-maker, and she chose it for her 
 opening bill in New York. Mantell was 
 greeted here by a number of his old friends 
 from Belfast who had emigrated to America, 
 and they showed him a royal good time. 
 
 A brief trip through New England 
 Providence, Springfield, Hartford and New 
 Haven ended the tour. "The scenery 
 about these places," says the diary, "is 
 more like England's than any in America." 
 
 Here is the summing up of this first sea- 
 son in America by the young Scotch actor, 
 who was destined, long after, to take his 
 place as the foremost classic tragedian on 
 the stage of the New World. It is dated at 
 Springfield, May 14: 
 
 "As our tour ends, all our company feel 
 sorry, for it has been most enjoyable. 
 Every comfort one can wish for we have
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 83 
 
 had. We did all our tour in a very hand- 
 some palace car. The gentlemen of the 
 company were all splendid fellows. Can't 
 say much about the ladies. Modjeska 
 (Countess Bozenta), our star, was all one 
 could ask for in goodness, etc. As for H. J. 
 Sargent, our manager, I never knew a 
 finer fellow." 
 
 On May 17, Mantell sailed for home on 
 the Helvetia, the same steamer that had 
 rammed the Fanny coming out. Mantell 
 seems to have been her "hoodoo." There 
 was a fog. " We got stuck on Sandy Hook," 
 says the diary. 
 
 "Yes, and to pick a pocket," remarked 
 to me the tragedian, thirty -five years later, 
 sitting on the cool porch of his summer 
 home at Atlantic Highlands and gazing out 
 toward the sickle of land across which 
 swept the Atlantic breezes that were so 
 refreshing to us, while New York, twenty 
 miles away, sweltered in the August sun, 
 "I have been stuck on Sandy Hook ever 
 since."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Last Days in the Old World, Terminating 
 with the Episode of the Beautiful Gypsy 
 Stage Queen. 
 
 IN spite of the favorable impression 
 America had made upon him, in spite 
 of the opportunities opened up in this 
 country after his successful tour with 
 Modjeska, Robert Mantell found it no easy 
 matter to tear himself away from the 
 motherland. His months of absence had 
 made him homesick. He hoped against 
 conviction that fortune would smile brightly 
 upon him in his own hemisphere. 
 
 Accordingly, less than two months after 
 landing in England, he joined the company 
 of the distinguished actor-manager, George 
 S. Knight. With Knight he toured for 
 more than a year, playing fairly good parts, 
 but drawing a meagre salary. When Knight 
 appeared at the Theatre Royal, Belfast, he 
 complimented the young actor by assign- 
 ing to him in his home city the r61e of lago 
 to Frank Clement's Othello. This was 
 Mantell's first appearance as lago, a r61e in 
 which he afterwards, as a star, won ex- 
 traordinary distinction in America, alter- 
 nating it with the Moor. 
 
 84
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 85 
 
 It was with Knight that Mantell made his 
 first appearance in London in July, 1880, 
 playing at the famous Sadler's Wells, where, 
 from 1844 to 1862, Samuel Phelps had made 
 the brilliantly successful experiment of 
 producing all of the plays of Shakespeare, 
 except "Henry VI," "Troilus and Cres- 
 sida," "Titus Andronicus" and "Richard 
 II." (Incidentally, it may be remarked, Mr. 
 Mantell considers Samuel Phelps the most 
 magnificent Cardinal Richelieu he ever saw.) 
 
 With Knight, Mantell not only acted, 
 but also assisted in the management of the 
 stage, and there laid the groundwork for 
 the extraordinary technical knowledge with 
 which he has since, on many occasions, 
 astounded experienced carpenters and elec- 
 tricians in his employ. They have some- 
 times declared certain effects sought by the 
 star to be impossible. Mantell has, on such 
 occasions, taken into his own hands the 
 saw or hatchet or rope or electric lamp and 
 shown how easily the effect can be produced. 
 
 To this side of Mantell's experience with 
 Knight belongs a good story illustrating the 
 sanguinity of youth. 
 
 It was just before the Christmas season 
 at Stockton-on-Tees. As in America at the 
 present time, the few days before Christmas 
 are wretchedly bad in the theatre, every- 
 body spending their money for gifts. Knight
 
 86 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 disbanded his company for the dull period. 
 The players scattered in all directions, 
 leaving Mantell and Archie Lindsay, a 
 fellow actor and mechanician, to look after 
 the baggage and effects. 
 
 Lindsay resembled the merry, diabolical 
 Panurge of Rabelais, in that he had a coat 
 studded wonderfully with pockets. A care- 
 ful inventory revealed twenty-eight. Their 
 main purpose was to accommoaate Lind- 
 say's "sandwiches/* as he termed little 
 flat flasks of Scotch whiskey. 
 
 The baggage was sent to Stockton-on- 
 Tees, and thither went Mantell and Lind- 
 say. They arrived at night. The baggage 
 had been unloaded on the station platform 
 by the trainmen. A light snow was falling, 
 and there were no carts anywhere in sight. 
 
 "You stay here and watch the stuff, and 
 I'll go hunt some kind of a wagon to get 
 it in out of the wet," said Lindsay to 
 Mantell. "And you'd better take another 
 'sandwich* to keep out the cold." 
 
 "All right," Mantell assented, to both 
 propositions. 
 
 It wasn't cold, in spite of the snow, and 
 Mantell nestled comfortably among the 
 trunks and bags to await Lindsay's return. 
 Presently he fell asleep. 
 
 The next thing he knew, Lindsay was 
 shaking him roughly.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 87 
 
 "Wake up, Bob; here's a telegram for 
 you," he said. 
 
 Mantell sat up and rubbed his eyes. Then 
 he took the telegram, and tore it open 
 sleepily. But the contents, read by the 
 dim light from the station window, electrified 
 him: 
 
 "Have to go to the Continent for a few weeks. 
 Will you come immediately to London and play my 
 parts? 
 
 "HENRY IRVING." 
 
 Mantell was dumbfounded. But thrills 
 of happiness chased each other up and 
 down his spine. The great Irving, then, 
 had seen him act! Irving, of all men, had 
 discovered in him genius ! 
 
 "What must I do?" he asked Lindsay. 
 
 "Do, y* ninny? Go, of course!" 
 
 "All right, and you're coming along," 
 said Mantell. 
 
 A London-bound train whistled down the 
 track. The two young actors hastily picked 
 their own luggage out of the heap before 
 them, and when the train puffed up, they 
 sprang into a compartment, leaving 
 Knight's effects to shift for themselves. 
 
 On arriving in London, they went to 
 apartments Lindsay had formerly occu- 
 pied. Mantell, in his excitement, knew it 
 would be useless to go to bed. He decided 
 to "brush up" on Hamlet, The porter had
 
 88 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 just brought his little wardrobe trunk. 
 Mantell opened it. He had been robbed! 
 The Hamlet compartment was empty, ex- 
 cept for the skull of Yorick. He picked up 
 the skull. A folded paper fell out. He 
 opened it and read: 
 
 "Telegram all a joke." 
 
 He turned on Lindsay, who had a grin 
 all over his face. He picked up the skull 
 angrily, and hurled it with all his force at 
 the head of the practical joker. He missed 
 his aim. The skull hit the wall, and was 
 shivered in a hundred pieces. 
 
 The clatter really woke up the dreamer 
 this time. He was lying amid the baggage 
 on the station platform. Lindsay was com- 
 ing up with a handcart he had borrowed. 
 The rattle of the iron wheels on the cobble- 
 stones resembled the clatter of the shattered 
 skull. It had been one of those peculiar 
 dreams in which the dreamer dreams he 
 is awake. 
 
 But stay was there nothing more in it 
 than an idle dream? Did not it reveal to 
 the young actor, more clearly than any- 
 thing else could have done, the secret, sub- 
 conscious confidence he had in his ability? 
 He could play Irving's parts, if he had the 
 chance! This confidence in himself, com- 
 bined with an iron determination to realize 
 the best that was in him, caused Robert
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 89 
 
 Mantell in later years to overcome obstacles 
 that heaped themselves before him like the 
 granite sides of impassable mountains. 
 
 Mantell's engagement with Knight came 
 to an end after the London run. He took 
 lodgings in the great city at half a crown a 
 week, and, as his savings from the lean 
 salary he had received the past year were 
 small, he lived very economically on bacon, 
 bread, and watercress. 
 
 He discovered during this period a new 
 way of fooling his stomach. He would 
 stand before a restaurant, feast on the odors 
 coming from the good things cooking inside, 
 rolling a small piece of tobacco about in his 
 mouth at the same time, and presently 
 walk away with the impression he had had 
 a square meal. Verily, a strong imagination 
 was a valuable asset to a young actor in 
 those days. 
 
 Stage work was scarce in London that 
 summer, and Mantell could find nothing 
 to do. His savings gradually dwindled 
 down to a three-penny bit, which had the 
 misfortune to be made of lead in place of 
 silver. He walked boldly into a tobacco 
 shop and asked for an ounce of black twist. 
 The proprietor, an evil-faced individual, cut 
 off the amount as carefully as Shylock, and 
 wrapped it up. Mantell put the package 
 into his pocket, laid the three-penny bit on
 
 90 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the counter gently so it wouldn't make a 
 telltale sound, and started for the door. 
 
 " Here, you, what are you trying to pass 
 on me?" yelled the shopkeeper, as his 
 customer was disappearing down the steps. 
 
 "What's the matter?" countered Man- 
 tell, turning sharply. 
 
 "This is lead," said the tobacconist, with 
 a threat in his voice. 
 
 "That!" exclaimed Mantell in feigned 
 surprise, returning and picking up the coin. 
 "Call that lead?" Then, indignantly: 
 "Here, take your old tobacco. You don't 
 know good money when you see it!" 
 
 He threw down the package, thrust the 
 coin into his pocket, tossed his head, and 
 strutted out of the shop with offended 
 dignity. 
 
 The performance was repeated, with 
 variations, but with the same ultimate 
 result, in two or three other tobacco shops, 
 and then the young actor, having nothing else 
 to do, strolled idly into the National Gallery. 
 
 A new and rather gruesome painting of 
 Ophelia lying dead in the water attracted 
 his attention. It was a product of the 
 French realistic school. He sat down on a 
 bench in front of it, and gazed at it for 
 several minutes. Two women sat near him 
 on the bench. When they arose and started 
 to leave, Mantell saw a blue envelope lying
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 91 
 
 there. It was not sealed. He opened it. 
 His eyes nearly popped from his head. 
 There before him were 200 pounds in Bank 
 of England notes. 
 
 His struggle with himself was of only a 
 moment's duration. Then he ran after the 
 two women. He caught up with them as 
 they were entering a cab. 
 
 "Did you drop something?*' he asked. 
 
 The women went through their effects. 
 Then, one of them exclaimed excitedly: 
 
 "Oh, the money! It was in a blue en- 
 velope! Two hundred pounds! Give it to 
 me, quick!" 
 
 Mantell handed the envelope to her. 
 She hastily drew out the money and 
 counted it. There was a great sigh of relief. 
 
 ; 'Yes! It's all there! Drive on, cabby!" 
 
 "Not so much as a * thank you,'" mused 
 Mantell. "But, I wasn't a thief, anyhow. 
 That's some consolation." 
 
 He started slowly and aimlessly down 
 the street, musing on the ingratitude of 
 some people. 
 
 "Hello, Mantell!" yelled a voice with a 
 familiar ring. " Want a job? " 
 
 He looked up quickly. There stood an actor 
 named Somerset w r hom he had known the 
 few weeks he had played with Miss Wallis. 
 
 "Do I want a job? Do I want a Sure 
 thing, you idiot! What is it?"
 
 92 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "Playing Orlando." 
 
 "I'll play anything. Any money in it?" 
 
 "Five pounds a week." 
 
 " Impossible anything down? " 
 
 "Here's a sovereign." 
 
 "Thank you you're talking real talk 
 what's the company?" 
 
 " Miss WalhV she wants you for leads. 
 She told me to look you up, and I've 
 stumbled across you." 
 
 "Bully for her. Here goes my last 
 'threppence." 
 
 With all his force, Mantell threw away 
 his leaden coin. 
 
 Books on morality for the young are 
 invited to copy the above anecdote of the 
 quick reward of virtue. It is as good as 
 anything ever invented by the authors of 
 Sunday school literature, and has the merit 
 of being strictly true. Doubtless, had 
 Mantell pocketed the 200 pounds, he would 
 have got drunk to drown an evil conscience. 
 In that condition, he would have staggered 
 down the street, and, with a fiendish laugh, 
 would have killed a little innocent child 
 that accidentally ran across his path. Then, 
 he would have been hung up on the gallows 
 for the brutal murder. As it was, he gave 
 the money back, and immediately fell into 
 a fortune of $25 a week. 
 
 In adapting the story for the Sunday
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 93 
 
 school books, however, I would caution the 
 editor to be discreetly silent about the 
 leaden nickel our hero was trying to pass on 
 an innocent tobacconist awhile ago. No 
 use tainting a story which contains so 
 beautiful a lesson. 
 
 Mantel! joined Miss Wallis at the Theatre 
 Royal, Birmingham, and played with her 
 successfully not only Orlando, but also 
 Claude Melnotte, in "The Lady of Lyons," 
 and Romeo. 
 
 It was while playing Romeo with Miss 
 Wallis just before Christmas that there 
 happened one of those amusing incidents 
 so pat that they are scarcely credible. And 
 yet, any veteran of the stage can recall two 
 or three similar ones in his own experience. 
 
 Mantell and Miss Wallis were doing the 
 balcony scene. They had reached the 
 climax of luxurious Italian passion. 
 
 "I would I were thy bird," uttered 
 Romeo, deliciously. 
 
 Juliet had opened her sweet lips to reply, 
 when there was a raucous "Quack! Quack!" 
 and a great fat goose came fluttering 
 clumsily from the glorious Italian sky. It 
 hit the floor, and waddled off into the wings 
 in awkward excitement. 
 
 The audience howled, and the curtain 
 had to be rung down. Miss Wallis burst 
 into tears and became hysterical. Whipping
 
 94 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 out a little penknife, she started on a hunt 
 for the goose, with the full intention of 
 slitting its ill-starred throat. But the stage 
 hands, to whom the bird belonged, had 
 smuggled it away. 
 
 The goose was being fattened for Christ- 
 mas. It had become a great pet around the 
 theatre, and was given the freedom of the 
 stage when the men were at work between 
 performances. On this particular night, the 
 stage hands had forgotten to pen it up 
 before raising the curtain. The goose had 
 wandered up into the paint loft with the 
 scenic artist. With an instinct almost fiend- 
 ish, it had tumbled from its perch at the 
 most inopportune moment of the entire 
 play. 
 
 The following February, 1881, Mantell 
 renewed his contract with Miss Wallis, 
 including in it, for small roles, Marie Shel- 
 don, his newly acquired bride, whom he 
 had met some tune before in Glasgow. 
 This arrangement continued until about 
 Easter, when Mantell joined the famous 
 actor-manager and dramatist, Dion Bouci- 
 cault, with whom he played juvenile leads 
 in a series of revivals of Boucicault's own 
 plays, "The Shaughraun," "The Colleen 
 Bawn" and "Kerry." 
 
 After four weeks with Boucicault in 
 Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds and Birming-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 95 
 
 ham, Man tell rejoined Miss Wallis to create 
 the part of Paul in a new stage version of 
 "Paul and Virginia." The play was a fail- 
 ure, but Mantell remained for a time with 
 Miss Wallis, appearing in his former r61es 
 and adding Benedict. 
 
 Early in 1882, Mantell began an engage- 
 ment as leading man with the most pictur- 
 esque star he supported in his entire career 
 Marie De Grey, an extraordinarily beau- 
 tiful woman of gypsy blood. The feature 
 of her repertoire was a gorgeous production 
 of "Amy Robsart," dramatized from Scott. 
 She had, of course, the title part, and 
 Mantell played the Earl of Leicester. 
 
 Perhaps never, on the English stage, was 
 seen so glorious a creature as Amy, with 
 her sparkling black eyes, her curly raven 
 hair, and her gown lavish in color, gold 
 and lace to the point of barbarism. 
 
 Mantell instantly, with his handsome face 
 and form, won the admiration of the 
 temperamental gypsy. She gave him every 
 r61e in which she thought he would shine 
 Romeo, Orlando, Charles Surface and 
 Young Marlow, in addition to Leicester. 
 She paid him eight pounds a week, an 
 unusual salary then for a provincial leading 
 man. 
 
 So lavish was she with her praise of his 
 acting and her efforts to advance him in
 
 96 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the good graces of their audiences, that, 
 when the time came for him to leave her, 
 he was put in a delicate position, from 
 which, in spite of his usual tact and diplo- 
 macy, he did not succeed in extricating 
 himself without a scene. 
 
 The rupture came on the night of August 
 12 in Hull. Marie De Grey had put on a 
 production of " Macbeth" to give her young 
 leading man a chance as the Thane. There 
 had been only three days' rehearsal, and 
 Mantell remembers the performance as a 
 "particularly awful" one. Marie De Grey, 
 however, had only words of praise after the 
 fall of the last curtain. In the midst of the 
 exchange of compliments, for Mantell was 
 not to be left behind in an affair of courtesy 
 and was bestowing on Lady Macbeth the 
 same sort of adulation the Thane of Cawdor 
 was receiving, the young actor announced, 
 as delicately as he could, that he had been 
 called to America, and must soon sail. 
 The gypsy was at first stunned, and then 
 she flew into a passion and a violent quarrel 
 followed. 
 
 Five days later, Robert Mantell boarded 
 a steamer at Queenstown. He never saw 
 Marie De Grey again. Nor ever again did 
 he play in the British Isles, except for a few 
 nights the following summer of 1883 at 
 the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. The play
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 97 
 
 was called, appropriately enough, "The Old 
 Love and the New.*' He was discarding 
 forever the Old World hereafter, he be- 
 longs exclusively to the New.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Leaping into a Blaze of Glory. 
 
 ROBERT MANTELL was soon to 
 score in America the tremendous 
 hit that made him the idol of the 
 hour, and that established his name 
 forever in the hall of theatrical fame. But 
 the triumph was deferred for a year. 
 
 The "call to America, " which had served 
 an effective purpose in the scene with the 
 gypsy star, had been made by the theatri- 
 cal magnate Stetson, who planned to estab- 
 lish a Shakespearean stock company in his 
 New York theatre. He had engaged Mantell 
 for leading parts and Marie Sheldon for 
 minor roles, at a combined salary of one 
 hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, a 
 figure that seemed scarcely believable to 
 the young actor. 
 
 Stetson's plans fell through in the early 
 autumn. Brooks and Dickson, however, 
 who were on the lookout for an actor of the 
 type of Mantell for the part of Sir Clement 
 Huntingford in their new melodrama, "The 
 World," gladly took the contract off Stet- 
 son's hands. Mantell opened at the Grand 
 
 98
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 99 
 
 Opera House shortly afterward. It was the 
 first time he had played a leading part in 
 America. 
 
 The stay of "The World" in New York 
 was brief. It was sent on tour. But Brooks 
 and Dickson recalled Mantell from the 
 road to create Jack Hearn in "The Romany 
 Rye," which endured throughout the sea- 
 son. After a brief visit to Scotland, Mantell 
 returned to New York, and to triumph. 
 
 "On the opening night of * Fedora/ 
 Robert Mantell was the handsomest figure 
 that ever greeted a feminine eye," a woman 
 who was in that audience at the Fourteenth- 
 Street Theatre told me long afterward. 
 
 Something like that must have been the 
 case, for Robert Mantell, by the one per- 
 formance of Loris Ipanoff that red-letter 
 night of October 1, 1883, sprang instantly 
 from obscurity into the full blaze of the 
 limelight. The Fourteenth-Street Theatre 
 thereafter was taxed to the utmost. The 
 handsome young Scotchman was lionized 
 for the season by the dashing crowds of 
 Broadway. 
 
 Fanny Davenport had secured from Vic- 
 torien Sardou the American rights to his 
 new play, "Fedora," by the payment down 
 of a cool thirty-five thousand dollars in 
 cash. She had pawned everything she pos- 
 sessed to raise the money, including a neck-
 
 100 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 lace of twenty-five magnificent diamonds 
 valued at a thousand dollars each. 
 
 Miss Davenport, as can well be imagined, 
 was at a high nervous tension on the opening 
 night in New York. Either the romantic 
 Russian play from the pen of the prolific 
 Frenchman must succeed or she must stare 
 pauperism in the face. 
 
 The names of Sardou and Davenport 
 filled the theatre with the elite of New York. 
 It looked like a millionaire night at the 
 opera. The audience expected great things 
 great sensations great thrills. 
 
 The swish of the curtain as it went down 
 on the first act was distinctly audible. 
 There was scarcely a ripple of even polite 
 applause. Decidedly the audience was dis- 
 appointed. Miss Davenport was gloomy 
 and downcast. Mantell cheered her up the 
 best he could. 
 
 The curtain fell on the second act. Again 
 there was no applause. Fanny Davenport 
 was in tears. Her little fortune had been 
 thrown away. 
 
 But Mantell became angry. His Scotch 
 blood rose up. 
 
 "We'll hit 'em next time, the icebergs!" 
 he said to Miss Davenport, with something 
 near a savage growl in his voice. 
 
 The spirit was contagious. The star dried 
 her eyes.
 
 UOLKS IN WHICH MANTKLL STAHTLKI) XKW YORK
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 101 
 
 "All right," she replied, and set her teeth. 
 
 The curtain went up. Loris Ipanoff, the 
 outlaw, and Fedora, the tigress, buckled 
 down to work like grim death. 
 
 Fedora's lover had been assassinated. 
 Loris, the suspect, had been tracked down, 
 and was now confronted by the woman. 
 She was cross-questioning him. 
 
 Yes, he had seen the slain man. He had 
 caught him and his own fiancee together, 
 she sitting on his knee. 
 
 The spell of the story was beginning to 
 work. The spirit of the players was crossing 
 the footlights. The audience became tense. 
 
 How, now, was Loris Ipanoff going to 
 establish his innocence, after this damning 
 admission? 
 
 "I killed him!" 
 
 The confession was tremendously star- 
 tling. It had been wholly unexpected. The 
 audience forgot itself. Scores sprang to their 
 feet and yelled. 
 
 "Kill them both! Kill them both!" 
 shrieked Fedora. 
 
 Again there was an answering yell from 
 the other side of the footlights. 
 
 The play was made ! 
 
 A few weeks later, Fanny Davenport, one 
 night before the curtain went up, dangled a 
 magnificent diamond necklace in front of 
 Mantell's eyes.
 
 102 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "I got it back," she said, happily. 
 
 There is no treason to the memory of 
 Fanny Davenport in asserting that Loris 
 Ipanoff was the making of "Fedora." That 
 is the report of the press of the period and 
 the opinion expressed after all these years 
 by the theatregoers who saw the play in its 
 prime. Miss Davenport herself acknowl- 
 edged it, and instead of becoming jealous 
 and ridding herself of so "dangerous" a 
 leading man, she raised his salary to a hand- 
 some figure. 
 
 The estimate in which Mantell was held 
 by universal voice, in the days of "Fedora" 
 and those immediately following, can be 
 gathered from this appreciation of his work 
 from a leading journal glancing at the 
 stars then shining in the New York con- 
 stellation: 
 
 "The stage shows us so many robustuous 
 creatures who tear a passion to pieces and 
 rend the air with a great volume of rhetoric 
 that there is nothing pleasanter in life than 
 to turn from them and grow restful in the 
 natural fire of Mr. Mantell, the ease of Mr. 
 John Gilbert, the artless pleasing of Miss 
 Rehan or the unconscious dignity and grace 
 of Miss Millward. These clever folks have 
 gained eminence by fine talent united to a 
 simple expression of nature in the characters 
 they assume and the emotions they endure.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 103 
 
 It requires indeed much art to present this 
 simplicity. For, paradoxical though the state- 
 ment may seem, there appears to be nothing 
 so hard to humanity as to be natural." 
 
 New York, and, through New York, all 
 theatregoing America, worshipped at the 
 shrine of the young Scotch genius who had 
 burst so suddenly from obscurity. The 
 managers were quick to recognize his value 
 from a commercial standpoint. He was 
 besieged with offers. One of them, made by 
 Daniel Frohman at a figure then considered 
 almost fabulous, ten thousand dollars a 
 year, was accepted. A contract was en- 
 tered into, which was to take effect after 
 the expiration of the engagement of "Fe- 
 dora." The provisions of the contract, 
 however, were never fully carried out, 
 though Mantell appeared for a time under 
 Frohman's management. 
 
 The triumph in "Fedora" was to be 
 repeated long afterward by the very same 
 actor, Robert Bruce Mantell, in another 
 play, "Richard III." Stage history con- 
 tains no duplicate so strange. The story 
 shall be told in full in its proper turn. I 
 wish merely to touch upon it here to illus- 
 trate a point. Mantell, through unfortu- 
 nate legal proceedings, was shut out of New 
 York for a period of ten years. The great 
 city forgot him. When his difficulties were
 
 104 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 straightened out and he returned, he found 
 himself a stranger. But one night, he 
 electrified Broadway with Richard III, just 
 as once, long ago, he had dazzled the blase 
 street with Loris Ipanoff. A strange result 
 followed. Older theatregoers who remem- 
 bered him in the days of his first triumph 
 had a weird feeling that this was not the 
 idol of the eighties. The feeling persists 
 today. These veteran lovers of the drama 
 have encountered two entirely different 
 personages in one. To them the romantic 
 Mantell is no more. The tragic Mantell 
 has not replaced him he is simply some- 
 body else. 
 
 Mantell played the entire season of 1883-4 
 in "Fedora," and then went back to Scot- 
 land for the summer. Upon his return to 
 America, he was assigned the leading r61e 
 of Gilbert Vaughn in "Called Back," under 
 the management of the Mallory Brothers 
 and the direction of Daniel Frohman. The 
 play was fairly successful, and remained in 
 New York at the Fifth Avenue Theatre for 
 eight weeks. It then went on tour, and 
 stayed out until early in the spring. 
 
 Steele Mackaye, for whom the famous 
 Lyceum Theatre had just been built, was 
 on the lookout for talent for his own play, 
 "Dakolar," with which he intended to 
 dedicate the new theatre. He chose Robert
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 105 
 
 Mantell for the leading part. With an 
 intuition that was all but faultless, for 
 which Mackaye was famous, he engaged 
 two other young people, then new to the 
 stage, John Mason and Viola Allen. 
 
 On April 6, 1885, "Dakolar" was 
 launched, and the Lyceum was started on 
 its long and honorable career. "Dakolar," 
 like "Called Back," ran eight weeks in 
 New York. Mantell, during the period, 
 added materially to his fame as a matinee 
 idol. 
 
 Three months to a day after the dedica- 
 tion of the Lyceum, Mantell was called to 
 Chicago to dedicate another theatre, which 
 also became famous in American stage 
 history, McVicker's. The play was "True 
 Nobility." 
 
 "True Nobility" was not a success, and 
 on July 20 it was replaced by " The Marble 
 Heart," which for many years held a promi- 
 nent place in Mantell's permanent romantic 
 repertoire. With him in the cast, at the 
 first performance in Chicago, were Viola 
 Allen and Herbert Kelcey. 
 
 Mantell for months had been anxious to 
 play Charles Surface on this side of the 
 Atlantic. Though "The Marble Heart" 
 was a success, the wishes of the young 
 actor carried so much weight that on 
 August 3 a special production of "The
 
 106 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 School for Scandal" was staged at Mc- 
 Vicker's. It ran for two weeks, during 
 which Charles Surface was the hero of 
 Chicago, just as Loris Ipanoff had been 
 the hero of New York. 
 
 Another brief rest in Scotland, and Man- 
 tell returned to America, this time for a 
 second season with Fanny Davenport in 
 "Fedora." The Sardou play had not pros- 
 pered phenomenally with a substitute Loris. 
 Mantell, consequently, was re-engaged at a 
 salary comparable with that he could now 
 command in new productions. His return 
 to the cast made possible another profitable 
 engagement in New York, this time at the 
 Opera Comique, and a prosperous tour of 
 the country for the entire season. 
 
 This was MantelPs last engagement in 
 support of a star. His next appearance was 
 as a star himself, and a star he has been 
 ever since.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 In Which a New Star Bursts into the Firma- 
 ment of American Theatredom. 
 
 AUGUSTUS PITOU, a shrewd show- 
 man, had noted the effect of Loris 
 Ipanoff on the hearts of impression- 
 able femininity, and he believed 
 the time to be ripe for the launching of the 
 handsome blonde matinee idol as a star in 
 his own right. 
 
 Pitou secured a new romantic play from 
 John Kellar, entitled "Tangled Lives," and 
 on the night of September 16, 1886, at New 
 Haven, Conn., Robert Mantell made his 
 stellar d6but. The play was well received, 
 and Mantell and Pitou decided it was 
 strong enough for a New York trial. After 
 touring in the vicinity of the metropolis 
 for a few weeks, polishing the piece and 
 getting the company in shape, they opened 
 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on the night 
 of November 13, ignoring the "hoodoo." 
 
 Though "Tangled Lives" did not create 
 any profound sensation among the restless 
 rovers under the white lights, it made a 
 favorable impression, and enjoyed a run of 
 seven weeks. Mantell then played for two 
 107
 
 108 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 weeks at the Fifth Avenue in "The Marble 
 Heart," which Chicago had approved, and 
 at the conclusion of the engagement, Pitou 
 started with his new star on the longest 
 tour Mantell had yet made, extending to 
 the Pacific Coast. It was on June 14, 1887, 
 at the "tail end" of the season, that Man- 
 tell made his first appearance in San Fran- 
 cisco. "The Marble Heart" was the vehicle 
 of his debut in the city by the Golden Gate. 
 
 While " Tangled Lives " and " The Marble 
 Heart" were the foundation stones of his 
 career as a romantic star, it is in " Monbars " 
 that Mantell is most vividly remembered. 
 Later, "The Corsican Brothers" became a 
 formidable rival to the French pirate, but 
 even Dumas' twins could never quite 
 overshadow him. 
 
 The cauterizing of an ugly wound by a 
 red-hot iron is vivid yet in the memory of 
 many a middle-aged playgoer, who is still 
 inclined to believe this furnished the most 
 thrilling moment he ever experienced in a 
 theatre. Monbars, the handsome pirate, 
 has rescued a girl from a mad dog. He 
 appears with his shirt sleeve torn, and his 
 arm all lacerated and covered with blood. 
 He thrusts a poker into the fire. Presently 
 it glows a bright red. He calmly picks up 
 the rod and applies it to the wound. There 
 is a sizzling sound, and a little puff of
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 109 
 
 smoke. Not a muscle twitches. The man's 
 nerves are of iron. The audience applauds 
 wildly. 
 
 There has been nearly as much specula- 
 tion over how Mantell did that little bit of 
 cauterizing as there has been over Kellar's 
 levitation trick. Everybody has had his 
 theory. A bit of raw beef and a red hot 
 poker has been the favorite explanation. 
 Others contended for a cold poker and 
 chemicals. 
 
 "In reality," Mr. Mantell told me, "I 
 used a very thin but tough piece of leather, 
 which I bound to my arm by a flesh- 
 colored rubber band before putting on 
 any make-up. On this leather I laid a 
 flattened bit of cobblers' wax about the 
 size of a pea. Then I painted my arm, the 
 leather, wax and all, to represent the bite 
 of the dog. The poker actually was heated 
 to a red glow. It was applied carefully to 
 the wax. Of course, there was a sound as 
 of burning flesh and a puff of smoke. 
 
 "One night when I was coolly applying 
 the poker to the wound, the red-hot iron 
 slipped, and there was a real sizzling of the 
 flesh. The iron-nerved hero let out a yell 
 of pain that could be heard four blocks, 
 dropped the poker and broke up the scene." 
 
 The story of how Mantell and Pitou 
 acquired the stage rights to "Monbars"
 
 110 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 has a romantic tinge. There was, in those 
 days, an old French wine merchant in New 
 York named Merabel, whose establishment 
 was a popular resort for stage people. 
 Merabel himself was intensely interested 
 in the theatre, and made it a rule of his life 
 to see that his Thespian friends had the 
 best and most delicate wines obtainable in 
 America and Europe. 
 
 A frequenter of this shop was a giant 
 Frenchman by the name of Louis Natal, 
 who might have been the original of Porthos 
 in the D'Artagnan romances. He had the 
 strength of an ox, but queer as it may 
 sound he had a brain of equal power and 
 of rare delicacy. 
 
 Natal, years before, had written a play 
 which had enjoyed a splendid success in 
 Paris and the French provinces. One day at 
 Merabel's he took Mantell aside and told 
 him confidentially that he had a drama that 
 nobody else on this side of the Atlantic 
 could possibly do. 
 
 "I have translated it myself," said Natal, 
 "from a French original I wrote years ago. 
 It has never been done in English that I 
 know of; but if it has, it has been played in 
 a pirated and garbled version. It is just 
 the thing for you." 
 
 "All right," said Mantell, with the air 
 soon acquired by a popular star who has a
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 111 
 
 play thrust under his nose every other day, 
 "bring it over to Pitou's office and I'll read 
 it." 
 
 "No you won't," answered Louis, 
 shrewdly recognizing the tone. "I'll read 
 it myself to you and 'Gus.' I tell you, it is 
 something you will want." 
 
 Man tell was a little impressed by Natal 's 
 manner. 
 
 "Very well," he said, "come around 
 tomorrow afternoon, and we'll hear it." 
 
 The big Frenchman brought "Monbars" 
 over next day, and read it to the actor and 
 his manager. It sounded fine. Pitou wanted 
 to close a deal at once, but Mantell wished 
 first to consult Archie Lindsay, his old 
 friend of the liquid Scotch "sandwiches," 
 who was then with him in New York. 
 Lindsay had a marvelous memory, and 
 knew everything there was to be known 
 about old plays. Mantell wanted to ask 
 him about a possible earlier English version 
 of the one he had just heard. 
 
 Concealing his real desire to see Lindsay, 
 Mantell said he would think the matter 
 over, and invited Natal and Pitou to meet 
 him at the Lambs Club that evening for 
 his answer. 
 
 The actor hurried home. He couldn't find 
 Lindsay. The Scotchman's taste for " sand- 
 wiches" had allured him to a "banquet."
 
 112 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 That evening, Mantell, Pitou and Natal 
 met at the club, and concluded a deal, by 
 which the two partners agreed to pay the 
 Frenchman five hundred dollars down, and 
 twelve and one-half per cent of the gross 
 receipts of every performance of "Mon- 
 bars." 
 
 After the conclusion of this labor, they 
 turned to refreshment. Natal 's capacity for 
 wine and stronger liquids was proverbial in 
 Gotham's theatrical circles in those days. 
 Nobody had ever known him to refuse a 
 glass in good fellowship, and yet nobody 
 had ever seen him stagger. 
 
 Mantell and Pitou started out to get 
 Natal drunk for once. They entered into a 
 secret conspiracy with the waiter, by which 
 their own drinks were to be diluted to the 
 uttermost point where color could be re- 
 tained, while Natal's were to be "spiked" 
 heavily with brandy. 
 
 Round after round was ordered and 
 drunk, but the Frenchman never faltered. 
 Mantell and Pitou began to feel dizzy, in 
 spite of the fact that the waiter was living 
 strictly up to instructions. Then in their 
 ears began to be heard the roar and buzz 
 that tell the wise man he has had enough 
 liquid joy for one night. But they sat a 
 little longer, and their heads drooped. 
 
 Natal, then, with the look of pity the
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 113 
 
 strong feel for the weakness of mortals not 
 so well constituted, picked up both his 
 friends, tucked one under each arm, carried 
 them down the steps of the club without the 
 slightest tremor of foot, and stowed them 
 safely away in a cab. He paid the driver, 
 and gave him directions as to where he was 
 to set down the revellers. 
 
 A few days later, Archie Lindsay turned 
 up. 
 
 "Here you are at last, you old Scotch 
 loafer," greeted Mantell. "I've wanted to 
 see you to ask you about a new play I've 
 bought," and he began sketching the story. 
 
 A queer light came into Lindsay's eyes. 
 
 Mantell went on to relate how the pirate, 
 after numerous adventures, lay on a sick 
 bed, and how a physician came in and 
 proved to him he had been poisoned. The 
 doctor poured a clear acid into a glass from 
 which Monbars had been drinking. The 
 fluid the pirate had thought to be water 
 changed to a jet black. 
 
 "What I want to know," said Mantell, 
 "is how I'm going to convert that blasted 
 water into ink. Natal hasn't given any 
 directions." 
 
 "Wait, Bob, and I'll show you," said 
 Lindsay. 
 
 He went over to a huge trunk filled with 
 odds and ends, and took out a great pile of
 
 114 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 six-penny plays, bound in paper. He 
 searched through them rapidly, and finally 
 dug out one. 
 
 "Here's your receipt," he said, "and 
 here's your play, and you're a bloomin* 
 fool for buying it, for there's no royalty 
 on it." 
 
 Mantell grew angry. 
 
 "See what your cursed spree has cost 
 me," he cried out, and flung the contract 
 with Natal in Lindsay's face. 
 
 But the bargain had been made, and it 
 was lived up to. Natal's version of his old 
 French play was found to be very much 
 superior to the pirated English version, 
 which had had only a brief career in the 
 British Isles, and that many years back. 
 It was even better than the French original, 
 for the more mature Natal had introduced 
 a number of dramatic features lacking in 
 his first draft. Mantell's "Monbars" was 
 thus, to all practical intents, a new play, 
 and in it he reached the climax of his fame 
 as a romantic actor. But every week when 
 he paid the royalty, he felt like punching 
 Lindsay's face. For, armed with the old 
 English version, he could have driven a 
 much better bargain with Natal. 
 
 "Monbars" was launched at Reading, 
 Pa., on the night of September 26, 1887. 
 The first performance in New York was
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 115 
 
 given on the night of March 13, 1888, and 
 the run continued well into May. 
 
 The New York premiere was scheduled 
 for the evening of March 12, but on that 
 day there blew up one of the hardest bliz- 
 zards that ever struck Manhattan. Ex- 
 cessive snow accompanied the high wind. 
 Mantell and Pitou lived opposite each 
 other on Ninety-fifth Street. They man- 
 aged to get down town on the last elevated 
 train that succeeded in running that eve- 
 ning. Only one other player reached the 
 theatre. This faithful disciple of Roscius 
 had put on a pair of high boots, and, in 
 spite of the whirling wind, had ploughed 
 his way through snow knee-deep the entire 
 distance from Sixty-sixth Street. He was 
 Ben Ringold "dear old Ben," as Mantell 
 remembers him and he deserves a monu- 
 ment to his memory. 
 
 While on the subject of the romantic 
 plays that filled up the first period of Man- 
 tell's career as a star, it may be as well to 
 tell here an amusing story of "The Veiled 
 Picture," though chronologically it belongs 
 three or four years later. 
 
 "The Veiled Picture" held an important 
 place in the romantic repertoire, but Mantell 
 always dreaded to play it. He regarded it 
 as his "hoodoo." Something always went 
 wrong during a performance.
 
 116 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "The Veiled Picture" told the story of a 
 conscience-stricken artist. He had killed a 
 man and married his victim's sister. The 
 sister, not suspecting the author of the 
 crime, had employed a detective to ferret 
 out the murderer. The detective got on 
 the track of the criminal through a weird 
 freak of psychology. The artist became the 
 victim of hallucinations. An invisible force 
 guided his brush, compelling him to paint 
 into every picture a raised hand holding a 
 dagger. When the fit had passed, the artist 
 would destroy the painting. But the de- 
 tective finally got hold of one of these 
 pictures. The "business" of the play was 
 to bring it onto the stage, and confront the 
 murderer with it. 
 
 On the very first night of this Zolaesque 
 drama in Reading, Pa., Albert Bruning, 
 who played the detective, couldn't find the 
 picture at the critical moment. He ran to 
 the property room, all excited, and told 
 the property man to give him anything with 
 a frame around it. The property man hastily 
 thrust a picture into his hands, and Brun- 
 ing, without looking at it, threw a veil over 
 it, and ran onto the stage just in time to 
 escape missing his cue. 
 
 He set the veiled picture on a chair with 
 its back to the audience, but accidentally 
 between the audience and a strong light.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 117 
 
 Mantell, as the guilty artist, and Charlotte 
 Behrens, as the wife and sister, were placed 
 before it. 
 
 "Did you paint this picture?" asked the 
 detective. 
 
 "I did," replied the artist. 
 
 "Then you are the murderer!" thundered 
 the sleuth, tearing away the veil. 
 
 Mantell snorted, Miss Behrens giggled, 
 and the audience roared. For the thin 
 cardboard on which the picture was printed 
 was translucent, and the strong light re- 
 vealed to the audience a cheap, highly 
 colored litho of President Garfield, and the 
 legend, in great letters: USE GARFIELD 
 TEA. 
 
 "I deserve to be hanged if I painted 
 that," whispered Mantell to Bruning.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Relating how the Phantom of Shakespeare, 
 Emulating Hamlet's Father's Ghost, Con- 
 fronts the Modern Playwrights. 
 
 IT was in the very season of his triumph 
 in "Monbars," that Robert Man tell 
 laid the first stone of the foundation 
 of his classic career in America. His 
 initial essay as a star in Shakespeare was 
 "Romeo and Juliet." In this drama, suf- 
 fused with the warmth of Italian passion, 
 he sought to blend his established fame as a 
 romanticist with his ambitions to become a 
 classicist. 
 
 The venture was made in Dayton, Ohio, 
 October 1, 1887. Fannie Gillette was the 
 Juliet. The performance was a flat failure, 
 and was not repeated. This was not a very 
 auspicious beginning for the star who later 
 was to outshine all his contemporaries in 
 Shakespeare. MantelTs next plunge into 
 the classics occurred a few weeks later. 
 This time the play was "The Lady of 
 Lyons." Again the venture was a failure. 
 
 But failure only goaded the ambitions of 
 the stubborn Scotchman, and before the 
 season was out, he made a third attempt. 
 
 118
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 119 
 
 The play, this time, was "Othello." Re- 
 membering his good luck with "Monbars" 
 at the start of the season, he returned to 
 Reading, Pa., for the venture. Reading 
 was a favorite "dog town" in those days. 
 Here, on the night of February 18, 1888, 
 he played Othello for the first time on any 
 stage. It will be remembered that, through 
 the courtesy of George S. Knight, he had 
 played lago in his home city, Belfast. But 
 this was the first time he had ever attempted 
 the Moor. 
 
 The mysterious, intangible verdict of the 
 audience, by which a sensitive actor knows 
 whether he has scored a success or a failure, 
 was favorable, and "Othello" has had a 
 place in Mantell's repertoire ever since. It 
 is the veteran play of his present extensive 
 list of classics. 
 
 Mantell's last act of "Othello," matured 
 by more than a quarter of a century of 
 frequent playing, has become, in my opinion, 
 the finest piece of stage artistry he or any 
 other actor of his generation has exhibited. 
 When I saw it the first time, I was dazed 
 by its matchless power and beauty. In 
 reviewing the performance for a newspaper 
 the next morning, I wrote some paragraphs 
 which pleased the tragedian and which 
 served as my letter of introduction to him. 
 From this introduction came the friendship
 
 120 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 that finally led to my undertaking this 
 biography. 
 
 Here are the paragraphs, which were 
 used for a time over the United States and 
 Canada as the "official" estimate of his 
 acting in this role: 
 
 "What pitiful weaklings these modern 
 writers of tragedy be! That was the moral 
 in the swish of the final curtain on * Othello ' 
 last evening. The play was over, but the 
 big audience sat dumb. Then there came a 
 tumultuous burst of applause, and only 
 then did that audience realize it was time 
 to go home. 
 
 "They don't write final acts like that 
 any more. A few atoms of dust lying be- 
 neath the picturesque little church at 
 Stratford on the Avon is all that is left of 
 the last brain capable of conceiving and 
 executing so powerful a horror so mightily. 
 Across the centuries the shadow of the 
 Elizabethan demigod fell, and men and 
 women, brooding in that shadow, forgot all 
 save the wretchedness wrought by the 
 jealousy of the Moor of Venice, fanned into 
 a devouring flame by a monstrously false 
 friend. 
 
 "Technicians may argue learnedly and 
 convincingly about the bad art of the 
 soliloquy, about the artificiality of blank 
 verse, but their arguments crumble to
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 121 
 
 ashes in the fires of the genius of Shakespeare 
 in the final scene of this great tragedy. 
 Othello soliloquizing is a giant among the 
 pigmy creations of modern technique, and 
 blank verse is only the great voice of great 
 emotions. 
 
 "Mr. Mantell was truly Shakespearean in 
 this tremendous act. His powerful voice 
 rolled through the long gamut of passions 
 with the thunder of Shakespeare's poetry, 
 and his frame shook with the terror of the 
 mighty deed of punishment inflicted on the 
 supposedly faithless Desdemona. 
 
 "A deadly stillness hung over the audi- 
 ence during the long soliloquy preceding 
 the act of sacrifice, in which he laid bare his 
 soul and justified the approaching deed in 
 the light of his understanding. Then when 
 Desdemona awoke and greeted her lord 
 with childish innocence and playfulness, 
 stifled sobs were heard and Shakespeare 
 dead these three hundred years, and 
 'Othello* a victim of the life-sapping 
 commentators ! 
 
 "Then Othello warned Desdemona with 
 infinite sorrow infinite because pityingly 
 stern and eyes unaccustomed to tears 
 became wet. And then he strangled her, 
 and the horror of it burned, and burned, 
 and burned. 
 
 "Mr. Mantell had achieved another tri-
 
 122 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 mnph. He had risen superior to the blight 
 of sophistication, and had made the passions 
 of Shakespeare live." 
 
 A number of amusing incidents have 
 enlivened the quarter of a century of Mr. 
 MantelTs presentation of "Othello" on the 
 stage. 
 
 Once in Toronto, after a performance of 
 the play, the tragedian was the guest of 
 honor, at a fashionable reception. There he 
 met a very appreciative young woman of 
 the gushing type. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Mantell," she broke out imme- 
 diately, after the introduction, "I just dote 
 on your Othello ! I think it so thrilling and 
 so artistic! You strike me as being so 
 wonderfully conscientious, too!" 
 
 "Yes, Madame," replied the tragedian, 
 gravely, and with his most courtly bow, 
 "I try to do everything thoroughly. I am 
 so sincere in Othello that I do not stop with 
 staining my face and hands and arms, but 
 I blacken my whole body." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Mantell!" cried the sweet 
 young thing, with a flutter of alarm, "I 
 hope you didn't catch cold on your way 
 over here. For you must have taken a 
 bath before you left the theatre!" 
 
 Another night in Ottawa, the magnifi- 
 cently tense last scene of "Othello" was 
 on. Charlotte Behrens (the second Mrs.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 123 
 
 Mantell) was the Desdemona. A "super" 
 behind the scenes became interested. He 
 edged farther and farther out of the wings 
 at the rear of the stage, until he came half 
 in view of the audience behind the bed of 
 Desdemona. 
 
 "Get back!" whispered the girl wife 
 about to be strangled. 
 
 The "super" didn't move he didn't 
 realize the whisper was addressed to him. 
 
 Then Othello tried it. 
 
 "By heaven," he said to Desdemona, "I 
 saw my handkerchief in's hand." -Then, 
 in a menacing whisper to the "super": 
 "You cursed idiot, get off!" 
 
 Still no result. 
 
 "O perjur'd woman!" -Then, "Back, 
 you blankety-blank fool ! ' 
 
 "Thou dost stone my heart" "I tell 
 you, get back!" 
 
 "And make'st me call what I intend to do 
 a murder!" 
 
 He was edging toward the "super," and 
 he whispered to Desdemona, who was now 
 giggling to herself in spite of her impending 
 doom: "And, believe me, it will be a 
 murder!" 
 
 "Which I thought a sacrifice," continued 
 Othello, getting closer and closer to his 
 prey. 
 
 "I saw the handerchief!" he shouted
 
 124 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 ferociously at Desdemona, punctuating his 
 elocution with a swift kick, delivered behind 
 the bed, so the audience couldn't see it. 
 
 The absorbed, bulging-eyed "super" gave 
 one wild yelp of terror, and sprang like a 
 hound for the stage door, through which he 
 disappeared, costume and all. 
 
 Two years later, Mr. Mantell, on his 
 return to Ottawa, asked the " super captain" 
 about him. 
 
 "Guess he's still running, governor," 
 answered that official. 
 
 During an engagement in Portland, 
 Maine, Harry Keefer, who has been Mr. 
 Mantell's stage manager from time im- 
 memorial, and who knows every streak of 
 paint on every shred of scenery of all the 
 productions, was sent on to New York to 
 make arrangements for the opening of a 
 hurriedly booked engagement at the Forty- 
 Fourth Street Theatre. 
 
 In a tense moment of "Othello," the 
 sounding of a gong creates on the audience 
 a profound impression. So important is it 
 that this gong sound at exactly the right 
 second, that Mr. Keefer always stands 
 beside the big suspended brass bell that 
 once belonged to the elder Salvini, and 
 personally superintends the striking of it. 
 
 Before leaving for New York, Keefer had 
 cautioned his "under-study" particularly
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 125 
 
 about this effect. Every one on the stage 
 knew about it, and Mr. Mantell himself 
 made it his business before going on for the 
 scene to see that the assistant stage man- 
 ager was in place and ready. 
 
 Every one off the scene congregated 
 about the bell to see that nothing went 
 wrong. The young man holding the muffled 
 hammer naturally felt a little nervous. 
 The critical moment came. The young man 
 struck and missed the bell by an inch! 
 Before he could recover, the "cue" was 
 passed, and the audience didn't get its 
 thrill but Mr. Mantell did! 
 
 Though " Othello" had succeeded at the 
 first performance in Reading, Mantell and 
 Pitou knew that a repertoire made up 
 exclusively of the classics would not then 
 be profitable in the hands of the young 
 romantic actor. 
 
 Accordingly, they secured the rights to 
 "The Corsican Brothers," which had just 
 been made from Dumas' sensational novel. 
 The premiere occurred in Philadelphia. 
 The receipts for the week reached what was 
 then an enormous total, and what is still 
 good business, in spite of myths about con- 
 tinuous fifteen and eighteen-thousand-dollar 
 weeks, $7,677.53. This was the largest 
 business to which Mantell had yet played, 
 and was the largest for some years to come.
 
 126 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 He and Pitou were jubilant. In bold script 
 opposite the entry in Mr. Mantell's book of 
 finance for that season appears this note: 
 "All debts paid." 
 
 "The Corsican Brothers" proved a win- 
 ning feature for two seasons, during which 
 performances of "Othello" and "Mon- 
 bars" were also given. Then Mantell be- 
 came restless again to try his fortune with 
 the classics, and chose, of all plays, "Ham- 
 let," in which Edwin Booth was then 
 supreme. 
 
 Troy, New York, was the scene of the 
 experiment, and there on the night of 
 March 19, 1890, Mantell played the Dane 
 for the first time on any stage. Finan- 
 cially, the performance w r as not encourag- 
 ing, but the little audience displayed so 
 much enthusiasm that Mantell decided to 
 keep "Hamlet" in his repertoire beside 
 "Othello," instead of discarding it as he 
 had done "Romeo and Juliet." 
 
 "Hamlet," like "Othello," has never 
 since been absent from the list of plays he 
 is prepared constantly to give. He has 
 presented this drama more times than any 
 other, varying his interpretation from time 
 to time as new light has broken in upon 
 him as to the character of the most elusive 
 personage Shakespeare has drawn. 
 
 "No one is competent to play Hamlet
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 127 
 
 until he is fifty," Mr. Mantell told me dur- 
 ing the course of the first newspaper inter- 
 view I ever had with him, "and then he is 
 too old for the part." 
 
 The statement is, in a way, an answer to 
 a certain amount of adverse criticism that 
 has been offered in late years in the contro- 
 versy over the artistic value of his mature 
 Hamlet. Few have questioned the exquisite 
 music of his reading of the lines. Practically 
 all of the adverse critics have set forth the 
 objection that he is too robust and athletic 
 for the part. The objection, even if just, is 
 comparatively trivial, since the beauty of a 
 play so frankly philosophical as "Hamlet" 
 lies more in the beauty of elocution than 
 in external realism so much in vogue in this 
 period of theatrical history. 
 
 Even Mr. Mantell may not be quite right 
 in his assumption that the freshness of 
 youth is essential to Hamlet. Hamlet is 
 a philosophical puzzle rather than a flesh- 
 and-blood personage. He is young in years, 
 but hoary headed in philosophy young 
 as Romeo in romance, but old as Lear in 
 suffering. 
 
 In the course of three centuries, no two 
 persons have been found to agree precisely 
 on any point regarding the Dane. Shake- 
 speare himself probably didn't know exactly 
 what he was doing when he wrote the play,
 
 128 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 any more than Coleridge realized the trend 
 of his genius when he dreamed "Kubla 
 Kahn" or Poe when he feverishly dashed 
 off "Ulalume." 
 
 "Hamlet" is the only play in Mr. Man- 
 tell's present classic repertoire in which his 
 supremacy on the contemporary American 
 stage is questioned by critics competent 
 to judge. Othello, Macbeth, Brutus, Shy- 
 lock and Richelieu are his in the face of 
 more or less formidable opposition. King 
 Lear, Richard III and Louis XI are his by 
 the power of a genius that has excluded 
 competition. 
 
 But it is not the purpose of this book to 
 become critical. It is my task, rather, to 
 relate events, and so I pass on to an anec- 
 dote of " Hamlet " in the days when the Dane 
 was a mere child in Mantell's repertoire. 
 
 The great Booth had just died. Every 
 actor on the American stage doing classic 
 roles was trying to qualify as his successor 
 in "Hamlet." Mantell was billed for his 
 first performance in Kansas City as the 
 Dane. It would be a tremendous triumph 
 if he should be chosen by critics in a city 
 of such consequence as the actor upon 
 whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of 
 Booth. Thus he mused as he sat in his 
 room at the Coates House, looking across 
 at the theatre where he was to play.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 129 
 
 It was about six o'clock in the evening. 
 A crowd began collecting in front of the 
 theatre. It got larger and larger. Mantell 
 grew excited. The crowd continued to in- 
 crease, and became noisier and noisier and 
 more and more enthusiastic. Mantell 
 couldn't stand it any longer. He decided 
 to go over to his dressing room early and 
 make up with special care. 
 
 As he passed through the crowd, he heard 
 three or four people say to each other, 
 "There goes Mantell!" The words were 
 delicious music to his ears. His own ex- 
 citement exaggerated the excitement of the 
 voices. "There goes Mantell! ! It's Man- 
 tell! !! The Great Mantell! ! ! !" was 
 what the voices seemed to say. Instead of 
 coming from the lips of three or four, it 
 sounded to him as if the entire crowd was 
 taking up the cry. He opened the stage 
 door and passed in, hanging his head 
 modestly. His heart was swelling to burst- 
 ing with pride. 
 
 He told Charley, his valet, to dress him 
 with extra care tonight "For it's to be a 
 big night a night of triumph ! " He heard 
 the crowd outside clamoring and cheering. 
 Then a band began to play, "Hail to the 
 Chief" and "The Conquering Hero Comes." 
 He was intoxicated with the delight of it. 
 
 He sent to the front of the house for Mart
 
 130 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Hanley " Genial Mart " his manager 
 and partner. 
 
 "Mart," he said in a tone of authority he 
 was not in the habit of using to his financial 
 backer, "I want you to throw open the 
 gallery doors right now." 
 
 "All right, governor," said Hanley, dully 
 and without interest. 
 
 "What's the matter, man?" asked Man- 
 tell, sharply. " Can't you see we're going to 
 have a big house?" 
 
 "Yes, a big house," answered Hanley, 
 with a special emphasis on the word 
 "house," that only a little relieved the 
 weariness of his tone. 
 
 The crowd in front of the theatre broke 
 into a wild cheer. 
 
 "Come out of it, Mart!" cried Mantell, 
 springing toward him excitedly and grasp- 
 ing both shoulders. "Listen to that! I tell 
 you our fortune's made!" 
 
 Hanley "came out of it" with a ven- 
 geance. 
 
 "That crowd!" he roared, disgustedly. 
 "Why, you big chump don't you know 
 McKinley's in town! That's what the 
 crowd's yelling about! He's going to speak 
 from the balcony of the Coates House." 
 
 Puncture collapse! 
 
 The receipts that night were sixteen 
 dollars. Nobody in Kansas City knew next
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 131 
 
 morning whether Booth's successor had 
 been found or not. There hadn't been a 
 newspaper critic in the house. 
 
 Pardon me, gentle reader, while I indulge 
 here in a melancholy prophecy regarding 
 my veracity as a biographer. Three hun- 
 dred years hence the longest limit mod- 
 esty will permit my assigning to the survival 
 of this record some antiquarian perchance 
 will pick up this volume and read the fore- 
 going anecdote. The cleverness of the co- 
 incidence at the base of it will arouse his 
 suspicions. He will diligently search all 
 existing records, political and theatrical, 
 taking no account of any that perchance 
 have been lost, and then will announce 
 triumphantly that the story is a fabrication 
 - that William McKinley and Robert 
 Mantell were never in Kansas City at the 
 same tune. He will denounce me, and assert 
 contemptuously that I am wholly unworthy 
 of credence as a biographer. I shall then, 
 alas, be relegated to a place among such 
 disreputable fakers as Moses, Herodotus, 
 Plutarch and Tacitus, for whose most inter- 
 esting narratives no confirmatory records 
 in carved stone have been found. And the 
 fiendish antiquarian will gloat over his 
 triumph as do the learned delvers in the 
 past of our own day. The thought so sad- 
 dens me that I shall proceed to a more
 
 132 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 melancholy anecdote of "Hamlet" than 
 the one just related. 
 
 It was during his duel with Laertes that 
 Mantell one night was the victim of an 
 accident that came near closing his career 
 forever. The foil flew from the hand of his 
 adversary and struck him a violent blow 
 above the eye. The blood blinded him, and 
 Mantell thought the blade must have 
 passed through his eye and into his skull. 
 However, as the play was only a few mo- 
 ments from the end, he finished it, amid the 
 "Ohs" and "Ahs" from the audience, who 
 detected something beyond stage realism in 
 the outcome of the duel. 
 
 As he lay on the stage those last few 
 moments, it was sickening to him to think 
 his career ended by the loss of an eye. As 
 soon as the curtain went down, he sprang 
 up and rushed to his dressing room. A 
 physician who happened to be in the audi- 
 ence had gone back stage to offer his 
 services. 
 
 But Mantell made everybody stand out- 
 side the dressing room. After the first dash 
 of cold water into his face, he shut the eye 
 that had been unconcerned in the accident, 
 and looked up. He could see as well as ever. 
 
 "Get away!" he bellowed, cheerfully, 
 "all of you, confound you!" and he rushed 
 out and chased everybody from his door
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 133 
 
 in sheer delight. "This is no place yet for 
 vultures and buzzards!" 
 
 With "The Corsican Brothers" and 
 "Monbars" still good drawing cards in 
 the romantic field, and "Othello" and 
 "Hamlet" dependable classics, Mantell be- 
 lieved himself strong enough to venture on 
 a tour on his own account, after the fashion 
 of the English actor-managers, and pocket 
 all the profits instead of dividing with a 
 partner. Accordingly, in the autumn of 
 1891, he severed his connection with Pitou. 
 
 Early in the season he strengthened his 
 repertoire with a new play, "The Louisi- 
 anian," which proved moderately success- 
 ful. The premiere, after a brief try-out in 
 smaller towns, was announced for St. 
 Louis, November 6. 
 
 On this night, Mantell took the "longest 
 chance" he has ever taken in his entire 
 career, and the thrills back on the stage 
 were much more electric than any he could 
 communicate to the audience. 
 
 The opening was scheduled for a Friday 
 night. On the preceding Tuesday, the two 
 leading feminine members of his company, 
 which was presenting repertoire, fell ill 
 simultaneously. The ingenue, Jessie Bus- 
 ley, who since has become famous, was all 
 that was left, and she, though then inex- 
 perienced, undertook Desdemona and
 
 134 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Ophelia, and came off with very creditable 
 performances. But for "The Louisianian" 
 the full strength of the company was 
 needed. On Wednesday it became apparent 
 that neither of the actresses who had become 
 ill so inopportunely would be able to ap- 
 pear. Miss Busley began the study of one 
 of the roles. Mantell wired to New York 
 for a Miss Landor who had played the other 
 part in a try-out. He had difficulty in 
 locating her, but finally succeeded, and on 
 Thursday morning she started for St. 
 Louis. 
 
 The railroads had not yet put on the 
 wind-cutting trains that since have con- 
 verted St. Louis into a suburb of New York, 
 or vice-versa, according to the individual 
 prejudice of the reader. Miss Landor was 
 scheduled in the time tables to arrive about 
 two hours before time for the curtain to go 
 up. Somewhere along the route she wired 
 that the train had been delayed for three 
 hours. From time to time after that she 
 had the presence of mind to send tele- 
 grams telling of her progress, which was 
 satisfactory, with the exception of the one 
 delay. 
 
 Mantell at eight o'clock decided to take 
 his chance. The house was sold out and 
 he hated to give all that money back, espe- 
 cially as the profits now were all coming to
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 135 
 
 himself. He sent his stage manager to the 
 train with a carriage to meet Miss Landor 
 and rush her to the theatre. 
 
 He ordered the curtain rung up on a 
 one-act play, " A Lesson in Acting. " While 
 the playlet was in progress, Mantell kept 
 one ear turned anxiously to the stage door, 
 but the curtain went down without any- 
 thing unusual happening back there. 
 
 But, just as Mantell had responded to 
 his last curtain call, the door flew open, and 
 in rushed Miss Landor, all dressed and 
 made up for the part. She had converted a 
 stateroom in the train into a dressing room. 
 
 " Can we have a few minutes' rehearsal? " 
 she asked Mr. Mantell. 
 
 "No, you go anywhere in the scene you 
 choose I'll find you," answered the star, 
 a great load off his mind. 
 
 The curtain went up, and in the entire 
 career of "The Louisianian" there was not 
 given a better performance. 
 
 At the conclusion of the second act, the 
 stage manager, whom everybody had for- 
 gotten, rushed into the dressing room of 
 the star. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Mantell," he cried in nervous 
 excitement, "the train is in, and Miss 
 Landor wasn't on it!" 
 
 "Get out, you bloomin' fool," shouted 
 star, "she's been on and played two acts!"
 
 136 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Another new production of this season 
 was " Parrhasius," first used as a "curtain- 
 raiser." It proved so successful as a one-act 
 play that Mr. Mantell had it expanded, but 
 in the form of a full-length drama it proved 
 disappointing. 
 
 Difficulty in securing desirable bookings, 
 and numerous aggravations that distracted 
 his mind from his stage work led Mantell 
 at the close of this season to give up the 
 experiment of managing himself. From 
 Proctor & Turner he secured a contract 
 agreeable in its provisions, and on August 
 22, 1892, he opened under their manage- 
 ment in Buffalo, in a new play, "The Face 
 in the Moonlight," which seemed destined 
 to become almost as popular as "Monbars" 
 and "TheCorsican Brothers." On Septem- 
 ber 5, Proctor & Turner brought their new 
 star to Proctor's Twenty-Third Street 
 Theatre, New York, in his new play. 
 There it enjoyed a profitable run of six 
 weeks. 
 
 Little did Mantell know when he started 
 on the road at the conclusion of this engage- 
 ment that New York would be closed to 
 him now for more than a decade. 
 
 Up to this time he had prospered. His 
 tremendous success on the opening night 
 of "Fedora" nine years before had made 
 him instantly the leading romantic actor
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 137 
 
 on the American stage. He had enjoyed 
 that distinction ever since. It had been 
 found he was not an actor of a single role. 
 Robert Mantell had not died wim Loris 
 Ipanoff. He had won enviable success in 
 "Tangled Lives" and "The Marble Heart," 
 and he had made "Monbars" and "The 
 Corsican Brothers" famous from coast to 
 coast in the United States and Canada 
 famous with a fame, indeed, that survives 
 after a quarter of a century in the memory of 
 playgoers with a vividness enjoyed by few 
 stage productions. For the play of last 
 year is as surely in the discard as the news- 
 paper of yesterday. 
 
 He had a new play, "The Face in the 
 Moonlight," which gave promise of dupli- 
 cating the successes of his old. He had 
 already given splendid promise in "Othello" 
 and "Hamlet" of a brilliant future as a 
 classic star. He was prospering financially 
 as few male stars, unsupported by female 
 co-stars, prosper in America. The leader- 
 ship of the stage was in his grasp. Appar- 
 ently he had only to stretch out his hand 
 and clutch it. 
 
 Then it was that a malicious fate stepped 
 in. Robert Mantell was banished from the 
 stage of New York City. Hereafter, he must 
 remain in the "provinces." Without Goth- 
 am's approval, the life of the American
 
 138 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 star is hard. No matter how manfully he 
 struggles, no matter how artistic his per- 
 formances, he cannot gain or maintain a 
 standing in the front rank of his profession. 
 The stamp of New York is like the word 
 "sterling" branded on silver. It does not 
 change the intrinsic value of the article, but 
 it gives it a market value above suspicion. 
 
 New York quickly forgets more 
 quickly than the "provinces." There are 
 so many things to distract the attention of 
 Broadway. Mantell, favorite matinee idol, 
 was not long gone before others sprang 
 up to take his place. The newspapers and 
 the magazines welcomed them, and Broad- 
 way worshipped at the shrine of the new 
 demigods. 
 
 Mantell saw and became melancholy 
 disheartened. Without the stimulus of New 
 York notoriety, his value as a drawing 
 card decreased. From a first-rate star, he 
 sank to the level of the second-raters. He 
 played in the popular-priced theatres, then 
 devoted to cheap melodrama with only an 
 occasional "feature" like himself to lend 
 tone to the season. 
 
 Even here he did not succeed financially. 
 Five years after New York closed her doors 
 to him he finished a season with ten dollars 
 in his pocket and ten thousand dollars worth 
 of debts accumulated against him.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 139 
 
 He lost ambition. He allowed his com- 
 pany and his productions to sink in stand- 
 ard. The only thing left him was a blind 
 bulldog instinct to act to do his level 
 best when odds were greatest. This in- 
 stinct proved his salvation when New York 
 again was opened to him. Then it happened 
 that the rugged "barnstormer" astounded 
 blase Broadway.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Exile 
 
 THE cause of Robert Mantell's long 
 exile from New York was age-old 
 only a few days younger than 
 Adam "the woman.'* Mantell 
 and Marie Sheldon discovered soon after 
 they were married that they differed in 
 tastes, ideas, ideals and tempers. But they 
 made the best of what both came to regard 
 as a bad bargain. For a long time they lived 
 amicably so far as the outside world knew 
 or cared. Two sons were born, Robert 
 Shand Mantell and Jack Parcher Mantell. 
 Robert has become a successful business 
 man in Detroit, and Jack, also successful 
 in business, has won added distinction in 
 New York as an athlete. 
 
 Rumors of domestic difficulties began to 
 drift to the world outside. As Mantell was 
 a popular stage hero, the ears of Dame 
 Gossip were pricked up. The rumors were 
 well grounded, though, quite naturally, 
 exaggerated. There were domestic difficul- 
 ties serious difficulties. The climax came 
 in Cincinnati. There was a quarrel. Man- 
 tell packed his belongings and left the 
 
 140
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 141 
 
 hotel. Mrs. Mantell went back to New 
 York. She sued for divorce. Her suit was 
 granted, and with it alimony to the amount 
 of one hundred dollars a week. 
 
 It was the alimony that checked MantelTs 
 stage career. At first he paid it. Then, he 
 struck a streak of bad business and got 
 behind. One hundred dollars a week is a 
 lot of money when you stop to think about 
 it. In a few weeks the back alimony piled 
 up formidably. Mantell consulted his law- 
 yers. He was advised not to pay it. He 
 followed the advice. There was a complaint. 
 Mantell was adjudged in contempt of 
 court. A warrant was issued for his arrest, 
 to be served any time he should cross the 
 border into the State of New York. Sunday 
 was excepted. Some amusing and some 
 tragic incidents resulted from MantelFs 
 successful evasions of the sheriff. 
 
 Not a great while after the divorce, Mr. 
 Mantell married Charlotte Behrens, a mem- 
 ber of his company, whom he made his 
 leading woman. To Mantell and the second 
 Mrs. Mantell was born on December 29, 
 1895, a daughter, Ethel Mantell, who, at 
 the age of seventeen, followed her father to 
 the stage. 
 
 Shortly after the beginning of his ali- 
 mony troubles, Mantell had a legal quarrel 
 with his new managers, Proctor & Turner,
 
 142 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 which resulted in the cancelling of the con- 
 tract between them in the spring of 1894. 
 Mantell summered that year in Stamford, 
 Connecticut as near as he dared approach 
 the forbidden land. 
 
 The following season, Mantell toured 
 again under the management of his former 
 partner, Augustus Pitou, using his old 
 plays, "The Corsican Brothers," "Mon- 
 bars," "Othello" and "Hamlet." Since the 
 beginning of his troubles he had not had 
 the heart to produce anything new. But, 
 on Washington's birthday, in Richmond, 
 Va., he and Pitou made a venture. Their 
 play, "The Husband," was tame and un- 
 eventful. The season was not a success 
 financially, and at its close, Pitou withdrew 
 from the partnership, and Mantell was left 
 to shift for himself. Already the banishment 
 from New York was beginning to tell. 
 
 Again, Mantell and his new wife sum- 
 mered at Stamford. The prospect was 
 gloomy enough. Business had been bad, 
 and the coming season promised nothing 
 better. The Cleveland panic was not yet 
 over. The politicians were wildly excited 
 themselves and were exciting the country 
 over "sound" and "unsound" money. 
 The Hawaiian situation was still delicate, 
 and the dispute with Great Britain over 
 Venezuela was at an acute stage. Mantell
 
 
 MISS KTI1KL MANTKLL
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 143 
 
 was facing a new season on his own re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 But this summer of 1895 was signalized 
 by an event of first importance to Mr. Man- 
 telTs future, though of little apparent 
 consequence at the time his first meeting 
 with William A. Brady, under whose expert 
 direction he was destined to rise to the 
 pinnacle of fame and affluence. 
 
 Brady, who began his money-making 
 career as a promoter of prize fights, his 
 ablest star in those days being James J. 
 Corbett, was now becoming one of the im- 
 portant factors in American theatricals. 
 He was in the transition period. A per- 
 formance, therefore, of "As You Like It," 
 with "Billy" Muldoon, the most popular 
 wrestler of the day as Charles, could not 
 fail to attract his notice. 
 
 It was an idea hatched by George Tyler, 
 who afterwards became a power in the 
 theatrical world as the animating spirit of 
 Leibler & Co. The performance was to be 
 given in the open air at Asbury Park, New 
 Jersey, where Brady had his summer home. 
 
 Mantell was chosen by Tyler for Or- 
 lando, with a promise of three hundred and 
 fifty dollars for the performance. It looked 
 like a godsend to the actor at this moment. 
 Tyler sent him fifty dollars to bind the 
 bargain.
 
 144 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 The performance was to be given on a 
 Thursday. Man tell was not definitely en- 
 gaged until the Monday before. There was 
 no Sunday, his day of grace, between. 
 How was it possible for him to get from 
 Stamford to Asbury Park without crossing 
 New York and running the risk of arrest? 
 
 Man tell solved the problem. For twenty- 
 five dollars he chartered a motor boat to 
 make the trip. He started blithely down 
 the Sound. All went well until he got under 
 Brooklyn Bridge. Then the motor snapped 
 and fluttered. The boat lost its balance and 
 began to dip water. The man at the motor, 
 which was still spinning feebly, tried to 
 round the point and make for the Jersey 
 shore. But the boat was filling too rapidly. 
 He was forced to steer for the New York 
 wharves. He and Mantell took off their 
 shoes, preparing to swim if necessary. 
 Mantell, as a further precaution, took the 
 remaining twenty-five dollars he had re- 
 ceived from Tyler out of his pocket, and 
 stowed it, in defiance of germs, in his 
 cheek. 
 
 They got to the shore none too soon, as 
 the boat was filling rapidly. Their trousers 
 were wringing wet. Everybody on the 
 wharf looked to Mantell like a deputy sher- 
 iff. A ferry boat for Jersey City was just 
 ready to pull off. Mantell ran aboard.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 145 
 
 Five minutes later he was safe from all the 
 sheriffs of the Empire State. 
 
 Mantell went on to Asbury Park, where 
 he met Muldoon for the first time. He and 
 the wrestler, both men of heroic physique, 
 and both lovers of physical sport, soon 
 became good friends. They rehearsed the 
 wrestling scene in a large room in their 
 hotel, and worked it down to the liveliest 
 battle, perhaps, in the history of the 
 Shakespearean comedy. 
 
 The other guests at the hotel were very 
 curious about the two celebrities, and were 
 continually peering about in hope of seeing 
 them rehearse. On the afternoon before the 
 performance, Muldoon proposed to "put 
 up a job " on them. Mantell agreed. 
 
 They went into the room they used for 
 rehearsing and locked the door. Then they 
 began wrestling, making as much noise as 
 possible, banging the furniture about and 
 falling heavily to the floor. The bell boys, 
 waiters and guests flocked to the door and 
 assembled outside. The racket within be- 
 came terrific. There was a particularly 
 heavy fall, and a moment's silence. 
 
 Then the listeners heard Muldoon cry 
 out: "For heaven's sake, Mantell, don't 
 kill me; I give up; you're choking me- 
 you're cutting off my ," and the rest was 
 lost in a painful gurgle, which became
 
 146 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 weaker and weaker, and tapered off into a 
 sound like a death rattle. One of the bell 
 boys, in alarm, ran for the proprietor, who 
 quickly came to the door. 
 
 "Here, gentlemen,'* he called out au- 
 thoritatively, "we can't have any rough 
 house! Open the door!" 
 
 Mantell came to the door, unlocked it, 
 and threw it wide. 
 
 "Why, we were only rehearsing," he 
 said, but with an admirable counterfeit of 
 a guilty look on his face. 
 
 The guests and bell boys and waiters 
 looked past him. They saw Muldoon, ap- 
 parently greatly crestfallen, rising from the 
 floor. 
 
 That evening as they came into the 
 dining room, Mantell strutted proudly in 
 front. Muldoon followed with a hangdog 
 look. Mantell was a demigod to the 
 waiters and a hero to all the guests, who 
 couldn't keep from sending admiring glances 
 all through the meal at the athlete who had 
 quelled the great Muldoon. 
 
 That night, Mantell played, for the first 
 time in America, the romantic Orlando, 
 as whom he had scored in England with 
 Marie De Grey, the gypsy. Later, he added 
 the role to his permanent repertoire. 
 
 Mr. Brady was in the audience with his 
 wife and his little daughter, Alice, who
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 147 
 
 since has become a stage beauty of ex- 
 traordinary talent. Mr. Brady that night 
 saw for the first time his future star. During 
 the course of the evening the two met. It 
 was scarcely more than a handshake at the 
 time, but it paved the way for a partner- 
 ship profitable to both nearly a decade 
 later. 
 
 In September, Mantell pluckily faced the 
 odds which nobody appreciated more keenly 
 than he. "Hamlet" was used, and "Mon- 
 bars," and "The Corsican Brothers," and 
 "Othello" occasionally even "The Hus- 
 band." 
 
 "Family reasons," as our grandmothers 
 discreetly put it, kept Charlotte Behrens 
 out of the cast until after the birth of her 
 daughter around the holiday times, increas- 
 ing the expenses of her husband's company 
 by the salary of a leading woman. 
 
 On March 12, Mantell attempted to mend 
 his greatly attenuated fortunes by produc- 
 ing a new play of apparent promise, "The 
 Queen's Garter." But the result before a 
 Cincinnati audience was not encouraging, 
 and audiences elsewhere corroborated Cin- 
 cinnati's opinion. This entry occurs in the 
 financial notebook at the close of the 
 season: "End of a most disastrous tour." 
 
 During the summer, M. W. Hanley, 
 known f amilarly as " Genial Mart," entered
 
 148 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 into an agreement with the star to assume 
 the management of him, and on the last 
 day of August, Mantell opened a new sea- 
 son with the old familiar repertoire. 
 
 Also, there ensued the old familiar busi- 
 ness. It was taking the heart out of the 
 romantic actor, rapidly approaching middle 
 life, who, a dozen years before, had flashed 
 so brilliantly upon New York, now closed 
 to him. Even if he were disposed to yield 
 now to the court's demand, a settlement 
 would have been impossible. The back 
 alimony had passed the ten-thousand-dollar 
 mark. Mantell was lucky now when he 
 could live comfortably. 
 
 In March, Hanley presented his star in a 
 new play, "A Gentleman of Gascony." 
 The premiere at Easton, Pa., was promising. 
 Bookings were secured in Philadelphia and 
 Baltimore. But the exile wasn't wanted 
 even in a new romantic play attractively 
 named. The business of each week hovered 
 around fifteen hundred dollars. 
 
 At the close of the season, Mantell was all 
 but penniless. Luckily, he secured an en- 
 gagement to play Orlando and Othello at a 
 schoolteachers' benefit in Philadelphia. 
 For these services he received three hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars. This enabled him to 
 summer at Stamford in some little comfort.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Reaching the Lowest Ebb of the Tide of 
 Fortune. 
 
 LOW as Robert Mantell's fortunes 
 had sunk from the affluence of 
 the darling of Broadway to the 
 poverty of the barnstormer they 
 were destined to make another plunge 
 diametrically down, like a plummet of lead 
 in the general disaster that now engulfed 
 the theatrical world. 
 
 In a time of public calamity, the theatre 
 is the first institution to suffer. The ordi- 
 nary man or woman doesn't go to see a play 
 when worried. It is only the philosopher 
 who can bring his mind to seek solace in 
 the theatre. 
 
 In the autumn of 1897, America scented 
 war with Spain. On the night of February 
 15, 1898, the battleship Maine was blown 
 up in Havana harbor. On April 21, war 
 began in earnest. The philosophical minor- 
 ity who could find diversion in a theatre 
 didn't make much impression at the box 
 office. 
 
 But Mantell and "Mart" Hanley were 
 gamblers. Though odds were decidedly 
 
 148
 
 150 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 against them, they produced at Stamford 
 on the night of August 30, 1897, a new play 
 by a Canadian playwright, W. A. Tre- 
 mayne, entitled "The Secret Warrant." 
 Whether the play would have been a suc- 
 cess under normal conditions could not be 
 determined. It held its own on the tour 
 which followed, alongside "Monbars" and 
 "The Corsican Brothers," but the weekly 
 receipts were only from seven hundred 
 to nine hundred dollars, scarcely good 
 average receipts for a first-class star on a 
 single night when theatrical business is 
 healthy. This money was less than half 
 of what had been taken in by Mantell 
 and Hanley during the wretched season 
 preceding. 
 
 Financial affairs were in this condition 
 when Mantell's wife and leading woman, 
 Charlotte Behrens, fell fatally ill at Port 
 Huron, Mich. She lingered for eight weeks. 
 Every Saturday night, Mantell went back 
 to her bedside from Montreal, Toronto, 
 Ottawa, Jersey City, and the other towns 
 he was playing. Then she died. It was in 
 mid-week. Fate decreed Mantell should 
 not be at her death bed. 
 
 Now occurred the most pathetic incident 
 that attended Mantell's long exile from New 
 York State. The body was taken to Phila- 
 delphia for burial, by way of Detroit,
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 151 
 
 Windsor and Buffalo. A little funeral party 
 of relatives accompanied it. Mantell was 
 not of their number. He went the long way 
 around, through Ohio. The funeral train 
 had scarcely entered New York at Niagara 
 Falls, when a deputy sheriff boarded it with 
 a warrant for the arrest of Robert Mantell, 
 wanted for contempt of court through 
 failure to pay alimony. That was how much 
 the law respected private grief. 
 
 As the war clouds grew blacker and 
 blacker, the box office receipts dwindled to 
 smaller and smaller compass. Mantell, who 
 was working with Hanley on a salary and 
 percentage basis, left in his salary to lighten 
 expenses, drawing only enough to live on. 
 He and Hanley tapped every available 
 source of money to pay salaries and running 
 expenses, plunging deeper and deeper into 
 debt, but struggling on, in the hope that 
 luck would take a turn. 
 
 But luck had no such intentions, and on 
 the night of July 2 the night before the 
 destruction of Cervera's fleet in Santiago 
 harbor Mantell and Hanley "surren- 
 dered" at Rockford, 111. The night's gross 
 receipts were twenty dollars. The terms 
 were fifty per cent for the company and 
 fifty per cent for the theatre. Hanley made 
 Mantell a present of the ten-dollar bill 
 delivered to him as the company's "share"
 
 152 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 by the treasurer of the theatre. It was all 
 the money the star had in the world. And 
 his half of the indebtedness, besides, was ten 
 thousand dollars. The company was paid 
 in full with borrowed money and disbanded. 
 
 Mantell took his precious ten-dollar bill, 
 with two or three smaller bills from the 
 borrowed fund, to the railroad station and 
 bought a ticket for Philadelphia. He didn't 
 indulge in the luxury of a sleeper, nor on 
 the way, did "he patronize the dining and 
 cafe cars. By exercising strict economy, he 
 reached Philadelphia with fifty cents in his 
 pocket. He had not the price of a railroad 
 ticket to Atlantic City to visit his little 
 daughter, Ethel, whom he had placed there 
 with one of her aunts, a sister of his dead 
 wife. 
 
 He indulged in some melancholy musings 
 in the Broad Street station. Here he was, a 
 theatrical star forty-four years old, who, 
 fifteen years before as Loris Ipanoff had 
 been hailed as the romantic actor pre- 
 eminent of his day. He had coolly taken his 
 own time then to think over an offer of 
 ten thousand dollars a year. Success had 
 trodden on the heel of success. He had made 
 money easily and had spent it joyously. 
 Then had come a sudden turn of affairs. 
 He was disbarred from New York. His 
 drawing power waned. His fortunes ebbed
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 153 
 
 away. At forty -four he felt old. The future 
 was dark black. His career, perhaps, 
 was ended. 
 
 In this frame of mind he walked to the 
 hotel where he had always stopped in 
 Philadelphia, and whose proprietor had 
 been a friend of his in his prosperous days. 
 He engaged a room for the night. The 
 proprietor noticed the gloomy look on his 
 face, and asked what was the matter. 
 Nothing, of course. But the hotel man 
 persisted, and wormed the secret of abject 
 poverty from his old-time friend. Without 
 a word, he went to the safe and took out a 
 roll of bills. 
 
 "Help yourself," he said, extending the 
 roll to Mantell. 
 
 But the actor would take only ten dollars 
 to tide him over until he could look up 
 some Belfast friends in Philadelphia. 
 
 Mantell went to his room and was pre- 
 paring for bed when somebody knocked at 
 his door. He opened it, and there stood an 
 actor friend of his, Robert Downing. 
 
 "Saw your name on the register, Bob, 
 and thought I'd come up," Downing greeted 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "Well, well," was Mantell's reply, with 
 all the heartiness he could muster, "come 
 in; glad to see you, old man." 
 
 Downing had a prosperous, contented look.
 
 154 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "Things going splendidly with you, evi- 
 dently," observed Man tell, when they were 
 seated. " What are you doing?" 
 
 " Don't be shocked," answered the visitor. 
 Then, looking carefully around with mock 
 caution, he whispered, "Vaudeville!" 
 
 Vaudeville, in those days, wasn't as 
 respectable as it is now. It had not long 
 emerged from the old-time "variety," which 
 was a sister to burlesque. Circus acrobats 
 and singers of songs of a more or less 
 "impolite" type were still the star per- 
 formers. No Sarah Bernhardt, then, had 
 gone into vaudeville, nor a Beerbohm Tree, 
 nor an Ethel Barrymore. 
 
 Thoughts surged in Mantell that made 
 him gulp. Then he made a clean breast of 
 his financial condition to his friend. 
 
 "Why don't you try it, Bob?" advised 
 the sleek-looking Downing, frankly. "It 
 isn't half bad, once you have made the 
 plunge, and the pay is splendid." 
 
 Mantell struggled with his pride. Poverty 
 soon won a decisive victory. 
 
 "All right, I'll do it," he said. "Tell me 
 how." 
 
 He already had in his possession a clever 
 one-act comedy, "A Lesson in Acting," 
 which he had used successfully as a curtain- 
 raiser. 
 
 Downing instructed him as to the method
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 155 
 
 of getting in touch with B. F. Keith, 
 who, even at that period, was the king of 
 vaudeville, and by whose efforts vaudeville 
 was gradually raised to its present high 
 standard. 
 
 Negotiations were short. Mantell needed 
 money. Keith needed talent. Satisfactory 
 terms were arranged. 
 
 Mantell engaged as the leading woman 
 of his little vaudeville company Marie 
 Booth Russell, a young actress who had 
 succeeded Charlotte Behrens as leading 
 woman of his regular company the preceding 
 December, when Miss Behrens was stricken. 
 Miss Russell had immediately made good, 
 first as Gabrielle in "The Secret Warrant," 
 and then hi the leading roles in the other 
 plays of the Mantell repertoire. Miss 
 Russell, who at that time was twenty- 
 three years old, had made her stage debut 
 three years before in a drama called "The 
 Avalanche." Since then, she had played in 
 various stock and repertoire companies, 
 gaining just such experience as was neces- 
 sary for success in a company like Mantell's. 
 
 Mantell was instructed by the Keith 
 office to go to Boston for an early opening. 
 He was joined there by Miss Russell and 
 two other players he had engaged. They 
 compared purses and found there was seven 
 cents among the four of them. They all
 
 156 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 went to a little American plan hotel, where 
 they could get both rooms and meals by 
 the week, without payment in advance. 
 
 The little sketch was quickly rehearsed. 
 All the members of the cast were experi- 
 enced in stock playing, where it is necessary 
 to get a full-length drama in presentable 
 shape in a week's time. "A Lesson in 
 Acting" was child's play in comparison. 
 
 The playlet caught on instantly. Mantell 
 was given eight hundred dollars for the 
 first week's work. He could scarcely believe 
 the little roll of bills handed him was so 
 valuable. He hurried to his room and 
 counted the money. He wouldn't have 
 exchanged places with Carnegie. 
 
 He telephoned Miss Russell, and took 
 her to one of the finest restaurants in Bos- 
 ton. They ordered lobster a la Newburg. 
 It was the first fancy dish either had tasted 
 in many weeks. Nero never presided at a 
 banquet where food tasted quite so good as 
 that lobster. From the little dinner dated 
 a courtship, which, two years later, made 
 Marie Booth Russell Mrs. Robert Mantell. 
 
 Mantell now had safely passed the lowest 
 ebb his fortunes ever reached. Never again, 
 after the receipt of that first eight hundred 
 dollars for a week in vaudeville, was he 
 "dead broke." Though he was to live for 
 four more years in "exile" in the "prov-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 157 
 
 inces," and his fortunes were not to mend 
 materially until after his triumphal re- 
 entry into New York, he was not destined 
 again to become absolutely penniless. 
 
 The vaudeville engagement continued 
 for seven or eight weeks in Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, Duluth and Chicago, and might 
 have run on indefinitely had Mr. Keith 
 had his way. But Mr. Mantell, in spite of 
 a bank account already swelling to gratify- 
 ing proportions, could not shake off the 
 feeling that the "varieties" was beneath his 
 dignity, and that his destiny lay on the 
 legitimate stage. 
 
 Meanwhile, too, Spain had been given a 
 thorough drubbing. A preliminary treaty 
 of peace had been signed the middle of 
 August, and the country was jubilant over 
 the results of a successful war. The spirit 
 abroad in the land promised prosperity to 
 the theatres. 
 
 With his pockets full of money and his 
 hopes bubbling with the froth that comes 
 from material comfort, Mantell, again under 
 the direction of Hanley, opened a new 
 season early in September. Business bright- 
 ened a bit. "Monbars" and "The Corsican 
 Brothers" were again the features of the 
 repertoire, and the receipts ran in the 
 neighborhood of fifteen hundred dollars a 
 week. It was still starvation business, but
 
 158 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 it was better than that of the previous 
 season when nine hundred dollars was 
 exceptional, and it promised well for the 
 future. 
 
 The season was two weeks old when 
 "Rubber" joined Mantell in Pittsburgh. 
 Rubber was a fox terrier, who became 
 Mantell's constant companion, and who is 
 worthy of going down in history alongside 
 the dog of the Seven Sleepers, Rip Van 
 Winkle's faithful cur and the hound dog of 
 Missouri. 
 
 Rubber's history extends over a period of 
 fifteen years, during which he was so be- 
 photographed and written up in the news- 
 papers that it was hard to determine which 
 was the star of the show, Mantell or his 
 dog. Rubber became known to the mana- 
 gers of all the big hotels in the country where 
 actors stop, and he was the only canine in 
 the profession universally welcome. Never, 
 after a first visit, was his right to first-class 
 accommodations questioned. 
 
 Rubber's experience in riding on Pull- 
 mans, however, was not always so pleasant. 
 Pullman conductors and porters, being 
 transients seldom encountered by travelers 
 a second time, had not the opportunities of 
 becoming acquainted with Rubber and his 
 good qualities that the hotel clerks had. 
 But Rubber was possessed of an intelligence
 
 MANTKLL AND HIS FAMOUS DOG, "RUBBER
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 159 
 
 almost human, and it wasn't long before he 
 learned a trick by which he never failed to 
 outwit the Pullman people. He knew from 
 experience in the early days that if he 
 failed he would have to ride in the lonesome 
 baggage cars. 
 
 Here is how it was done. Mantell would 
 engage the attention of the porter with his 
 grips and bundles. Wieda, the little Jap 
 valet, would take care of the conductor 
 with questions as to the time of leaving and 
 the route. Then, when everybody's notice 
 was distracted, Mantell would say to Rub- 
 ber, "Beat it!" Up the steps the dog 
 would spring, quick as a flash, and make for 
 the stateroom which he knew his master 
 would occupy. There he would crawl under 
 a seat out of the way until the others 
 arrived and all danger of detection was 
 passed. The porter's eyes seldom failed to 
 bulge when he found Rubber in taking 
 down the beds, but a fifty-cent piece always 
 closed his mouth. 
 
 Rubber was born in Woodstock, Ontario, 
 and was presented to Mantell when he was 
 two months old. From that time until two 
 or three years before the end, he was 
 seldom out of sight of the actor, who grew 
 to love him almost as a child. 
 
 As Rubber grew old, his sight and hearing 
 began to fail, and Mantell left him at home
 
 160 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 for fear he would get run over and hurt in 
 the cities. Finally, he became almost totally 
 deaf and blind. 
 
 In the spring of 1913, about two or three 
 weeks before the close of the season, while 
 Mr. Mantell was playing Peterboro, Can- 
 ada, not a great way from the birthplace of 
 the dog, Rubber disappeared from the home 
 in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, and 
 was never found, although a liberal reward 
 was offered for him or his body. It is one 
 of the sorrows of Mant ell's life that he 
 never could find his old friend and give him 
 decent burial. 
 
 Mr. Mantell, after a strange experience 
 in Peterboro, is almost inclined to believe 
 in the existence of a canine soul. On the very 
 night of the disappearance, Rubber ap- 
 peared to him in a dream, and talked. "I 
 am all right now," he said. "I can see and 
 hear, and I have no aches nor pains." 
 Three nights later, with no news yet from 
 Atlantic Highlands, the dog appeared also 
 to the Japanese valet in a dream, and told 
 him practically the same thing. 
 
 In the early summer of 1899, at the close 
 of a season that came near paying salaries 
 and expenses, Mantell re-entered vaudeville 
 in "A Lesson in Acting," repeating the 
 engagements of the previous summer in 
 Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. Then
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 161 
 
 he and Rubber went to Atlantic City and 
 later to Asbury Park to rest during the 
 remaining period of the hot weeks. 
 
 The next season, which extended through 
 the waning days of the old century and me 
 dawning of the new, witnessed a material 
 improvement in the fortunes of Man tell. 
 Still under the management of Hanley, he 
 opened at Trenton, New Jersey, in a new 
 play, "The Dagger and the Cross," drama- 
 tized from Joseph Hatton's novel by the 
 Canadian Tremayne, who had written for 
 Mantell "The Secret Warrant." 
 
 Business improved decidedly. In Pitts- 
 burgh, it reached the astonishing total of 
 $4465. Mantell and Hanley, accustomed to 
 statements of from $1500 to $1800, were 
 dazed. In Cincinnati the receipts soared to 
 $4600. Again their hearts fluttered danger- 
 ously. Mantell, today, with his expensive 
 company, would look at such figures gloom- 
 ily. But then they had the appearance of 
 the resources of the First National Bank of 
 Bonanza. 
 
 The season continued fairly prosperous, 
 and from the small, but constant, profits, 
 Mantell and Hanley wiped out several of 
 their most pressing debts. 
 
 More important still, Mantell had saved 
 enough from his salary, which he had drawn 
 in full this season for the first tune in three
 
 162 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 years, to feel justified in taking unto him- 
 self another wife, and a little while after the 
 close of the tour in May, he quietly married 
 Marie Booth Russell in Jersey City. He 
 sailed a few days later with his bride for a 
 honeymoon visit to his old home in Ireland 
 the first visit in many years. 
 
 The marriage with Marie Booth Russell 
 resulted in a sensational episode with the 
 four-year-old Ethel Mantell as the heroine. 
 Mantell wanted his little daughter, but 
 her mother's relatives, with whom she was 
 living, refused to give her up. Mantell 
 resorted to extreme tactics, which the 
 yellow newspapers dubbed "kidnapping." 
 He got her into his possession, and, in spite 
 of a legal battle, was permitted to keep her. 
 Marie Booth Russell had a daughter, 
 Louise, by a former marriage, who was 
 about Ethel's own age, and the two girls 
 grew up as sisters. No children were born 
 to Mantell and Marie Booth Russell, but 
 each adopted, in affection, the daughter of 
 the other, and it became a snug and cozy 
 family.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 In Which is Related how a Romantic Star 
 was Finally Transformed into a Classicist, 
 and how the Way was Paved for his Return 
 from Exile. 
 
 THE transformation of Robert Man- 
 tell from a romantic to a classic 
 star was slow and gradual, though 
 the impression on the memory of 
 the average theatregoer is that it was made 
 with something of the rapidity of the transi- 
 tion from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. This 
 impression is due, in the first place, to the 
 almost complete change in his style of 
 acting, but, secondly, and more important, 
 to the bizarre fortunes of his career. 
 
 In 1883, Mantell as Loris Ipanoff flashed 
 upon New York as the most brilliant ro- 
 mantic actor of his time. For ten years he 
 shone as a star of the first magnitude, and 
 then suddenly he disappeared from the 
 theatrical heavens of the metropolis. For 
 ten years more, then, he roamed around in 
 the darkness of the "provinces," and New 
 York forgot him. Then, as suddenly and 
 unexpectedly as in 1883, he burst upon 
 Broadway again. But this time it was as a 
 
 163
 
 164 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 classic star of the first magnitude, in 
 "Richard III." 
 
 The transformation was complete. To 
 Gotham the interval was a psychological 
 blank, and therefore negligible. It was 
 the same sort of thing that happens when 
 you go back to your old home town after 
 an interval of a decade. The girl who was 
 a tangle-headed tomboy then is now a 
 sweet and modest and beautiful young 
 woman. To you, the transformation has 
 been startlingly sudden. Her mother, who 
 has watched her grow daily from ten to 
 twenty, has hardly noticed a change. 
 
 When Mantell was barred from New 
 York, he was at the climax of his vogue in 
 "Monbars" and "The Corsican Brothers." 
 He had produced "Hamlet" and "Othello," 
 it is true, and with moderate success, but 
 it was a success merely that gave promise 
 of a more glorious future. The immediate 
 achievement was not overwhelming. He 
 was brilliant in "Monbars" and "The 
 Corsican Brothers." He was acceptable as 
 an interesting novelty in "Hamlet" and 
 "Othello." 
 
 During the ten years of his exile, there 
 occurred a transformation so gradual as to 
 be almost imperceptible. The brilliant light 
 of "Monbars" slowly but surely faded. 
 The pale light of "Othello" slowly but
 
 ItOKKUT HIUTE MANTKLL
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 165 
 
 surely brightened. At the close of the 
 century, it would have taken an astronomi- 
 cal photometer to detect the difference in 
 brilliancy. "Monbars," "The Corsican 
 Brothers," "Hamlet," "Othello" they 
 were practically equal in artistry and in 
 drawing power. 
 
 The equilibrium was not greatly dis- 
 turbed the first season of the new century 
 by two new additions to the repertoire, one 
 classic and the other romantic "Romeo 
 and Juliet," by William Shakespeare, and 
 "The Free Lance," by W. A. Tremayne, 
 the third play written for Mantell by the 
 Canadian. Neither venture was more than 
 moderately successful. But "Romeo and 
 Juliet," this time, was retained in the per- 
 manent repertoire, and not rejected as it 
 had been at the time Mantell made his first 
 unfortunate revival of the romantic tragedy 
 in America. 
 
 The balance reached between the classic 
 and romantic parts of the repertoire at the 
 beginning of the century was not long 
 maintained. Slowly but surely the classic 
 end of the beam began to force up the 
 romantic end. Mantell never himself 
 realized how much the equilibrium had 
 been disturbed until the autumn of 1910, 
 when he produced "The O'Flynn," which, 
 by all the old rules, should have been a
 
 166 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 romantic success, but which proved a dis- 
 mal failure financially. 
 
 Mantell and Hanley were not blind to 
 the state of the balance at the dawn of the 
 century, and they took measures accord- 
 ingly. After "The Free Lance," they sought 
 no more new plays, but during the summer 
 vacation of 1901, Mantell and his wife 
 retired to the quiet little village of Atlantic 
 Highlands, New Jersey, to study "Riche- 
 lieu" and "Richard III." It was their first 
 visit to Atlantic Highlands. They were so 
 charmed with the spot, both for a summer 
 home and as a quiet place for preparation 
 for the ensuing season, that they returned 
 there summer after summer, and finally 
 bought the Leonard homestead, which has 
 since become famous as "Brucewood," the 
 beautiful Mantell estate. 
 
 On September 2, 1901, Robert Mantell 
 began his first tour as an avowed classic 
 star. "Hamlet" was advertised as the 
 feature of the tour, and "Richelieu" and 
 "Richard III" were announced for pro- 
 duction a little later. "Othello," too, was 
 brought into prominence. "Monbars" and 
 "The Corsican Brothers" were not dropped, 
 however, from the repertoire. Mantell and 
 Hanley did not feel quite sure enough of 
 themselves to burn the bridges behind them. 
 
 The season was less than a week old when
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 167 
 
 President McKinley was assassinated at 
 Buffalo. During the period of public mourn- 
 ing that followed, the theatres fared badly 
 everywhere. 
 
 On the night of September 24, at Zanes- 
 ville, Ohio, Mantell appeared for the first 
 time in his career in the title role of "Riche- 
 lieu." It was as DeMauprat in this drama 
 of Bulwer's, it will be remembered, that he 
 in his amateur days played for the first 
 time in a real theatre. 
 
 The launching of "Richelieu" was suc- 
 cessful, and Mantell turned his attention 
 immediately to putting the finishing touches 
 to "Richard III." The first performance 
 was given at South Bend, Indiana, October 
 12. The receipts were only $238. But the 
 following Monday night in Chicago, " Rich- 
 ard " drew $787, and on the strength of that 
 showing was duly elected to the permanent 
 repertoire. A few weeks later, it played to 
 $911.30 in Toronto, which was the biggest 
 house Mantell had enjoyed since the pros- 
 perous days before the exile. 
 
 It was fortunate for Mantell that he 
 retained "Richard III." For "Richard," 
 after undergoing three years of polish, was 
 to re-establish tne star in New York. 
 
 During this first season as an avowed 
 classic star, the way was paved for the 
 return to Gotham. The one hundred dollars
 
 168 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 a week alimony the actor had refused to 
 pay had steadily accumulated, and, with 
 interest, had passed the magnificent total 
 of sixty thousand dollars. Not even the 
 opposition lawyers indulged any longer in 
 rosy dreams that this king's ransom could 
 ever be paid. Accordingly, negotiations were 
 opened between them and Mantell's law- 
 yers. On December 18, 1901, in St. Louis, 
 they came to an agreement. If Mantell 
 would pay ten thousand dollars, all old 
 scores would be wiped out, and the alimony 
 difficulties would cease forever. Mantell, 
 for the sake of re-entry into New York, 
 gladly shouldered this debt, and his alert 
 friend, the deputy sheriff, was called in 
 from his patrol of the border. 
 
 The following summer Mantell rested in 
 Brooklyn not because he was so de- 
 lighted with the city that groans under the 
 burden of Manhattan's satirical wit, but 
 because of the delicious luxury of sleeping 
 on long-prohibited soil without fear of dis- 
 turbance by a policeman's whistle. This 
 was his only summer in Brooklyn. The 
 Jersey coast was his best love. 
 
 The impression is general that Mantell's 
 triumphant re-establishment in New York 
 followed immediately the settlement of his 
 alimony difficulties. Such is not the case. 
 Nearly three years elapsed between De-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 169 
 
 cember 18, 1901, when the lawyers came to 
 an agreement, and December 5, 1904, when 
 Mantell's performance of "Richard III" 
 at the Princess Theatre demonstrated that 
 the line of great tragedians on the American 
 stage had not ended with Edwin Booth. 
 
 During these three years, Mantell even 
 played two engagements in New York 
 without anybody being aware of his pres- 
 ence. The first opened November 30, 1903, 
 and continued for three weeks. Mantell 
 occupied the very theatre that had been 
 the scene of his triumph in "Fedora." 
 But the theatrical center had moved far 
 out Broadway, and Fourteenth Street was 
 all but forgotten. The receipts of the en- 
 gagement by weeks were $2400, $1900 and 
 $1600. Verily, Robert Mantell was known 
 no longer in New York. Verily, too, as the 
 rapid decline in business week by week 
 showed, he couldn't "come back." During 
 this engagement, he played first "The 
 Corsican Brothers" and next "The Light 
 of Other Days," a new play with which he 
 had opened that season. 
 
 The second New York appearance was 
 made a few weeks later in the same season, 
 January 8, 1904. The theatre was the 
 Metropolis in the Bronx. It was a play- 
 house that the Park Row critics did not 
 succeed in finding. But business improved.
 
 170 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "The Light of Other Days" drew thirty- 
 five hundred dollars during the week. 
 
 Really, dear reader, I must apologize for 
 bothering your head with figures, especially 
 if it happens to be a dear little feminine head. 
 The masculine brain can possibly stand it, 
 but what cares the delicate dura mater of 
 femininity for base money and limousines, 
 and fur coats and diamond necklaces? 
 
 The apology was in my mind away back 
 yonder, but I remembered that Balzac 
 converted bank accounts into romance; 
 that our own beloved George M. Cohan 
 waves a dollar bill as artistically as an 
 American flag; and I thought maybe you 
 would pardon me, without the asking. But 
 conscience, at this point artistic con- 
 science becomes too strong. I can only 
 plead that truthful and exact figures, so 
 rare in discussions of the stage as to be on 
 the verge of the poetical from that fact 
 alone, tell the story of my hero's poverty 
 more eloquently than any other device at 
 my command. I promise to offend hence- 
 forth as little as possible. I would, for your 
 sake, my brain were constructed in such a 
 way as to be able to flash forth the glorious 
 visions of a Monte Cristo or a Charlie 
 Chaplin. For, with dreams of gorgeous 
 millions, I could not fail to delight you when 
 I am forced to speak of money.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 171 
 
 And further to show you how penitent 
 I am, I am going to unfold here a tale of 
 romance that cannot fail to re-establish me 
 in your good graces. It belongs in these 
 latter days of Hanley's management, and 
 has as its heroine a mysterious lady who 
 always wore a bouquet of blood-red roses. 
 
 This young woman, although Mantell, 
 who was living happily with Marie Booth 
 Russell, had never met her, followed the 
 matinee idol from city to city for several 
 days, buying a seat always in a box nearest 
 the stage to watch his performances. The 
 experience is not unparalleled in the lives 
 of most handsome young men who have 
 arrived at distinction on the stage, for 
 femininity, at times, is as foolish as as 
 well, say, as masculinity. 
 
 No further notice than good-natured 
 banter of the star, would have been taken 
 of the lady of the blood-red roses by Hanley 
 and the rest of the company, including 
 Mantell, had it not been that her sudden 
 disappearance from a hotel in Bridgeport, 
 Connecticut, led the hotel keeper and the 
 police to discover that she had left behind a 
 heavy pistol with all the chambers loaded. 
 
 Nothing more was seen of her until the 
 company arrived in Hartford. Then, on the 
 opening night of the engagement there she 
 was discovered by Hanley, sitting in a box,
 
 172 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 but with the draperies drawn in front of 
 her. 
 
 Hanley went back stage and told Mantell 
 and the others about it. There was no 
 delicate way they could see of ejecting the 
 woman, since she was causing no disturb- 
 ance, but every one was afraid she might 
 fire suddenly at the actor during the course 
 of the performance. 
 
 Then stepped forth a heroine in the 
 person of Miss Corona Ricardo, a fiery 
 little Italian actress, who was playing juve- 
 nile leads, while Marie Booth Russell was 
 playing the heavier parts. Miss Ricardo 
 produced a bright and dangerous-looking 
 little dagger, such as women of the Latin 
 races not infrequently carry, and volun- 
 teered to protect the star by placing herself 
 between him and the lady with the blood- 
 red roses. Her services were accepted, and 
 the play proceeded. Before the performance 
 was over, the mysterious woman disap- 
 peared from the box, and neither Mantell 
 nor any of the company ever saw her again. 
 Miss Ricardo was inclined to believe the 
 stranger saw the glitter of her dagger, and 
 thought better of any possible plans of 
 assassination, and the little actress swore 
 she would have used her weapon had there 
 been a suspicious move on the part of the 
 red bouquet.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 173 
 
 The season which opened in the fall of 
 1902 was the last under the management 
 of "Mart" Hanley, who had struggled 
 pluckily against odds in the enthusiastic 
 hope of making Mantell ultimately a highly 
 profitable star. But he had failed. First, 
 because of Mantell's exile from New York. 
 Second, because Mantell was too good an 
 actor ever to be more than moderately 
 popular in the second-rate theatres, where 
 he was sandwiched in between "The King 
 of the Opium Ring" and "The Hired Girl's 
 Millions." 
 
 It was largely Mantell's desire to get 
 away from the companionship of the lurid 
 melodramas that led to the severance of 
 his connection with Hanley. In the autumn 
 of 1903, he opened under the nominal 
 management of Max Zoellner, who negoti- 
 ated first-class bookings for him with the 
 Klaw & Erlanger syndicate. "The Light of 
 Other Days," his new play, in which he was 
 to appear in New York, was launched Sep- 
 tember S. It reached the climax of its 
 financial popularity at the Olympic Theatre, 
 St. Louis, when the receipts attained the 
 total, which looked phenomenal to Mantell, 
 of fifty -four hundred dollars on the week. 
 
 But, after St. Louis, Mantell was sent 
 into wretched territory in the South, and it 
 was to escape starvation that he despatched
 
 174 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Zoellner from Gainesville, Texas, to secure 
 bookings in New York. The engagements 
 at the Fourteenth Street Theatre and at the 
 Metropolis resulted. 
 
 The New York experiment was so dis- 
 couraging that when the next chance came 
 to try his fortune there, Mantell had little 
 heart for the enterprise. His company was 
 not of metropolitan calibre he knew that. 
 He knew, also, that his productions were 
 wretched. 
 
 The opportunity developed the following 
 season. Mantell opened in the fall under 
 Zoellner's direction and with syndicate 
 bookings. He started with "The Light of 
 Other Days" as his featured play, but busi- 
 ness was so bad that he decided to avail 
 himself again of the discovery he and Hanley 
 had made at the dawn of the century that 
 the classics were more profitable to him. 
 
 On the night of November 5, 1904, at 
 Pottsville, Pa., "Richard III" was pro- 
 moted to the "featured" place in his reper- 
 toire, and "The Light of Other Days" was 
 banished. Since that night, Mantell has 
 been exclusively a classic star. 
 
 Never before that day in Pottsville nor 
 since has MantelPs versatility been so 
 taxed. Besides being star, he was stage 
 carpenter, property man, flyman, painter, 
 wigster, wardrobe man and musical di-
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 175 
 
 rector. He hung his own scenery, set his 
 stage and gave the signal for the ringing 
 up and ringing down of the curtain. From 
 nine o'clock in the morning until midnight 
 he did not leave the theatre. 
 
 It happened that he had a new stage 
 crew throughout. He had sent to New 
 York for the production of "Richard III," 
 which he had not removed from the store- 
 house at the beginning of the season, and 
 it reached Pottsville on the morning of his 
 own arrival there. Nobody but himself 
 was familiar with it. After it had been 
 hauled into the theatre, he had to see to the 
 unpacking and hanging of the production, 
 to the fitting of the wardrobe on the vari- 
 ous actors and actresses of the company, 
 to the fitting and trimming of the wigs, to 
 the direction of the orchestra in the re- 
 hearsal of the music, to the touching up of 
 the scenery where it had been worn and 
 scratched, and to the thousand and one 
 other details, which Harry Keefer, then 
 the new stage manager, since that day has 
 taken off his shoulders. Into the two hours 
 between six and eight o'clock in the evening 
 was crowded an appalling amount of work. 
 
 But the performance went off smoothly 
 enough, and "Richard III" demonstrated 
 its fitness to succeed "The Light of Other 
 Days." Mantell retained "Richelieu,"
 
 176 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "Hamlet" and "Othello" and resurrected 
 "The Lady of Lyons." 
 
 The change, however, was not followed 
 by any phenomenal soaring in fortune. 
 The towns into which he was booked were 
 far from desirable. Evidently the planners 
 of routes had little confidence in the ability 
 of the new classic star, so long a "barn- 
 stormer," to interest playgoers in the large 
 cities. 
 
 It was while he was still wandering from 
 one "one-night stand" to the next in 
 Pennsylvania, that Mantell received from 
 the Shuberts, then a new firm of managers 
 endeavoring to insert a wedge into the 
 monopoly of the syndicate, a letter offering 
 "choice time" in New York City. 
 
 Mantell carefully reviewed his condition. 
 He was not prepared to face a Broadway 
 audience in a first-class theatre with his 
 company and productions. Nobody real- 
 ized that better than he. At the same time, 
 there were no prospects of his ever being so 
 prepared, if things went on as they were 
 going now. He had nothing to lose per- 
 haps there might be something to gain. 
 He accepted the proposition. 
 
 When he got a reply to his letter, he 
 would have smiled satanically, if he had 
 had the foresight to include Goethe's 
 Mephisto in his repertoire. For the "choice
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 177 
 
 time" allotted him was notoriously the 
 worst in the year the three weeks before 
 Christmas. And, to cap a climax that 
 didn't need a cap, he was assigned the 
 Princess Theatre, a little upstairs house 
 with a stage too small to accommodate 
 even his own miserable productions. 
 
 But Mantell had gambled before with 
 fate, and he decided to make the best of a 
 wretched situation. With the decision came 
 an iron determination to succeed. Wrath 
 lashed him on, just as it did the opening 
 night of "Fedora" when the audience sat 
 frozen.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Dramatic Re-Entry into the Limelight, Sur- 
 rounded by the Ghosts of the Tragedians 
 of Eld. 
 
 THE dramatic story of Robert Man- 
 tell's return to popular favor in 
 New York is known to all atten- 
 tive followers of the theatre, and 
 ranks with the classic stories of the stage of 
 all time. Before repeating it here, I want 
 to relate a prefatory tale, which has not 
 been told before in its entirety. Mr. Man- 
 tell told it first to me in confidence, as he 
 felt that it was tinged with a "vain glory" 
 distasteful to him, but later, at my urgent 
 request for permission to use it here, he 
 left it to my "discretions." As newspaper 
 training has taught me to be as little dis- 
 creet as possible where a good story is 
 involved, I am going to repeat this one. 
 
 On the night before his scheduled ap- 
 pearance at the Princess, Mantell slept at 
 the Lambs' Club, of which he was a mem- 
 ber. His means were very slender, and he 
 confesses frankly that he put up there in- 
 stead of going to a first-class hotel to save 
 the little money he had. The club was 
 
 178
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 179 
 
 crowded, and Mantell was assigned to a 
 couch in the library. 
 
 Earlier in the evening he had been dis- 
 cussing his proposed venture with friends at 
 the club. 
 
 "Have you gone crazy, Bob?" one had 
 asked. "'Richard' for an opening! Whoever 
 heard of such a thing!" 
 
 "Are you in your second childhood, 
 Mantell?" had observed another. 
 
 " Do you think New York wants 'Richard* 
 especially at Christmas time?" a third 
 had asked. " Why don't you do * Monbars ' 
 or 'The Corsican Brothers/ or something 
 like that? I tell you, Shakespeare's a dead 
 one in this town." 
 
 "If you've got to give us Shakespeare," 
 advised a fourth, "why don't you do some- 
 thing that's got a chance? 'Hamlet* or 
 ' The Merchant ' or something? You'll never 
 get a nickel with * Richard.' You can't 
 draw a critic to the Princess even for the 
 luxury of roasting you." 
 
 These opinions were still ringing in Man- 
 tell's head when he retired to the library 
 for the night. He wasn't so sure but that 
 the Job's comforters knew what they were 
 talking about. He threw himself on his 
 couch, and gazed vacantly, with a dull, 
 mental pain, at the walls. Gradually there 
 grew into his consciousness the pictures of
 
 180 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the great dead tragedians hanging there. 
 Edwin Booth looked at him he thought 
 not unkindly. There was positively a 
 friendly twinkle in Macready's eye. Edwin 
 Forrest was ferocious enough, but even his 
 ferocity softened as Mantell gazed steadily 
 at him. Kemble, Kean, Garrick and the 
 rest they all seemed to him sympathetic. 
 
 Mantell arose from his couch and ad- 
 dressed them: 
 
 "Look here, you mighty tragedians of 
 the past! You've got to come to the 
 theatre tomorrow night and help me! 
 Everybody's about quit doing this sort of 
 thing. It's up to you to aid me in passing 
 along the traditions and keep your memory 
 green ! " 
 
 Then he "woke up " to himself, and with 
 a flash of characteristic Scotch-Irish humor 
 he continued: 
 
 " Besides, you blooming old warriors, if you 
 don't help me, I'll thrash every one of you 
 when I meet you on the banks of the Styx ! " 
 
 In the audience at the Princess the next 
 night was a devout Spiritualist, a personal 
 friend of Mantell's. A day or two after the 
 performance, this Spiritualist, who knew 
 nothing of the scene in the Lambs' library, 
 met Mantell on Broadway. After a warm 
 handshake of congratulations, the Spiritual- 
 ist remarked solemnly:
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 181 
 
 "You may believe it or not, Bob, but in 
 the theatre the night of 'Richard* there 
 was a whole crowd of souls of dead trage- 
 dians, and every one of them was boosting 
 for you!" 
 
 Whether there were any ghosts of the 
 dead at the Princess that night is left, 
 without prejudice, to the credulity of the 
 reader. Certain it is that there were ghosts 
 of flesh and blood, as Carlyle insists on 
 styling animated humanity, marveling, as 
 he does, that we should look for miracles 
 in the graveyards when so many miracles 
 are elbowing us daily in the crowded streets. 
 These "ghosts" were not especially numer- 
 ous, but the little audience was an attentive 
 one, and very important for Mantell 
 there were present a few newspaper writers, 
 who, in the dull season before the holidays, 
 had no new productions to occupy their 
 minds. They had strolled into the Princess 
 because there was no place else to go. 
 
 Mantell strained every nerve to project 
 across the footlights everything that was 
 in him. But never in stage history in a 
 moment so critical has a great actor been 
 so aggravatingly handicapped. 
 
 It had come about in this way. The stage 
 crew at the Princess that afternoon had 
 demanded a scenic rehearsal. It would 
 have meant a little money for them, but
 
 182 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Mantell had no money to spend for any- 
 thing not absolutely essential. He had 
 with him his own crew, who, on the one- 
 night stands in Pennsylvania, after his 
 personal instructions at Pottsville, had 
 become proficient in handling "Richard 
 III," without any help whatsoever from the 
 badly trained men so often found on village 
 stages. 
 
 Mantell's refusal to order a scenic re- 
 hearsal rankled in the breasts of the Prin- 
 cess house crew. They concocted a scheme 
 of revenge that would "break up the show." 
 
 When Mantell walked out into the first 
 narrow scene where the back drop was only 
 three or four feet from the footlights, and 
 where he necessarily stood with his back 
 almost touching the curtain, they pro- 
 ceeded to put their plan into execution. 
 
 One of the stage hands in crossing behind 
 the drop lunged heavily against the actor 
 through the canvas, almost knocking him 
 down. With a sneer, he begged the pardon 
 of Harry Keefer, Mantell's stage manager, 
 who had witnessed the "accident." He 
 had hardly done so, when another tripped 
 over a stage brace, and saved himself from 
 falling only by throwing out his arms and 
 striking Mantell a heavy blow through the 
 drop. 
 
 So admirably impassive did Mantell seem
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 183 
 
 to the insolence, that even the most experi- 
 enced playgoer in the audience did not 
 notice that there was anything seriously 
 wrong. They may have seen the drop 
 move, but that occasionally happens by 
 accident when a new setting is being 
 erected behind. 
 
 Mantell finished his lines and went off for 
 a few moments, inwardly boiling, but out- 
 wardly calm. He quietly warned the crew 
 that somebody would get badly hurt if they 
 didn't stop their cowardly attempts to spoil 
 his chances of making good with the audi- 
 ence. As he re-entered the scene, he heard 
 the men laugh derisively. 
 
 The actor walked on all alert for the next 
 move of the enemy, but, so far as the audi- 
 ence could notice, absorbed in his impersona- 
 tion of Richard. There was a clatter of 
 stage braces f ailing to the floor. Then Man- 
 tell noticed a hand feeling along the drop 
 to locate him. He turned half round, with 
 one side toward the drop and the other 
 toward the audience, and drew his dagger, 
 making the action fit into his lines with the 
 resourcefulness of the long training that 
 playing in repertoire gives. He held the 
 dagger so that his body concealed it from 
 the audience, and waited. 
 
 He saw the form of the man back scenes 
 print itself against the drop, preparing, as
 
 184 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 he rightly guessed, for a powerful lunge 
 forward calculated to send the actor head- 
 long into the orchestra pit. 
 
 With a quick, strong thrust, Mantell 
 drove his dagger through the curtain. 
 There was a cry of pain, stifled, however, 
 by an instinct for silence in a theatre an 
 instinct that was stronger than the man's 
 evil mind. Mantell felt the flesh draw itself 
 off the dagger point, and heard the fellow 
 stagger and fall into the arms of his com- 
 panions, and then all was quiet. 
 
 The audience had been slightly startled 
 by the cry, but, believing evidently that it 
 had been some sort of "business" back of 
 the scenes, paid no more attention to it. 
 Mantell finished the act without further 
 interruption, and walked off as the curtain 
 dropped. 
 
 He was met in the wings by the ringleader 
 of the gang. 
 
 "Here, you," blustered the fellow brut- 
 ally, "d'you know you've killed a man?" 
 
 "I hope to God I have," answered Man- 
 tell with furious fervency. He glanced at 
 his victim, who was lying at the rear of the 
 stage on a carpet thrown across a couple of 
 wardrobe trunks. The fellow had a bad 
 wound in his leg, and was groaning feebly. 
 
 "Here, Hammy," said the actor, turning 
 to his valet. "Run like a good boy to my
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 185 
 
 dressing room and get that glove I use in 
 the last act." 
 
 The excited valet was away, and back 
 in a moment. 
 
 "Now take a good look at this gauntlet," 
 said Mantell to the crew. "It is studded 
 with iron. I'm a strong man, and with a 
 blow of this glove I can fell an ox. I'm 
 going to wear this through the rest of the 
 play. If there's the least disturbance back 
 here when I'm on the stage, I'll walk off 
 instantly, and I'll brain the man that's 
 making it." 
 
 How the ghost of Heffernan must have 
 laughed if he was among the dead tragedians 
 looking on! 
 
 Never in his career did Mantell act on a 
 quieter stage than after that little speech. 
 Nor ever did he play with more fire. The 
 wrath engendered by his fight with the crew 
 was converted into dramatic fury. He lit- 
 erally electrified his little audience. The 
 dramatic critics who had strolled in " to kill 
 an evening " felt the blood leap through their 
 veins with a bound whose thrjll they had al- 
 most forgotten in the long absence of great 
 tragic acting from the New York stage. 
 They went back to their desks and wrote 
 fervently of what they had seen and heard. 
 Even Alan Dale, most caustic of reviewers, 
 forgot to let loose the vials of his vitriolitic
 
 186 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 humor, which might readily have been 
 spread in generous measure over scenery 
 and supporting company. The most dreaded 
 of critics was even more lavish in his praise 
 than his fellows. 
 
 The result was that playgoers forgot that 
 it was the holiday season. They climbed 
 the steps of the Princess to see again such 
 acting as had not been witnessed since the 
 death of Booth. 
 
 Mantell quickly followed up his success 
 as Richard with a performance of "Othello," 
 in which he scored another triumph of 
 almost equal strength. Yes, here was a 
 great tragedian Mantell had "come 
 back." 
 
 William A. Brady, who long before had 
 met the young Orlando at Asbury Park, 
 was now an important factor in New York 
 theatricals. He was among those who 
 climbed the steps at the Princess. He saw 
 what further dignity it would lend to his 
 position in stage affairs to become manager 
 of the foremost classic star of his genera- 
 tion. He realized, too, that Mantell could 
 be made to turn a handsome profit if sur- 
 rounded by the right sort of company and 
 given the right sort of scenic productions. 
 
 Brady opened negotiations with the star, 
 who was receiving offers at the same time 
 from nearly everybody of consequence in
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 187 
 
 the New York managerial field. Mantell's 
 contract with Zoellner would expire Febru- 
 ary 4, 1905. He signed a new contract with 
 Brady to go into effect February 6. 
 
 From the moment of his triumphal re- 
 entry into New York on that night of 
 December 5, 1904, Robert Mantell's for- 
 tunes have steadily improved, and his 
 fame as America's leading classic actor has 
 become firmly established. The long 
 struggle for recognition as an artist is over. 
 With this recognition have come the material 
 comforts that grateful theatregoers shower 
 upon their favorites through the contribu- 
 tion of their mites at the box office.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 In Which, as King Lear, Robert Mantell 
 Takes a Place in the Stage History of All 
 Time. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after his contract with 
 Mantell went into effect, Brady started 
 with his characteristic zeal to develop 
 his new star. He arranged a short 
 "stock" season at the Alvin Theatre, Pitts- 
 burgh. There he and Mantell began vigor- 
 ously to overhaul the company and thus 
 improve the support of the star that had 
 been so sadly lacking in New York. Marie 
 Booth Russell, leading woman, and Harry 
 Keefer, stage manager, were retained. 
 
 The first week, Mantell played " Richard 
 III" twice a day, and he and Brady re- 
 hearsed the company every day besides. 
 The second week, the bill was "Richelieu," 
 also twice a day, and with the daily re- 
 hearsals. The third week it was "Othello," 
 with the same vigorous proceedings, and 
 the fourth week "Hamlet." The fifth week, 
 "The Corsican Brothers" was tried. The 
 receipts fell to one-half. Mantell was 
 wanted as a classic star his romantic 
 days were over. 
 
 188
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 189 
 
 On March 27, Mantell started on tour 
 at the head of the company he and Brady 
 had reorganized. But the season was too 
 near an end to attempt anything out of the 
 ordinary. An invasion of Chicago, however, 
 was tried, with financial disappointment. 
 The Iroquois Theatre had just been rebuilt 
 after the fire so dreadful in the theatrical 
 annals of America, and to Mantell was 
 assigned the task of rededicating it. He 
 was the first star of consequence to go 
 into the reconstructed playhouse. Chi- 
 cago stayed away. 
 
 Mantell and Brady, however, seized the 
 opportunity of the engagement in Chicago 
 to go through with some more vigorous 
 rehearsals. One day they were overhauling 
 "Richard III." Mantell became thoroughly 
 tired out. Brady told him to go to his hotel 
 and "take a nap" before the night per- 
 formance. He then proceeded to rehearse 
 the company alone. 
 
 In the wings stood two "supers." 
 
 "Who is that guy?" asked one of them, 
 in a low voice, with a nod of his head in 
 Brady's direction. 
 
 "Hush! That's the author," said the 
 other. 
 
 At the close of the brief spring tour, 
 Mantell retired to Atlantic Highlands, where 
 he spent the busiest summer of his career
 
 190 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 in the hard study of new roles. Brady had 
 put new life into him. The future looked 
 bright again. 
 
 On the night of October 23, 1905, Mantell 
 opened at the Garden Theatre, New York, 
 an engagement that, for artistic achieve- 
 ment, has never been duplicated in the 
 history of the American stage. The engage- 
 ment started with "Richard III," which 
 Mantell now regarded as his mascot, and 
 he depended on Richard to overcome a 
 "hoodoo" that was reputed to hang over 
 the Garden. The wittily malevolent hunch- 
 back partly, perhaps, because of the 
 hump, if you are superstitious in that di- 
 rection was partially successful so far as 
 finances were concerned, for he made pos- 
 sible an eight weeks' stay. When it came 
 to artistic recognition, he proved an amulet 
 of superlative power. 
 
 The first of the novelties of this red- 
 letter engagement at the Garden was " Mac- 
 beth," presented the night of November 
 13. It was the first time Mantell had 
 played the Thane since the memorable 
 night in Hull twenty-three years before, 
 when he had bade good-bye to the gypsy 
 stage queen, Marie De Grey. "Macbeth" 
 was praised by the critics, who were watch- 
 ing with interest the development of the new 
 classic star. It was easily the best Macbeth
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 191 
 
 in elocution since Booth's, and it surpassed 
 Booth's from the physical standpoint. 
 
 But the success of Cawdor was swallowed 
 up two weeks later by an amazing triumph 
 in "King Lear" a triumph that is re- 
 newed every time Mantell plays the mad 
 old monarch, the one creation of Shake- 
 speare which puts the Elizabethan drama- 
 tist, in spite of Tolstoi's opinion, on a par 
 of sublimity with the tragedians of the 
 golden age of Greece. 
 
 Mantell's King Lear, taken all in all, is 
 his masterwork. There is a tremendous 
 force of genius in it that never fails to stun 
 the onlooker. However blase the theatre- 
 goer may be however he may despise or 
 affect to despise the elocutionary art of 
 Shakespeare in this age of stage realism, 
 he cannot sit in the theatre when Mantell 
 is playing Lear without being caught in the 
 cyclonic swirl of tragic emotion. 
 
 It was my good fortune to see an extraor- 
 dinary performance of this masterpiece of 
 world tragedy, which I remember as the 
 most vividly magnetic experience in a 
 somewhat extended career as a professional 
 witnesser of plays. It was on the night of 
 January 27, 1913, the opening night of 
 Mantell's first engagement in Boston in 
 seven years. 
 
 Mantell had shunned the center of New
 
 192 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 England culture. He had been treated 
 unmercifully on his last previous visit. 
 The critics had vied with each other then 
 in the art of vivisection. They had found 
 every imaginable fault with his company 
 and his productions, and had concluded 
 that "besides" Mantell himself was a 
 "ham-actor" and "barnstormer." The few 
 playgoers who attended the performances 
 throughout the fortnight of fusillade scarcely 
 dared raise a dissenting voice against the 
 consensus of opinion of the learned gentle- 
 men of the press, and the engagement was a 
 miserable failure, artistically and financially. 
 
 Mantell didn't forget the experience. 
 Whenever he saw Boston on his route sheet 
 he felt even his tough courage ooze. So 
 much of it would seep away as the time 
 approached to fill the date that he would 
 end up by seeking and finding an excuse 
 for cancelling the engagement. It was the 
 only city in America he feared. All the 
 others he had conquered. 
 
 But, in 1913, he screwed his courage to 
 the sticking point. I was his press agent 
 at the time. In Buffalo, a few weeks before 
 the Boston engagement, he confessed to me 
 his fears, and we laid plans for a campaign 
 of publicity to be wholly legitimate and 
 dignified, so as to give the critics no open- 
 ing for charges of sensationalism.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 193 
 
 Mantell began his engagement with 
 "King Lear." I saw him a few minutes 
 before the curtain went up, and he had the 
 bull-dog look he always wears when he 
 means to conquer. When he walked on 
 the stage he flashed into his audience that 
 indescribable broadside of magnetism al- 
 ways radiated by a player of genius, but 
 hi this instance a dozen times stronger than 
 I had ever felt it before. The audience was 
 caught instantly. 
 
 "I felt a return flash," Mr. Mantell 
 afterwards told me, "and I realized I had 
 them." 
 
 He not only caught them, but he kept 
 them. The audience appeared fascinated. 
 Their eyes followed his every movement, 
 and their ears drank in every note of his 
 voice. 
 
 When the curtain closed on the curse 
 scene, the audience appeared stunned. 
 Every swish of the velvet could be heard. 
 Then, there burst forth a thunder-clap of 
 applause, which lengthened into a long 
 roar. Somebody down front leaped to his 
 feet and yelled, "Bravo!" Voices all over 
 the house caught up the cry. Spectators 
 everywhere sprang to their feet. Handker- 
 chiefs were waved in the air. Mantell, or 
 rather King Lear for the tragedian did 
 not step out of character appeared time
 
 194 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 and time again from between the folds of 
 the velvet. 
 
 In a quarter of a century cultured Boston 
 had never so lost its head. Booth and 
 Irving had never inspired such an ovation. 
 Brady wired congratulations to his star. 
 "You have conquered, and opened up a 
 new domain for yourself," he said. 
 
 The electrical effect of that night per- 
 sisted throughout the two weeks of the 
 engagement. Night after night the crowds 
 gave vent to their enthusiasm. Boston, the 
 last American city to be conquered by the 
 tragedian, was the most completely sub- 
 dued. Mantell, forgotten in the seven 
 years of absence, burst upon the city in the 
 very height of the glow of his genius. To 
 Boston theatregoers he was a brilliant 
 discovery a discovery of their very own. 
 
 From Boston, his fame spread through 
 New England. The tour was altered and 
 rearranged to include all the important 
 Puritan cities. Mantell enjoyed a triumph, 
 financial and artistic, never before accorded 
 a classic tragedian in that section of the 
 United States. 
 
 But I have wandered nearly a decade 
 beyond the first night of "King Lear" in 
 New York. The critics and Shakespearean 
 scholars shook their heads dubiously when 
 Mantell announced a revival of "Lear."
 
 LEAR AND THE DEAD CORDELIA 
 Mr. Mantel! and Miss Hamper
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 105 
 
 Had not Charles Lamb, keen critic of 
 literature and of the stage, pronounced the 
 tragedy unactable? Had not the experience 
 of three centuries pretty nearly borne out 
 this estimate? 
 
 Richard Burbage, that giant of the 
 Elizabethan stage who created all the tragic 
 heroes of his fellow-actor, Will Shakespeare, 
 played the part perhaps well maybe 
 ill. We have nothing about him except a 
 glowing epitaph, and epitaphs are not to be 
 trusted. David Garrick, the John the 
 Baptist of stage naturalism, shone lumi- 
 nously in the role. Spranger Barry was his 
 rival. Of Barry the makers of epigram said 
 after they saw him as Lear: "He was every 
 inch a king." After they saw Garrick they 
 said, "He was every inch King Lear." 
 Edwin Forrest on this side the Atlantic is 
 reputed a magnificent Lear. He, in his day, 
 was* the American Garrick of the role; 
 Edwin Booth was the Barry. In all other 
 creations where they clashed, Booth was 
 the Garrick and Forrest the Barry. 
 
 Burbage, Garrick, Forrest where in 
 the three centuries was there to be found 
 another tremendously great Lear, even if 
 Burbage can be counted? All of the older 
 tragedians had tried the part, and all had 
 encountered insurmountable obstacles, ex- 
 cept Garrick and Forrest and perhaps
 
 196 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Burbage. All had been forced to reveal 
 their tragic limitations in their attempt to 
 interpret the most sublime drama ever 
 conceived by the brain of man. 
 
 No tragedian of consequence had at- 
 tempted Lear in America since Booth. 
 When Mantell announced his revival, it is 
 no wonder the Shakespearean scholars shook 
 their heads dubiously. The majority of 
 playgoers, too, shook their heads not so 
 much dubiously as vaguely. They had never 
 heard of King Lear. 
 
 Curiosity of one sort or another brought 
 two or three hundred playgoers to the 
 Garden on the night of November 27, 1905. 
 This little audience was first attentive, then 
 amazed, then astounded, then enraptured. 
 
 The next morning William Winter, the 
 veteran critic of the New York Tribune 
 the personal friend of Forrest, Booth and 
 Irving the most authoritative of all 
 American reviewers in the field of classic 
 acting proclaimed Robert Bruce Mantell 
 "the leader of our stage." New York 
 critics, in general, agreed with Mr. Winter, 
 and it was as the formally acknowledged 
 "leader of the stage" that Mantell entered 
 upon a career of financial prosperity in the 
 classics seldom duplicated in history. 
 
 So great is Mantell's Lear, that no other 
 actor has dared enter into rivalry with him,
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 197 
 
 although his financial success in the part has 
 been tempting. Others have tried Othello 
 and Macbeth and Shylock and Richelieu, 
 but they have left Lear alone. Mantell 
 must be considered the greatest Lear of 
 his time the greatest potentially, as well 
 as the only one actually revealed. For in 
 these days of keen competition, another 
 great Lear would scarcely be content to lie 
 dormant. 
 
 How does Mantell compare with Forrest 
 and Garrick and Burbage? There is no way 
 of determining absolutely. When the actor 
 dies, his art, unfortunately, vanishes from 
 the world. All that is left is the memory of 
 it, and this memory grows more and more 
 hazy as the years glide away. Then, when 
 they who saw him are dead, all that remains 
 is a written record of a few impressions, 
 incomplete, inadequate, perhaps inaccurate. 
 We are positive of the superb genius of 
 Phidias, for we read it in his marbles almost 
 as readily as did his contemporaries, who 
 had only the advantage over us of appreci- 
 ating a certain symbolism now lost. The 
 soul of Raphael lives in his marvelous 
 colors. The baton of the orchestra leader 
 can call forth the ghost of Beethoven from 
 his tomb. 
 
 But what do we know of Garrick? 
 Walpole and Gray tell us something of his
 
 198 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 methods, but who will show us how he played 
 the storm scene in Lear? He enraptured 
 the audiences of his day, but would he be 
 tolerated by an audience that has seen 
 Irving? 
 
 Burbage is still more shadowy. He is but 
 the ghost of a ghost. Of him we know 
 nothing. 
 
 Many of the older playgoers now living 
 saw, in their youth, Forrest in his prime. 
 One of them, Prof. H. H. Hay of Girard 
 College, Philadelphia, a profound student 
 of Shakespeare and of the stage, tells me 
 Mantell is decidedly Forrest's superior. 
 He says Mantell has the physical qualities 
 so admired in Forrest, and, in addition, a 
 spiritual touch Forrest could never attain 
 a touch more after the manner of Booth. 
 On the other hand, William Winter, three 
 or four years before his death, lamented, 
 though without special reference to Mantell, 
 that there was no great character interpreta- 
 tion then visible that compared with Booth's 
 Hamlet or Forrest's Lear. 
 
 Who shall decide? A long time has 
 elapsed since Forrest was in his prime. 
 The power of artistic appreciation in a man 
 and the standard of appreciation change 
 like everything else. Professor Hay may 
 have found something in Forrest's interpre- 
 tation that jarred on his own theory of what
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 199 
 
 Lear ought to be, as seen with the eyes of 
 youth. It may be that Mantell interprets 
 to him now the philosophy that maturity 
 had discovered in the old man of sorrows. 
 Or it is possible Mr. Winter, in his younger 
 days, was fascinated by the terrible force 
 of Forrest that would not have appealed 
 to him in maturity. Maybe fancy wove, 
 after long years, one of her golden haloes 
 around a memory that was becoming ever 
 more and more dreamy. 
 
 But even if we could decide between 
 Mantell and Forrest, what power would 
 enable us to determine the precedence in 
 the case of Forrest and Garrick or Garrick 
 and Burbage? In view of the difficulty, 
 it is perhaps best to expand the trio of great 
 Lears into a quartet Burbage, Garrick, 
 Forrest, Mantell.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 An Interlude of Anecdote, Being the Least 
 Important and Perhaps the Most Inter- 
 esting Chapter of the Entire Volume. 
 
 APROPOS of nothing, and somewhat 
 after the manner of the genial 
 author of "Don Quixote," let me 
 interrupt my narrative to insert an 
 episode or two, for which I have found no 
 place, but which, I assure you, will be worth 
 the reading. 
 
 Little is known positively of the descent 
 of George Bird, who, for a time, was travel- 
 ing manager with Mantell. But if he num- 
 bered either Ananias or Baron Munchausen 
 among the roots of his family tree, he came 
 honestly by a propensity to romance. Man- 
 tell never attached any blame to him. 
 Romancing was as much a part of him as his 
 little finger. 
 
 Bird said he used to be a ballet master 
 in London, but when Mantell wanted to 
 introduce a few simple steps into one of his 
 productions and asked Bird to coach his 
 people, the former ballet master found him- 
 self hopelessly puzzled. He observed with 
 
 200
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 201 
 
 melancholy regret that "the cunning had 
 left him."' 
 
 The only literal truth in which Mantell 
 remembers detecting him was a statement 
 that he had once been a sailor. The con- 
 firmation came when a small fire started 
 one night in the rigging loft. Bird, with 
 the experienced agility that comes only to a 
 sailor, quickly clambered up the scenery, 
 cut the ropes and let fall the burning 
 drapery. 
 
 On one occasion, however, Bird's former 
 seamanship led him into an "error" that 
 was characteristic. In the company was 
 an actor named Sanderson who scorned to 
 lie by word of mouth, but who converted 
 the piano into an instrument of prevarica- 
 tion. Sanderson would bang away at the 
 keys with all tjie seriousness and confidence 
 of a Paderewski. It was not unusual for 
 him to persuade his hearers with slight 
 musical education that he was a master 
 pianist. 
 
 One night, Bird and Sanderson were 
 thrown together with Mantell and several 
 other professionals in the parlor of "Policy 
 Bill" Smith, of Cincinnati, who was fond 
 of entertaining stage people. Sanderson 
 drifted inevitably to the piano. He struck 
 a rumbling, thundering chord, and an- 
 nounced he would sing "The Wreck of the
 
 202 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Hesperus" to a musical setting of his 
 own. 
 
 It was the schooner Hesperus, 
 That sailed the wintry sea; 
 
 Bird's attention was riveted immediately. 
 Here was a tale of his beloved ocean. 
 
 And the skipper had taken his little daughter, 
 To bear him company. 
 
 Sanderson's voice grew plaintive and ten- 
 der. He chorded away at the piano with 
 an air of supreme mastery. 
 
 Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 
 
 Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 
 And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, 
 
 That ope in the month of May. 
 
 Bird's eyes grew moist and misty. Sander- 
 son, glancing around at all his hearers, as 
 was his custom when playing, to note the 
 effect, saw he had charmed Bird. He went 
 on to tell of the warning of the "old sailor, 
 had sailed the Spanish main," and of the 
 skipper's scornful laugh, throwing a realis- 
 tic ripple into his "musical setting" to 
 indicate the sinister mirth. Another glance 
 at Bird. He was eagerly eating the words 
 and drinking in the music. 
 
 Colder and louder blew the wind, 
 A gale from the northeast, 
 
 Sanderson was in his element now. His 
 voice became a deep bass, and he struck
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 203 
 
 every low rumbling tone of which the piano 
 was capable. He fairly squirmed in his 
 ecstacy. 
 
 The snow fell hissing in the brine, 
 And the billows frothed like yeast. 
 
 Again a glance at Bird. Sanderson was 
 playing to nobody else now. Here was an 
 "audience" worth while. This ex-sailor 
 could appreciate more keenly than an 
 entire assembly of landsmen. Had he not 
 himself been sometime in a storm at sea? 
 Was not there flitting through his mind, 
 realistically conjured up by the magic of 
 Sanderson's music, a feverish throng of 
 actual memories of the deep? 
 
 Down came the storm, and smote amain 
 The vessel in its strength; 
 
 The very roof of the house shook to the 
 thunder of the piano. 
 
 She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, 
 Then leaped her cable's length. 
 
 Bird's heart leaped to the music. Sander- 
 son saw it in his face. The rest of the com- 
 pany noticed it now, and they, too, began 
 watching Bird. Sanderson's performance 
 was amusing enough, but the fun was now 
 doubled in watching the response of his 
 victim, who followed him as a sparrow does 
 a snake. 
 
 Sanderson went on through the recital
 
 204 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 of the terrors of that night of storm and 
 darkness and death. Old Timotheus at the 
 feast of Alexander found no more fascinated 
 auditor in the conqueror of the world than 
 did this actor at the piano in the ex-sailor. 
 Then: 
 
 At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 
 
 A fisherman stood aghast, 
 To see the form of a maiden fair, 
 
 Lashed close to a drifting mast. 
 
 How wonderfully tender the tone! Great 
 tears stood in Bird's eyes. 
 
 The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 
 
 The salt tears in her eyes; 
 And he saw her hah", like the brown sea-weed, 
 
 On the billows fall and rise. 
 
 Bird broke down completely, and sobbed 
 like a child. It was a mighty triumph for 
 Sanderson. If his setting for "The Wreck of 
 the Hesperus" could so stir a human heart, 
 was it not a masterpiece? Was not his fame 
 as a composer assured? 
 
 Into the last stanza now he threw what 
 seemed to him incredible awe and reverence: 
 
 Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 
 In the midnight and the snow! 
 
 Christ save us all from a death like this, 
 On the reef of Norman's Woe! 
 
 Bird's sobbings were gentler now under 
 the soothing influence, but his frame was 
 still shaking convulsively. Sanderson got
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 205 
 
 up from the piano, and walked over to the 
 victim of his musical magic. 
 
 "There! There!" he said, slapping him 
 kindly on the back. "Cheer up, old man, 
 the mood will pass!" 
 
 "It isn't the mood," answered Bird, "but 
 a terrible memory. I was in that wreck, 
 and you recalled vividly to me all the 
 horrible details. It was frightful. Oh! Oh! 
 That poor girl! When she was cast up on 
 the beach, I saw the sea gulls picking out 
 her eyes. Oh, it was horrible! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 This man Sanderson, besides being so 
 excellent a musician, deserves a place in 
 the hall of fame as the champion "pass 
 grafter" of the world. He employed every 
 conceivable argument and excuse for getting 
 free tickets for his friends. 
 
 Illness at last forced him to leave Man- 
 telFs company. He was confined to a hos- 
 pital in New York when the tragedian was 
 filling an engagement there. Every day he 
 sent to his former employer and friend a 
 request for passes for somebody a com- 
 rade had kindly dropped in to see him, a 
 doctor had relieved a tormenting pain, a 
 nurse had gone out of the routine of her 
 duties to do him a special favor. All such 
 requests were honored. 
 
 Finally, one day, poor Sanderson sent 
 Mantell a letter that he was near death's
 
 206 ROBERT MANTEIX'S ROMANCE 
 
 door. He would never get up again. He 
 had forgiven all his enemies, and had 
 thought gratefully again of all the kind- 
 nesses of his friends. At his request an 
 undertaker had been to see him. He was a 
 splendid fellow and sympathetic. Wouldn't 
 Mr. Mantell, for old time's sake, send 
 him a couple of seats for the under- 
 taker? 
 
 Such a request could not be refused. 
 The passes were the last Sanderson ever 
 asked for. Mantell, by chance, met the 
 undertaker afterward after the poor actor 
 had been laid to rest. The undertaker 
 thanked the tragedian for the passes, and 
 assured him he had taken special pains 
 with all that was left of poor old Sanderson. 
 But Bird is too precious to lose in the 
 grave with Sanderson. 
 
 Once the Mantell Company was riding 
 in their special car across the boundless 
 plains of the far West. Mr. and Mrs. Man- 
 tell were sitting toward the rear of the car. 
 Bird was a few seats ahead. The setting 
 sun shone on the manager's face, giving it 
 a sort of copper tinge. An idea struck the 
 tragedian. 
 
 "I'll bet a dollar," he said suddenly to 
 Marie Booth Russell, "that I can make 
 George say he is part Indian. " 
 
 Mrs. Mantell took the bet, more for the
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 207 
 
 sake of the sport than from any idea of 
 winning. 
 
 Mr. Mantell walked up the aisle of the 
 car to where Bird was sitting. 
 
 "Pardon me, George,'* he said, "for 
 putting a delicate question, but when Mrs. 
 Mantell and I sat back there watching the 
 setting sun play on your face, I noted some- 
 thing in the lines of your cheek and nose 
 something noble that suggested pardon 
 me suggested you might have Indian 
 blood in you. If it isn't indiscreet, may I 
 ask if my impression was right?" 
 
 "Governor," answered Bird, solemnly, 
 "you are the first person in the company 
 who has noticed that. Yes," effusively, "I 
 have. I am related to Chief Falling Water, 
 who is a direct descendant of Pocahontas." 
 
 Bird was given one of the four twenty- 
 five-cent cigars Mantell bought with the 
 dollar Marie Booth Russell paid him. 
 
 One night Bird, whose proper place was 
 in the front of the house at the door or the 
 box-office, happened to be back on the 
 stage in the wings during the first act of 
 "Hamlet." The Prince had just en- 
 countered his father's ghost alone, and the 
 spirit had vanished at the first sniff of 
 dawn. 
 
 "Hfflo!" shouted Hamlet, "ho, ho, boy! 
 Come, bird, come!"
 
 208 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 "Did you call me, Governor?" said Bird, 
 blithely, stepping out from the wings, " here 
 I am, what's wrong?" 
 
 "Get off, you damned fool," savagely 
 muttered the melancholy Dane. 
 
 Mantell's first and second meetings with 
 Beerbohm Tree afterwards Sir Herbert 
 have in them a good story. The first 
 occurred while Mantell was playing with 
 Miss Wallis in London. Neither he nor 
 Tree was so famous as they afterward 
 became, but Tree then had something of 
 an advantage. 
 
 "As I wanted to have my costume for a 
 new part historically correct," said Man- 
 tell, in relating the story, "I went to 
 Godwin, the designer, who did all the work 
 for Irving at the Lyceum. He was the big 
 man in that line just as Alma Tadema 
 designed the settings for all the productions 
 that they might be correct. Godwin made 
 me the costume plates for Orlando, and for 
 Romeo and two or three other parts I con- 
 templated doing. He charged me $20 for 
 each of them, which was a pretty stiff 
 price. It put quite a crimp in my bank roll, 
 never so bulky then, but I felt rewarded 
 when he invited me to lunch with him at 
 the Victoria Club. 
 
 " *I want you to meet Beerbohm Tree,' 
 he said, * charming fellow awfully clever
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 209 
 
 actor one of our coming men on the stage.* 
 
 "Of course, I was all puffed up at the 
 idea of lunching with the talked-about 
 people and all that sort of thing, and I 
 accepted in a hurry. It was a great luncheon 
 - private dining room at the club, you 
 know, wine with every course and all the 
 trimmings. We talked about art and the 
 future of the stage, and when we were 
 through Godwin called for the check. He 
 looked at it. 
 
 " * Oh, only nine pounds ten and six. 
 Very reasonable indeed very reasonable.' 
 
 "Then he began feeling in his pockets 
 inside, outside, everywhere. 
 
 "' Bless my soul where's my purse? 
 Most extraordinary why I don't think 
 I've got a bit of money about me. I say, 
 Tree, old man, have you got a tener with 
 you?' 
 
 "Tree waked up and began digging. 
 
 " 'A tener? Why, certainly, old chap, 
 of course.' 
 
 "He pulled out a lonely looking shilling. 
 
 " * What's this? A shilling? My word - 
 where is that ten-pound Bank of England 
 note I certainly remember putting one 
 in here.' 
 
 "There they were, both fingering through 
 their pockets, and I sought to relieve their 
 embarrassment.
 
 210 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 'If you will allow me, gentlemen,' I 
 suggested, 'I shall be only too happy to 
 settle.' 
 
 " 'Tut, tut,' said Godwin, 'not at all, my 
 boy couldn't hear of it why, you're 
 our guest couldn't think of such a thing.' 
 
 "They kept on searching until it was 
 plain both were broke except for the shilling, 
 and finally I paid the check something 
 like fifty dollars it amounted to. Then 
 Godwin arose and extended to me his hand. 
 
 "'I have met gentlemen,' he said feel- 
 ingly, 'but you are a nobleman. You shall 
 have this in the morning, old chap. Where 
 are you stopping, Cecil or Carleton?' 
 
 "I was stopping at very modest lodgings 
 in Pimlico, but I gave him the address 
 and that was the last I heard of the tener. 
 
 "Twenty years afterward I was again in 
 London. Beerbohm Tree had come up the 
 ladder, and was playing 'Rip Van Winkle' 
 at His Majesty's. I dropped in to see the 
 performance, and sent my card around. 
 An usher came back with the message Mr. 
 Tree would like to see me. 
 
 "I went to his dressing room. We con- 
 fronted each other, and after a moment 
 without exchanging so much as a greeting, 
 both burst out laughing. 
 
 '"What are you laughing at, Mantell?' 
 Tree chuckled.
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 211 
 
 " 'What are you, Mr. Tree?' I countered. 
 
 " 'By gad,' he answered, *I guess I owe 
 you a dinner.' 
 
 " 'I guess so, too,' I replied. 'It's been 
 twenty years, but I see you're not asleep 
 like our old friend Rip.' 
 
 "After the show we went to the Carleton, 
 and Tree ordered a dinner that settled all 
 scores." 
 
 The story of Mantell's first meeting with 
 Edwin Booth is also well worth relating. 
 Mrs. Kate Byron, sister of Ada Rehan, and 
 herself a former stage celebrity, told it to 
 me at her summer home in Long Branch. 
 
 It was in Miss Fisher's boarding house in 
 Boston not the famous Fultah Fisher of 
 Kipling but a Fisher no less renowned 
 among theatrical people than Fultah among 
 seafaring men. Miss Fisher's boarding 
 house was of a type that is now only a 
 vague, pleasant memory w r ith men and 
 women of the stage, who spent so many 
 happy, homelike hours in such establish- 
 ments. The true theatrical boarding house 
 has gone, alas, the way of the green room. 
 
 Mrs. Byron and Mr. Booth were stand- 
 ing by a parlor window talking, when in 
 danced Mantell, a stage youngster. He 
 had a bit of tobacco in his cheek, and a 
 merry countenance that would eloquently 
 interpret the Dromios.
 
 212 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Mrs. Byron and Mantell were good 
 friends. 
 
 "Mr. Booth," said the actress, "meet 
 Mr. Mantell." 
 
 "Delighted," said Mantell, breezily, ex- 
 tending his hand before the other could get 
 in a word. "What did you say the name 
 was?" 
 
 "Booth Edwin Booth," answered Mrs. 
 Byron, eyeing Mantell keenly. 
 
 "Oh, ah, oh my!" exclaimed Mantell 
 with a gulp that carried with it the tobacco 
 down his throat. 
 
 He fled from the room, and it was a 
 long time before he could ever muster up 
 courage again to meet the distinguished 
 tragedian.
 
 CHAPTER XXH. 
 
 In Which the Belated Shower of Gold Begins 
 to Trickle Gently Down from Gotham's 
 Skies. 
 
 THE recognition of Robert Mantell 
 as the leader of the American stage 
 on the night of his first perform- 
 ance of "King Lear" had no im- 
 mediate effect financially at the Garden 
 Theatre. But such an effect became ap- 
 parent the moment he left New York for 
 a tour. He saw then a conclusive demonstra- 
 tion of the value of a New York endorse- 
 ment. During the days of his exile from 
 the metropolis he had toured the country 
 continuously, and had made his name known 
 everywhere, but there was little magic in it 
 of the magnetic sort that attracts gold to 
 the box office. 
 
 But now that New York had spoken, and 
 spoken enthusiastically, there was a tre- 
 mendous change. Figures in this case speak 
 as through a megaphone. Mantell went to 
 Chicago for a two weeks' stay. The first 
 week he played to $8755 and the second to 
 $9600. At his last previous engagement - 
 not counting the one at the old Iroquois 
 
 813
 
 214 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 where fate was against everybody - - his 
 receipts had amounted to only $2100 on the 
 week, and this business had been gratifying 
 to him in comparison with that of some 
 former visits. 
 
 The profits on the season passed $15,000, 
 in addition to his salary, a thing unheard 
 of before, even in his prosperous days 
 preceding the exile. 
 
 During this summer of 1906, Mantell 
 rested at Atlantic Highlands in the beauti- 
 ful Leonard Homestead. It was this prop- 
 erty that he bought the following summer 
 and rechristened "Brucewood," from his 
 middle name and in honor of the national 
 hero of Scotland. "Brucewood" has be- 
 come famous among the summer homes 
 along the Jersey coast, and is one of the 
 most attractive of them all. A big, pictur- 
 esque house sits in the middle of extensive 
 grounds, parked after the manner of the 
 country estates of England and Scotland, 
 and surrounded by a unique wooden rail 
 fence of Mantell's own designing. 
 
 The season of 1906-7 was one of triumphs 
 for the actor who so long had crawled in 
 the dust of poverty, but who now had been 
 raised to the heavens of prosperity. Early 
 in the season in Montreal, he played lago 
 for the first time in America, and succeeded 
 so well in the part, to which he gave a
 
 iwrcEwooiv THK MAXTELL ESTATE
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 215 
 
 peculiar twist and zest that had been lack- 
 ing in his predecessors, that, for a time, he 
 alternated it with Othello. 
 
 In Buffalo on October 26, he played 
 Shylock for the first time on the professional 
 stage. Long years before, as an amateur in 
 Glasgow, he had appeared as the Jew and 
 had been fascinated by the part, which, 
 next to Hamlet, has probably the greatest 
 attraction of any of Shakespeare's creations 
 for the actor. 
 
 The manager of the theatre in Buffalo and 
 some personal friends of Mantell who had 
 their fingers on the play-going pulse of that 
 city strongly advised him to postpone his 
 premiere in favor of some other town. 
 Richard Mansfield and E. H. Sothern had 
 both played Shylock there recently, and 
 both had been disappointed in the size of 
 the audiences. But Mantell persisted. The 
 box-office statement proved to the doubting 
 Thomases that Buffalo was willing to risk 
 $1,172.50 on the chance of his "making 
 good " as the Jew. 
 
 "The Merchant of Venice" has been one 
 of Mr. Mantell's most reliable drawing 
 cards ever since. His Shylock has been 
 greatly admired, and at least one competent 
 critic, Robinson Locke of Toledo, has found 
 in his interpretation a passage that he 
 considers the supreme masterpiece of tragic
 
 216 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 acting in a long recollection of the stage. 
 
 This is Shylock's exit at the close of the 
 trial scene. Here Mantell introduces a piece 
 of "stage business" of his own invention, 
 the result of a lucky accident. Shylock one 
 night after the trial was walking slowly off 
 the stage in the traditional manner of utter 
 dejection, with head bowed so low that the 
 chin touched the breast. A new Antonio 
 was on the stage that night, and he had 
 blundered awkwardly into the very path of 
 Shylock's exit, and stood there unconscious 
 of fault. 
 
 "Get out of the way," Mantell muttered 
 as he approached. Antonio didn't hear. 
 
 A little nearer, and "Step back," com- 
 manded Shylock, under his breath. Antonio 
 still did not budge. 
 
 Then Mantell paused, raised his head 
 very slowly, looked the merchant in the 
 eye, and whispered sternly: "Get out of 
 the way!" This time the command was 
 effective. 
 
 But there was something else more effect- 
 ive still, which the tragedian perceived 
 through that mysterious bond of sympathy 
 that connects actor and audience. As he 
 raised his head, he felt the audience respond 
 to a new sensation. It was a last spasm of 
 pride in the defeated Jew, or perhaps a 
 reproach to the God of Israel for delivering
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 217 
 
 him over to the mercy of the Gentiles. 
 Anyhow, there was a subtle something that 
 Mantell had never before conveyed to an 
 audience, and, with the instinct for dra- 
 matic effect which he possesses above all 
 living tragedians, Mantell decided immedi- 
 ately to incorporate this action permanently 
 into Shylock. 
 
 Of late years, since the vanity of the 
 matinee idol has been submerged in the 
 dignity of the tragedian, Mantell has not 
 displayed himself in proper person to his 
 audiences, except occasionally after the last 
 act of "The Merchant of Venice." It was 
 formerly the custom for a male star to 
 conclude the performance of ''The Mer- 
 chant" with the trial scene, but Mr. Man- 
 tell has followed the lead of Irving in 
 restoring to the comedy the picturesque 
 last act in the garden of Belmont. During 
 this act, in which Shylock, of course, does 
 not appear, Mantell changes to citizen's 
 clothing, and, at the conclusion of the play, 
 sometimes appears for a moment in front 
 of the curtain. Never while in the dress of 
 a character unless the occasion be ex- 
 traordinary does he step out of his role, 
 even when responding to encores. It is 
 Lear who bows, or Othello, or Macbeth 
 never Mantell. He believes the illusion is 
 better thus sustained.
 
 218 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 After "The Merchant of Venice" had 
 been successfully launched, Mantell again 
 went into New York this time to a finan- 
 cial triumph as complete as his artistic 
 triumphs before had been. He was housed 
 in the best theatre obtainable, the Academy 
 of Music. He opened his engagement on 
 November 5, 1906, and his receipts the 
 first week passed $10,000. "Richard III" 
 in one day Saturday matinee and eve- 
 ning drew $2200. The second week of his 
 engagement he played lago for the first 
 time in New York. That curiosity was 
 healthy was demonstrated by the fact that 
 the novelty drew $1600 into the box office. 
 On the night of November 26 Mantell 
 played Brutus for the first time on any stage 
 and, using "Julius Caesar" for the entire 
 week, he played to $14,000. 
 
 So gratifying was this success in New 
 York that Brady decided to bring his star 
 back later in the season. He negotiated for 
 the handsome New Amsterdam Theatre, 
 one of the most fashionable of the me- 
 tropolis, but could secure no time until 
 April 29. But, in spite of the lateness of 
 the season and the warmth of the weather, 
 which spells death to serious drama in New 
 York, Mantell filled a two weeks' engage- 
 ment there, playing to $8000 the first week 
 and $9000 the second. Clearly, New York
 
 A MASTER OF MAKE-UP
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 219 
 
 wanted Shakespeare when it could get the 
 right brand, and clearly Mantell could 
 supply the brand. 
 
 At the conclusion of this engagement, 
 Mantell went to Atlantic Highlands where 
 he purchased the property he converted 
 into "Brucewood," as already related. It 
 was the first home he had had since he left 
 Ireland a third of a century before. He 
 felt for the first time in his stage career the 
 luxurious ease and content that comes with 
 the possession of property. Summer after 
 summer since then he has improved and 
 extended his estate. The most valuable 
 extension is a supplementary estate, which 
 was christened "Maywood," in honor of 
 Marie Booth Russell. 
 
 Heretofore Mantell, in adding to his 
 repertoire, had adhered closely to the de- 
 pendable classics the dramas that had 
 been successfully presented by generation 
 after generation of tragedians. "King 
 Lear," the only apparent exception, was 
 an exception only because few can play it. 
 In the few instances of adequate perform- 
 ances in stage history, it has brought both 
 fame and fortune to its interpreter. 
 
 But now Mantell and Brady decided upon 
 a bold experiment "King John," Shake- 
 speare's crude chronicle play. Brady saw 
 great possibilities in the pathetic episode of
 
 220 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Prince Arthur for the kind of "heart inter- 
 est" that has proved so profitable to him 
 in "Way Down East,'* the most successful 
 of all American melodramas; "Mother," 
 "Little Women," and the rest. Mantell 
 saw in "King John" chances for magnifi- 
 cent pageantry and for two or three mo- 
 ments of great acting, especially a death 
 scene of thrilling intensity. 
 
 Mantell and Brady set to work on a 
 production which they determined should 
 surpass in magnificence anything of the 
 sort ever before attempted in America. 
 They used as a basis the plans of a produc- 
 tion built for Sir Herbert Tree in London, 
 but modified and altered these plans to suit 
 special ideas of their own. 
 
 Mantell, who heretofore had relied largely 
 on prompt books of Edwin Booth and other 
 of the older tragedians, proceeded to make 
 his own version of " King John," after find- 
 ing all previous acting versions unsuited to 
 his tastes. He believed the stumbling 
 blocks encountered by former actors who 
 had attempted the role, arising principally 
 from Shakespeare's own apparent discrep- 
 ancies, to be removable by a new stage 
 interpretation of John. He considered the 
 discrepancies explainable by the weakness 
 and vacillation inherent in the tyrant's 
 own nature, and believed himself capable,
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 221 
 
 by proper acting, of reconciling them all. 
 Accordingly, he cut down the play only for 
 the purpose of making it short enough for 
 stage presentation under present-day con- 
 ditions, leaving the order of the text exactly 
 as Shakespeare wrote it. 
 
 It was not his first revolt against tradi- 
 tion. He had, for instance, restored the fool 
 to "King Lear," omitted by most trage- 
 dians, including Edwin Booth, and he had 
 made the fool, in a beautiful heartfelt in- 
 terpretation by Guy Lindsley, a vital force 
 in the tragedy. 
 
 Throwing all traditions of the role of 
 John to the wind, Mantell set to work to 
 develop a personage that should be new 
 to the stage. The attention he gave to the 
 death scene is of particular interest. Tra- 
 dition declares that King John died by a 
 slow poison administered by a monk and 
 records a few symptoms that preceded 
 death. Mantell gathered together every- 
 thing he could find relating to the death 
 agonies, and then submitted the whole 
 to his family physician, Dr. Benjamin Kopf, 
 of Brooklyn. 
 
 "There is the case, Doctor," said the 
 actor, "now tell me exactly how a man so 
 poisoned would die." 
 
 Dr. Kopf, who himself has made a hobby 
 of Shakespeare, set to work as earnestly as
 
 222 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 if John had been a patient of his own, whom 
 there was still some hope of saving. He 
 went carefully through all the records of 
 the case, and applied to them the dis- 
 coveries of modern science. Then, step by 
 step, he detailed the agonies of the death of 
 the most miserable tyrant that ever sat on 
 an English throne. 
 
 A ghastly gray-green pallor and huge 
 drops of perspiration were prominent ex- 
 ternal phenomena. Mantell's instinct for 
 tragic effect seized eagerly upon them. 
 Great drops of vaseline, apparently exuding 
 from the whitened face, and coursing down 
 the red, stringy beard, and all set under a 
 pale green light, formed a picture of horror 
 that nobody who has seen Mantell's King 
 John will ever forget. Marie Booth Russell, 
 standing in the wings on the opening night, 
 was seized with a nervous chill at the sight 
 of her husband looking so ghastly, and, 
 half-fainting, declared she would never 
 watch the death scene again. 
 
 The premiere of "King John" occurred 
 at the Grand Opera House, Chicago, on the 
 night of November 18, 1907. Never has 
 Mantell been more lavishly praised for real 
 art than by the critics of this performance 
 and by those who saw his first New York 
 performance at the New Amsterdam 
 Theatre the night of March 9, 1909. Yet
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 223 
 
 playgoers in general showed little interest. 
 The Chicago engagement was a disappoint- 
 ment financially, and during the week that 
 "King John" was presented in New York, 
 the receipts were only $5000, whereas the 
 next week, when the old repertoire was 
 repeated, they were more than doubled. 
 It was not until Mantell took "King John" 
 on a coast-to-coast tour during the season 
 of 1913-14 that it proved profitable. On 
 that trip, it almost duplicated the sensation 
 Mantell had made in "King Lear." 
 
 It was in this play at the beginning of 
 this tour that Ethel Mantell, the daughter 
 of the tragedian, made her first stage ap- 
 pearance in a speaking part. In the previous 
 March, during a visit to her father in 
 Albany, the scene of his own American 
 debut, she had walked on the stage in 
 "Julius Caesar," but only as a young Roman 
 girl "in the picture." 
 
 Miss Mantell's debut as a real actress 
 took place on the night of October 6, 1913, 
 at the Alvin Theatre, Pittsburgh. She ap- 
 peared as Lady Blanche. A yellow-haired 
 girl of seventeen, fresh from a convent 
 school, who had inherited the handsome- 
 ness of her father and the beauty of her 
 mother, she was the fairest Lady Blanche 
 that ever trod the stage. 
 
 Miss Mantell gave proof at the outset of
 
 324 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 her career of a determination to succeed 
 that is unusual. She overcame, not without 
 a struggle, a natural vanity arising from her 
 beauty, and consented to play a witch in 
 "Macbeth." Mr. Mantell persuaded her 
 that, in the ugly cloak, the straggly facial 
 hair and the cankerous daubs that des- 
 troyed every vestige of her beauty, she 
 could learn more of the real art of acting 
 than in the rich and splendid robes of Lady 
 Blanche or the simple, pretty gown of 
 Jessica in "The Merchant of Venice." 
 And so, for one night in the week, the 
 beautiful young girl, for the sake of her 
 future, converted herself into a "secret 
 black and midnight hag." 
 
 Louis XI is the last, and so far as physical 
 acting is concerned, the most marvelous 
 classic figure Mantell has given to the 
 stage. The actor's transformation in phy- 
 sique to the personage of Louis is perhaps 
 the most remarkable in stage history. 
 
 When I saw Louis for the first tune, I 
 could not credit my eyes. The night before, 
 Mantell, as Othello, had been a giant tower- 
 ing over another giant in the person of his 
 leading man, Fritz Leiber, who was playing 
 lago. He was the biggest man on a stage 
 full of big men, for he loves to have actors 
 around him of heroic size. 
 
 Surely, the Othello of last night could
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 225 
 
 not be the weak, insignificant contemptible 
 creature of tonight. For Louis was a head 
 shorter even than the women on the stage. 
 He didn't reach to the shoulder of the un- 
 fortunate Marie, the victim of his cruelty; 
 and her lover, the lago of last night, could 
 have crushed the wretch with his foot. 
 
 This is no exaggeration, as any one who 
 has seen the astonishing performance can 
 testify. Mantell in the role of Louis ap- 
 parently loses nearly a foot of his stature 
 and reduces his weight by a hundred pounds. 
 His hands and arms appear corded and 
 emaciated, and his legs, encased in hosiery, 
 seem shrunk and shrivelled. The eye cannot 
 detect where the height and weight have 
 gone. As Richard III, Mantell is stooped 
 to represent the hunchback, but he is a 
 stooping giant. No weight has disappeared. 
 With Louis it is different. There is no 
 hump, he is not deformed, only emaciated 
 with age and disease. 
 
 No other man on the American stage 
 today seems to possess this power of alter- 
 ing the figure noticeably. Mantell's only 
 rival is a woman the Russian Nazimova. 
 She makes something of the same transition 
 from Hedda Gabler to Nora that Mantell 
 does from Othello to Louis, but her trans- 
 formation is not nearly so pronounced. 
 
 I would tell you how Mantell does it, for
 
 226 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 a biographer naturally shares all secrets of 
 the subject of his sketch, were it not for 
 the fact that if I don't make a fortune out 
 of this book I am going to open a sanitarium 
 for the quick reduction of weight by the 
 Mantell method. I shall only give a hint 
 here. More magic lies in old, threadbare 
 clothing than is dreamed of in the phil- 
 osophy of the tailors and dressmakers. 
 
 Mr. Mantell first played "Louis XI" in 
 St. Louis on the night of November 6, 1908. 
 He used the version prepared for Sir Henry 
 Irving from the French of Casimer Dela- 
 vigne, a contemporary and rival of Dumas, 
 who sought to make French history live as 
 vividly on the stage as Dumas made it 
 live in fiction. The English version is so 
 inharmonious in swing to a tongue accus- 
 tomed to the easy flow of Shakespeare, that 
 Mr. Mantell has never become "letter 
 perfect" in the part. But with the genius of 
 the real tragedian, he has made the very 
 ruggedness of the lines fit into the monstrous 
 character of Louis. 
 
 Owing to the strain accompanying the 
 physical shrinking into Louis, and to the 
 difficulty encountered in trying to make the 
 lines behave on a tongue trained to Shake- 
 spearean verse, Mr. Mantell, on the night 
 of "Louis XI," is never asked for increases 
 in salary nor other similar favors by the
 
 TWO SHAHI'LY-CONTRASTKI) FKKNCII STTIHES
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 227 
 
 members of his company and the stage 
 crew. Everybody carefully avoids blunders, 
 and the care thus exercised consciously, is 
 almost always productive of something that 
 would not occur on any other night. 
 
 Here is a case in point. "Louis XI" ends 
 with a death scene that rivals for dramatic 
 intensity that of "King John." The scene 
 never fails to create a creeping awe in the 
 crowd out front, and, after the spell is 
 broken by the descent of the curtain, encore 
 after encore is the invariable result. 
 Through the first of these encores, Louis 
 retains his position of death in his chair. 
 Sometimes, when the audience becomes 
 insistent, Mantell arises while the curtain 
 is down, and then appears between the 
 folds of the velvet and makes a final bow. 
 
 On the particular night in question, the 
 performance had gone along with marvelous 
 smoothness. There had not been a hitch 
 anywhere, and everybody was heaving a 
 great sigh of relief that it was all over. 
 Then, when it came time for Mr. Mantell 
 to get up out of the chair, the unlucky 
 wight at the curtain pulled it up, and 
 revealed to the audience the process of 
 resurrection. 
 
 Barney Turner, Mr. Mantell's stage car- 
 penter, who was responsible for the me- 
 chanical working of the show, saw. He also
 
 228 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 understood. Though he was not the man 
 who had committed the blunder, he knew 
 he was the one who must take the blame. 
 And so he quietly stole out of the stage 
 door, and away to his hotel. 
 
 Next day Mr. Mantell encountered him 
 at the car. 
 
 "Where were you last night?" asked the 
 tragedian. 
 
 "I was on the stage," answered Turner. 
 "But I saw you, Governor, before you saw 
 me, and I ducked." 
 
 Mantell laughed heartily, for he enjoys 
 a thing like that after it is all over. 
 
 The physical miracle of "Louis XI" has 
 caused a number of Mantell's critics to 
 rank this role alongside or even above King 
 Lear, but for dramatic intensity and sus- 
 tained power, the French monarch does not 
 compare for a moment with the mad old 
 Briton. 
 
 As has been observed, Louis XI is the 
 last classic interpretation Mantell has given 
 to the stage. On the afternoon of October 
 27, 1909, however, he appeared in Phila- 
 delphia for the first time in a new produc- 
 tion of "As You Like It." Previously, he 
 had played Orlando in this country at the 
 summer performance at Asbury Park, where 
 he had wrestled with Muldoon and met 
 Brady. But he had not put it on the regular
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 229 
 
 stage. In this new production, Marie Booth 
 Russell made a most charming Rosalind. 
 Rosalind and Lady Macbeth were perhaps 
 her most perfect characterizations. 
 
 Though now supreme among American 
 tragedians, Robert Mantell was not con- 
 tent. He longed for another plunge into 
 romantic drama of the sort in which he had 
 scored in the days when he was a matinee 
 idol. He procured for the experiment a 
 new comedy of Irish life, "The O'Flynn," 
 by Justin Huntly McCarthy. Mantell 
 was enthusiastic over the rollicking situa- 
 tions of the play, and he brushed to a high 
 polish his rich Irish brogue of the Belfast 
 days. 
 
 The attendance at the premiere in Pitts- 
 burgh the night of October 20, 1910, was 
 not encouraging, but the audience seemed to 
 be as hugely delighted as the actor, and he 
 felt success was in his grasp. He repeated 
 the play several times. The few who came 
 to see it laughed uproariously, but the 
 hordes who stayed away didn't seem to be 
 nervously disturbed over what they were 
 missing. Then, Mantell gave in. It was 
 in the classics he was wanted, not in some 
 new play, no matter how clever. He had 
 made his own bed. He would lie in it. He 
 felt a little as though he had forged chains 
 for himself. He loved the classics, but
 
 230 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 why feel himself bound to them irrevoc- 
 ably? 
 
 But a period of prosperity is not a period 
 in which to mourn inconsolably, and if 
 "The OTlynn" failed to draw, there was 
 "Lear" or "Richard" or "Hamlet." So, 
 "The O'Flynn" was offered up on the altar 
 to the manes of the old romantic days, and 
 Robert Mantell pursued cheerfully his 
 classic way. 
 
 But, about this time, Marie Booth Rus- 
 sell, who had been his companion through 
 the bitterest period of his struggles, and 
 who was now enjoying with him the well- 
 earned fruits of prosperity, began to fail in 
 health. A malady of long standing gradually 
 gained the mastery over her strong consti- 
 tution, and in the spring of 1911, it became 
 apparent that she stood in the shadow 
 of death. Her last appearance on the 
 stage was at Daly's Theatre, New York, 
 May 13, in the role of Portia in "Julius 
 Caesar." 
 
 When the new season opened in Septem- 
 ber, Marie Booth Russell was too ill to 
 leave the home at "Brucewood." The 
 history of fourteen years ago was now re- 
 peated. At the close of each week, Mantell 
 hurried back from the various cities of his 
 route to the bedside of his dying wife. On 
 the afternoon of October 31, he received in
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 231 
 
 Pittsburgh a message to hasten home. He 
 entered upon a race with death. Death 
 won. Marie Booth Russell drew her last 
 breath at 8.45 p. M. Five hours later, 
 Mantell arrived at "Brucewood."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Being the Postscriptum, which, like a School 
 Girl's Letter, May Have in it the Pith of 
 the Whole Document. 
 
 AND now, like Hamlet's father's 
 ghost, I must haste to be gone. 
 The very number at the head of 
 this chapter, the Mystic Twenty- 
 Three and all the more so because it falls 
 quite accidentally and not from calculated 
 design warns me like another tocsin of 
 the misty-gray Aurora. 
 
 It is in Cincinnati in the theatrically dull 
 week preceding the Christmas of 1917. 
 The publisher has in type all of the book to 
 this point, and is clamoring for the final 
 chapter. I am having my last conference 
 with Mr. Mantell in his rooms at the Sinton. 
 
 "Did you put in the book the story about 
 the elevator man at the New Amsterdam?" 
 he asks. 
 
 "What story? I don't believe I ever 
 heard it." 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't leave out that one," 
 chirps in the youthful Mrs. Genevieve 
 Hamper Mantell. 
 
 The tragedian strikes his best story- 
 telling attitude. 
 
 Hi
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 233 
 
 It was when he was filling an engagement 
 at the handsome New Amsterdam Theatre, 
 New York. There is an elevator in the 
 theatre by which the players are conveyed 
 from dressing room to stage, in the glory of 
 their makeup. In those days, the elevator 
 was in charge of a twin brother of the 
 Ancient Mariner, a house fixture, with all 
 the privileges of a veteran to whom even 
 Abraham Erlanger and Marcus Klaw must 
 show deference. 
 
 It was Othello night. Mantell was made 
 up in all the barbaric splendor of the hand- 
 some Moor. The elevator man looked him 
 over critically as he stepped into the car. 
 But he held his peace, until he had put the 
 lumbering machinery into operation. (Man- 
 tell, in the telling, gave an admirable im- 
 personation of the tugging of the Ancient 
 at the wire cables.) Then the old fellow 
 remarked admiringly: 
 
 "Lud, Governor, but you look fine to- 
 night you look just like Lew Dock- 
 stader!" 
 
 The story, told with all Mr. Mantell's 
 skill of impersonation, "gets across big." 
 
 "Another night I was playing Louis XI," 
 continues the actor. "I stepped into the 
 elevator in the horrible makeup of the 
 part, and actually startled even my iron- 
 nerved old friend. He looked me over
 
 234 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 again and then remarked: * Governor, to 
 tell the truth, you look like .' ' 
 
 " Don't mind Mr. Mantell," interrupts his 
 wife. "When one of his stories goes over, 
 he likes to add a climax. Sometimes he 
 succeeds and sometimes he doesn't. I 
 know he is going to fall down this time, and 
 so I'll just tell you he didn't play Louis at 
 the New Amsterdam at all!" 
 
 Mantell is in his cheerfulest mood in 
 Cincinnati this week. It is a city full of 
 pleasant memories. A caller at the Sin ton 
 is Howard Saxby, a veteran magazine 
 writer. Saxby and Mantell are the sole 
 survivors of a distinguished company pres- 
 ent years ago at the most notable banquet 
 ever given in the State of Ohio. 
 
 Col. W. B. Smith "Policy Bill" 
 politician and patron of stage people 
 was the host. The place was his beautiful 
 and famous Hyde Park home. Among the 
 guests were William McKinley, J. B. For- 
 aker, F. Hopkinson Smith, John Clark 
 Ridpath, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll and John 
 Sherman. 
 
 "Policy Bill," always a lavish entertainer, 
 made this banquet the supreme effort of 
 his life. Epicurus could not have improved 
 on it. The dinner was built round a bear 
 that had been fattened for a year in Colo- 
 rado for the express purpose of playing the
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 235 
 
 star role of eatables this night. There were 
 grapes imported from Asia at a cost of 
 $2.50 each. Wines stored in Parisian cellars 
 in the days before the French Revolution, 
 and valued by the drop instead of by the 
 pint or quart, were served as a sort of 
 symphonic climax to a graded series of 
 French and Italian wines of other rare 
 vintage. So harmoniously were they 
 blended that not a guest quitted the 
 banquet at 2 o'clock in the morning in a 
 state of intoxication. Colonel Smith prided 
 himself on being able to entertain with 
 Epicurean lavishness, without any resultant 
 drunkenness or indigestion. 
 
 The guests carried away with them as 
 souvenirs the menu cards engraved sheets 
 of thin steel. The banquet had cost "Policy 
 Bill" Smith $350 a plate. 
 
 Another visitor at the Sinton is Ethel 
 Mantell, daughter of the tragedian. She 
 has left her father's company to follow a 
 stage career of greater independence among 
 strangers. She is with "The 13th Chair," 
 which is resting during the dull week be- 
 fore Christmas. 
 
 Though in the seven years that have 
 elapsed since "The O'Flynn" Robert Man- 
 tell has staged nothing new, he has not been 
 idle. He has, indeed, put in the most useful 
 labor of his life polishing and perfecting
 
 236 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the roles already in a repertoire that cannot 
 be improved in quality by any further ex- 
 tension, and that surpasses in quantity 
 anything habitually presented by a trage- 
 dian in the memory of any of us. 
 
 Under the balmy influence of a prosperity 
 undreamed of in his "barn-storming" days, 
 when his acting partook too much, perhaps, 
 of the physical, his art has ripened and 
 mellowed, until now, at the very zenith of 
 his genius, his equality with Booth and 
 Irving is being proclaimed boldly by the 
 more daring of the newspaper critics. As 
 one of them expressed it only a few weeks 
 ago, "the reviewers who sigh for the great 
 old days of Booth are the spiritual fathers 
 of the reviewers who, a quarter of a century 
 hence, will be sighing for the great old days 
 of Mantell!" 
 
 I have communicated to Corporal Dob- 
 bin, the Shakespearean policeman out in 
 San Francisco, the information that the 
 competent critics of Boston and elsewhere 
 are noticing in the last two or three years a 
 marked improvement in Mantell's acting. 
 Dobbin, who hasn't witnessed a performance 
 in this period, writes back skeptically: " I 
 never could see with my North of Ireland 
 eyes where there was any chance for im- 
 provement in the governor." 
 
 Be that as it may, S. I. Conner, special
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 237 
 
 envoy of the Mantell organization to the 
 institutions of learning, is finding during 
 the current season that the great univer- 
 sities of New England and the East, so 
 cautious in their endorsement of anything 
 not thoroughly tried and proven, have 
 broken down their last barriers of restraint, 
 and are extending to Mr. Mantell the same 
 warmth of admiring congratulation ac- 
 corded him hah* a dozen years ago by the 
 less conservative Western universities. 
 Mantell has established himself from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific as a classic institu- 
 tion. A visit by him to a center of culture 
 has become an event comparable in dignity 
 with a season of grand opera. 
 
 These years of the ripening of his art 
 have been rendered golden, too, in the 
 romantic history of the most picturesque 
 of all the great tragedians by his long honey- 
 moon with his young and beautiful wife and 
 leading woman, who retains for stage pur- 
 poses her maiden name of Genevieve 
 Hamper. 
 
 Miss Hamper came into Mr. Mantell's 
 life at his darkest hour the hour in 
 which he was cast into the depths of gloom 
 and despair by the death of Marie Booth 
 Russell, his companion and co-worker for 
 so many years. Miss Hamper had been the 
 protegee of Miss Russell, and, as such, had
 
 38 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 frequently come in contact with Mr. Man- 
 tell, who had learned to esteem her for her 
 rapidly unfolding stage talent and for a 
 cheerfulness and buoyancy of disposition 
 that made her a favorite with her associates. 
 
 On the tour to the Pacific Coast that 
 followed the death of Miss Russell, Miss 
 Hamper did her utmost to lighten the gloom, 
 which, for the first time in his life, seemed to 
 threaten with permanent extinction the 
 joyous spirit of the actor. Under her influ- 
 ence, the gloom gradually melted away. A 
 love romance developed, and in Pueblo, 
 Colorado, Mr. Mantell and Miss Hamper 
 were quietly married. 
 
 Miss Hamper had first entered the 
 Mantell organization as an "extra" girl 
 during the visit of the tragedian to her home 
 city of Detroit in the autumn of 1910. Her 
 beauty and grace, and a certain classic pose 
 that differentiated her sharply from the 
 general run of "supers," attracted the at- 
 tention of both Mr. Mantell and Marie 
 Booth Russell. As the company was in 
 need of a young woman of her type to play 
 light girlish parts, she was offered the posi- 
 tion, in spite of the fact that she had had no 
 previous stage training. Upon her accept- 
 ance, she was instructed to study such 
 roles as Cordelia in "King Lear," Jessica in 
 "The Merchant of Venice," and the little
 
 MISS GEN FA' I EVE HAMPKK
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 239 
 
 Prince of Wales in "Richard III," and to 
 report for duty in Chicago the next week. 
 
 It was in Chicago, accordingly, on 
 Thanksgiving afternoon, November 24, 
 1910, that Miss Hamper made her debut. 
 Her matinee part was Jessica, and Thanks- 
 giving night she played the little princely 
 nephew of the ogerish Richard. The follow- 
 ing night she appeared as Cordelia, the most 
 tenderly sympathetic of all Shakespeare's 
 heroines, and this role, alone, of those 
 she first played, she has kept ever since. 
 Her quick and gratifying display of talent 
 made her a favorite with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mantell and they took her under their 
 immediate protection. 
 
 After two years of striving with the 
 numberless difficulties of the classic art, 
 Mr. Mantell gave Miss Hamper her first 
 chance to appear as his leading woman. 
 During the course of a May week in 
 Ottawa in 1912, she played Ophelia. She 
 gave a performance that surprised even the 
 veteran tragedian, who had so constantly 
 and conscientiously believed in her. She 
 chanted the mad scene in a plaintive, un- 
 earthly tone that robbed it of the physical 
 morbidness so hard to avoid in the acting 
 of this passage, bringing out all the magic of 
 Shakespeare's poetry, and holding her audi- 
 ence enchained.
 
 240 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 Miss Hamper's Ophelia, perfected since 
 that night in Ottawa, is the most beautiful 
 still of her characterizations, and, girl 
 though she is, it yields to no Ophelia that 
 has been seen on the American stage in 
 recent years. The scene in which Laertes 
 returns and finds the delicate mind of his 
 sister in ruin is a peculiarly pathetic mo- 
 ment in which Miss Hamper wrings tears 
 from eyes that had not believed they could 
 be so stirred by any passage Shakespearean. 
 Miss Hamper presents the desolate and 
 pitiable wreck of what once was an en- 
 chanting girl. The aged William Winter, 
 whose critical faculties never spoiled a feel- 
 ing heart, but who seldom wept in a theatre, 
 detecting, as he did, the false ring in most 
 acting, became wrapped up in this girl's 
 Ophelia, and paid Miss Hamper the tribute 
 of his tears. This was only a few months 
 before his death. Miss Hamper is prouder 
 of those tears from the eyes of the veteran 
 critic than of the glowing words that have 
 frequently been written in praise of her 
 yellow-haired Dane. 
 
 Another notable moment in the acting 
 of this youngest of Shakespearean leading 
 women is the fall she makes to the stage in 
 the potion scene of "Romeo and Juliet." 
 Clad all in gauzy, shimmering white, she 
 sinks to the floor as lightly and gracefully
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 241 
 
 as a pillar of foam melting into itself. She 
 has solved one of the most difficult of stage 
 problems, the problem of falling without 
 awkwardness, without making the audience 
 wonder if the player is really hurt, and with- 
 out detracting from the illusion of death by 
 a too-obvious care not to break a bone. 
 
 Miss Hamper's development on the foun- 
 dation of a grace and beauty as rare in a 
 feminine physique as her intense ambition 
 to act is common in a feminine heart, has 
 been along lines of Mr. Mantell's own 
 sketching. He got hold of her before she 
 had been spoiled by any previous training 
 before she had learned the thousand and 
 one things necessary to unlearn before the 
 player of the modern type can be developed 
 into a classicist. From his own long stage 
 experience, Mr. Mantell has evolved a set 
 of ideas as to what a Shakespearean actress 
 should be like, and, with the art of another 
 Svengali, though with love as the potent 
 factor instead of hypnotic suggestion, he 
 is visualizing his ideas in a new Trilby, who 
 is not, however, the empty automaton that 
 was the old. Miss Hamper, by hard and 
 conscientious study and constant rehearsal, 
 has developed in seven years from one of a 
 mob of stage-struck girls "crazy" to go on 
 as an unprogrammed bit of a stage picture 
 into the accepted and acceptable leading
 
 242 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 woman of the greatest tragedian of his 
 time. 
 
 The week of Miss Hamper's debut as 
 Ophelia in Ottawa was also made memorable 
 in a social way for Mr. and Mrs. Mantell by 
 a luncheon with Premier Borden of Canada, 
 an old friend and enthusiastic admirer of 
 the tragedian. 
 
 It was during the summer that ensued, 
 that Mr. Mantell and I, at a rustic table of 
 the tragedian's own designing, under the 
 great trees of "Brucewood," searched 
 through his old note books, papers and 
 records for the material from which the 
 earlier parts of this biography have been 
 written. 
 
 This summer, too, Fritz Leiber, Mr. 
 Mantell's leading man for nearly a decade, 
 became his next-door neighbor in Atlantic 
 Highlands. Of Leiber's achievements as an 
 actor, Mr. Mantell is proud. "He is the 
 only young man visible in the theatrical 
 world who shows promise of developing 
 into a great Shakespearean tragedian," the 
 veteran has repeatedly told me. 
 
 The opening night of the new season, 
 October 6, 1913, at the Alvin Theatre, 
 Pittsburgh, marked the formal debut of 
 Miss Hamper as Mr. Mantell's leading 
 woman. It was on this same night, too, 
 that Ethel Mantell made her first stage
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 243 
 
 appearance in a speaking part. The play 
 was "King John." Miss Hamper appeared 
 as the persecuted Prince Arthur and Miss 
 Mantel! as Lady Blanche. 
 
 The "King John" tour was a gratifying 
 success from coast to Coast. (No, 'tis not a 
 printer's error that setting up of the 
 first "coast" with a lower-case letter, and 
 the second with a capital. For, on this very 
 tour with Mantell, I was instructed by 
 a patriotic stenographer in San Francisco, 
 which was then in preparation for the great 
 Exposition, that "coast to Coast" must be 
 so written, and not otherwise. It is another 
 case of city speaking jealously to city, or 
 section to section, after the manner of 
 Kipling and O. Henry.) This prosperous 
 tour was made in the last normal theatrical 
 season the civilized world has known to 
 date. 
 
 For, in the succeeding summer of 1914, 
 the World War broke out. Mantell, with 
 many misgivings, remembering the hard- 
 ships that attended the Spanish-American 
 War, though with a cheerfulness resembling 
 that of his elderly sister residing in Holland, 
 opened his new season in Atlantic City. 
 
 First, a word about the sister in Holland. 
 She, a woman well past fourscore, wrote her 
 "kid brother" shortly after the German 
 invasion of Belgium just across the Dutch
 
 244 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 frontier, and with the distant cannon boom- 
 ing in her ear. Mr. Mantell showed me her 
 letter, with a huge chuckle, during an auto 
 spin late in August from Atlantic Highlands 
 to Long Branch. She told how the Teutonic 
 invaders had laid waste with fire and sword 
 the beautiful Belgian homes she had often 
 visited only a few thousand yards from 
 where she was living. "I may myself have 
 to fly at any moment," she continued, 
 "but isn't it wonderful, Bob, that God has 
 spared me to see the greatest war the world 
 has ever known ! " 
 
 "She weighs all of three hundred pounds, 
 besides," chuckled the tragedian. "Imagine 
 her flying!" 
 
 The first five weeks of the new season, 
 starting with Atlantic City and proceeding 
 north through the smaller cities of New 
 Jersey and New York State, justified Man- 
 telTs worst fears of financial reverses. Wall 
 Street, and, with it, all America, were on 
 the verge of a panic, anxiously awaiting 
 developments in Europe. People clung to 
 their money, not knowing what was to 
 happen next, and, as usual, the theatre was 
 the first and principal sufferer. 
 
 It was not until after five weeks of the 
 kind of business Mantell used to experience 
 in the days of exile that fortune changed. 
 Queerly enough, the turn came in Montreal,
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 245 
 
 which, though directly involved in the war, 
 was cooler-headed than New York. An 
 excellent week in Toronto followed. 
 
 The company then recrossed the border 
 into the United States. By this time, 
 financial America was beginning to regain 
 its equilibrium, though still dizzy from the 
 bludgeon stroke of war. Good, bad and 
 indifferent weeks followed each other in 
 crazy procession. This kept up until the 
 vacation period, which, usually in all sea- 
 sons, including the best, is the dull two 
 weeks before Christmas. Mantell closed for 
 the vacation in Washington even with the 
 board, and with the proud distinction of 
 being one of the very few theatrical attrac- 
 tions that had been able to weather the 
 storm. Nearly everything sent out from 
 New York had closed with unseemly haste. 
 
 A pleasant incident of the week in Wash- 
 ington was a social call paid the tragedian 
 by William Jennings Bryan, then Secretary 
 of State. Mr. Bryan, after witnessing a 
 performance of "Hamlet,** asked to be 
 conducted back scenes, and there, in the 
 star's dressing room, congratulated him 
 warmly on the excellence of his acting. 
 
 Mr. Mantell resumed his tour in Boston 
 Christmas week. Business gradually be- 
 came better and more stable with the return 
 of financial confidence, and the remainder
 
 246 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 of the season, spent almost entirely east 
 of the Mississippi, proved profitable, though 
 not to the degree to which Mr. Mantell in 
 late years had become accustomed. 
 
 During the summer, there was booked a 
 tour for the approaching season to start 
 in Los Angeles early in September. But in 
 August, the prospects for the theatres were 
 still so uncertain because of war conditions, 
 that Mr. Brady and Mr. Mantell decided 
 to give up the long trip to the Coast for 
 the time being, and Mr. Mantell accepted 
 a very flattering offering from William Fox 
 to go into moving pictures for a few months. 
 
 This was a new experience for the actor, 
 who all these years had been training the 
 wonderful voice with which he had been 
 gifted by nature to the remarkable degree 
 of perfection to which it had now attained. 
 The new art of the screen took no notice of 
 vocal accomplishments. The expected hap- 
 pened. Without his magnificent voice, 
 Mantell could do no sort of justice to his 
 genius. Though he gave highly creditable 
 performances, his pantomime, after the 
 manner of the old stage technique, was too 
 quiet and subdued for the screen. The actor 
 who could hold his own with Booth and 
 Irving in the legitimate theatre was dis- 
 tinctly out-classed by Francis X. Bushman 
 and Charlie Chaplin !
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 247 
 
 But the screen engagement was produc- 
 tive of a very agreeable sojourn in Jamaica, 
 whither Mr. Fox sent his classic star with a 
 director who was assisting likewise in the 
 making there of the Annette Kellermann 
 water pictures. Mr. Mantell and Miss 
 Hamper, who was also included in the Fox 
 contract on a handsome salary, found the 
 people of Jamaica hospitable to a degree, 
 and they thoroughly enjoyed the comforts 
 and luxuries of the island. 
 
 Miss Hamper, with her big brown eyes 
 and black hair, just escaped being de- 
 veloped by the Fox studios into another 
 Theda Bara. "Here we have labored all 
 these years to keep you sweet and gentle," 
 said Miss Genevieve Reynolds, the stately 
 Queen Mother of Hamlet, to Mrs. Mantell, 
 after seeing one of her pictures, "and you 
 almost went and converted yourself into a 
 vampire when our backs were turned!" 
 
 The picture engagement was prolonged 
 into the early days of 1916, the Shakespear- 
 ean Tercentenary year. Mr. Mantell had 
 considered a number of elaborate plans for 
 the celebration of the great anniversary, 
 among them a tour of the English-speaking 
 world, including Australia, India, South 
 Africa and England itself. But the World 
 War had intervened. All plans for a huge 
 celebration, both in England and America,
 
 248 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 discussed by classic stars for a score of 
 years, had to be abandoned, and the cele- 
 brations dwindled into scattered local fetes. 
 
 Mr. Mantell's contribution was a modest 
 one. He and Margaret Anglin, under the 
 direction of James Shesgreen, and on invita- 
 tion of a community organization in St. 
 Louis, staged a great open-air production of 
 "As You Like It" in Forest Park. Miss 
 Anglin was the Rosalind, and Mr. Mantell 
 gave his first and last performance of the 
 striking role of the melancholy Jacques. 
 Frederick Lewis played Orlando and Miss 
 Hamper, Phoebe. The engagement ex- 
 tended through two weeks in May, and, in 
 spite of being partially marred by rain, 
 attracted huge crowds. A feature was a 
 community prologue preceding the play, 
 in which some twelve or fifteen hundred 
 young people of St. Louis engaged in old 
 English folk dances on the enormous rustic 
 stage representing the Forest of Arden. 
 
 After a prolonged rest at Atlantic High- 
 lands, Mr. Mantell returned to the legiti- 
 mate stage in the early part of November. 
 The opening week in Montreal was signal- 
 ized by the first appearance of Miss Hamper 
 as Lady Macbeth. Miss Hamper, who is of 
 slight and elegant physique, had shunned 
 heretofore the role of Lady Macbeth, the 
 most mature and difficult of Shakespeare's
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 249 
 
 heroines, leaving her for an actress in the 
 company of the type known in repertoire 
 companies as the "heavy woman." Miss 
 Florence Auer, who had last filled this posi- 
 tion with the Mantell organization, and 
 who was re-engaged for the season about to 
 open, notified Mr. Mantell she would be 
 unable to join him for two weeks, since she 
 was playing with a company that had 
 opened earlier. 
 
 Mr. Mantell decided, in consequence, to 
 entrust Lady Macbeth to Miss Hamper. 
 After four "intensive" rehearsals, the 
 youthful Mrs. Mantell went on in Montreal 
 and "made good." Her Lady Macbeth, for 
 which Mr. Mantell had feared because of 
 her slight physique, gained in power and 
 intensity as the season proceeded, and only 
 a few weeks ago, in the present autumn of 
 1917, it stood successfully the acid test of 
 Boston. One critic, Miss Salita Solano, 
 sometimes called "the female Alan Dale" 
 from the caustic qualities of her pen (or is 
 it a typewriter?) was especially generous 
 with her praise. 
 
 The season of Mantell 's return to the 
 legitimate stage was again spent east of the 
 Mississippi Kiver for the most part, the 
 tour extending no farther west than Minne- 
 apolis. An interesting incident of the season 
 was the engagement by Mr. Mantell of his
 
 250 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 old friend, James B. Dickson, as company 
 manager. Mr. Dickson was the partner of 
 the late Joseph Brooks in the old firm of 
 Brooks & Dickson, who, back in 1882, as 
 owners of "The World" and "The Romany 
 Rye," presented Man tell for the first time 
 in America as a leading man. This firm, too, 
 is credited with having originated the plan 
 of a circuit of theatres booked from a 
 central office that afterward developed into 
 the Klaw & Erlanger syndicate. 
 
 Mr. Dickson, who continues to date as 
 Mr. Mantell's manager, numbers among his 
 favorite stories one that concerns John 
 Stetson, who brought Mantell to America 
 in 1882 to head a Shakespearean company 
 he intended to install in Booth's Theatre, 
 New York, which he had just taken over 
 after Edwin Booth had met with financial 
 reverses, and which he was determined to 
 run as a classic playhouse in rivalry of 
 Booth himself. Stetson, who was noted for 
 his showmanship more than for his Latin 
 education, had suffered severely from sea- 
 sickness on his return voyage to America, 
 after signing in England the contract with 
 Mantell. It had been his first trip abroad. 
 Stepping ashore, he announced firmly to 
 some friends that nevermore would he take 
 his feet off "terra cotta ! " It was the failure 
 of Stetson to put through his plan for a
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 251 
 
 Shakespearean stock company in Booth's 
 Theatre that led to the transfer of his 
 contract with Mantell to the firm of Brooks 
 & Dickson. 
 
 In Albany in the February of this season, 
 Mrs. Mantell gave her husband a birthday 
 dinner. William Winter was the guest of 
 honor. In spite of his extreme age and weak 
 condition, the great critic came with his 
 son, Jefferson, from New York to Albany, 
 the city of Mantell's American debut forty 
 years ago. It was a little select party of 
 intimate spirits. Until almost the dawn of 
 the morning, the aged Mr. Winter enter- 
 tained the company with reminiscences of 
 the stage in the days when classic acting 
 was in flower. Mantell, whom he always 
 regarded with a fatherly love, he compli- 
 mented lavishly as a kindred soul to the 
 great tragedians that had passed into the 
 dim Beyond. He recalled the Ophelias of 
 the past, and placed beside them Miss 
 Hamper, who had touched him to tears 
 with her performance of the gentle sweet- 
 heart of Hamlet. 
 
 "Bob, I wept I couldn't help it," he 
 told Mantell. 
 
 It was William Winter's last social engage- 
 ment the last of hundreds filled by the 
 best lover of the stage America has ever 
 had, with the brilliant stars that have
 
 252 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 adorned the theatre Booth, Forrest, Ir- 
 ving, Mary Anderson, Charlotte Cushman, 
 and the rest. They all knew him intimately, 
 and they loved him as he loved them. Only 
 a few months after the Albany dinner, Mr. 
 Winter died. Mr. Mantell was at his bed- 
 side four days before the end came, but the 
 critic was too far on his journey into the 
 penumbral shadows of death to recognize 
 his friend, who always to him was a mere 
 youngster. 
 
 The present season of 1917-18 began in 
 Boston on the night of September 17. An 
 amusing "piece of business" was injected, 
 with characteristic resourcefulness, into 
 " Richard III'* on the Saturday night of 
 the opening week. It was the first perform- 
 ance of "Richard'* of the season, and was 
 peculiarly buoyant and electrifying, being 
 above the average of even MantelFs al- 
 ways admirable characterization of the 
 Duke of Gloster. As the tragedian entered 
 a scene toward the middle of the play, he 
 was struck all of a sudden by the knowledge 
 that he had "gone up in his lines." There 
 was nobody in the wings at his side to 
 prompt him, and, as he had the stage all to 
 himself, there was nobody there either to 
 "hand him the cue." He shambled briskly 
 along, muttering to himself and looking up 
 into the trees that constituted the scenery
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 53 
 
 at the rear. It was a refreshing moment to 
 all of us out front familiar with the "busi- 
 ness" of the play, but who had never seen 
 this before, and to the audience in general, 
 which was delighted with Richard's mum- 
 bled cogitations, fitted with admirable 
 humor by Mantell into the character of the 
 satiric hunchback. When the Duke of 
 Gloster got to the center of the stage, he 
 began speaking correctly the lines of Shake- 
 speare! 
 
 I'm going to let that Boston audience now 
 into a secret Mr. Mantell imparted to me 
 at rehearsal next day. Here's what Richard 
 was muttering: 
 
 "Oh, the devil, what do I say here! 
 What do I say here! " 
 
 It was not until the actor had looked 
 carefully at the scenery and got into 
 the center of the old familiar stage setting 
 that the lines came back to him automat- 
 ically. 
 
 For several seasons past, Mr. Mantell had 
 been playing under the direction of Mr. 
 Brady on a verbal agreement, their formal 
 contract, drawn up on the triumphant 
 re-entry of the tragedian into New York 
 after his long exile, having expired. On 
 November 10 in this present season in 
 Trenton, N. J., they parted company. The 
 separation was amicable. Brady, as presi-
 
 254 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 dent of the World Film Corporation, had 
 become one of the biggest national factors 
 in the motion picture industry, and in 
 late years had devoted less and less of 
 his time to the legitimate stage. Mantell 
 had become comparatively independent in 
 fortune. Both concluded it would be best 
 for their mutual interests to separate. The 
 tragedian is now touring under his own 
 management. 
 
 In the "progress" through New England 
 and the Middle West, incidents have tran- 
 spired whose culling could serve for an 
 indefinite prolongation of this farewell chap- 
 ter Number Twenty -Three. But if I have 
 not told enough in all these pages to con- 
 vince you that Robert Mantell (who insists 
 that his name be put in the electric lights 
 "Robert B. Mantell,'* in order that the 
 thirteen letters in "Robert Mantell" scare 
 not away prospective customers), is a 
 human being "even as you and I," and not 
 solely an artistic freak of nature, then the 
 task must be given over as hopeless in my 
 hands. 
 
 Let me pass then to the last scene of all, 
 which ends, for the nonce, this strange, 
 eventful history. 
 
 A new Robert Bruce Mantell has made 
 his appearance, the son of the present Mrs. 
 Mantell. He was born at the summer home
 
 TIIK TWO RORKRT BRUCE "MANTELLS
 
 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 255 
 
 of Mr. Brady at Allenhurst, a few miles 
 down the Jersey coast from Atlantic High- 
 lands, September 2, 1912, during the sum- 
 mer rehearsals. Mr. Mantell, called from 
 rehearsal room, heard the cry before he saw 
 the child. 
 
 "It's a man," he said: "no woman ever 
 had a voice like that!" 
 
 Then, after gazing at the sturdy young- 
 ster, he added: "I'm going to make a 
 tragedian of him. He's to be the great 
 Mantell!" 
 
 Robert Bruce Mantell, Jr., made his 
 "stage debut" on the afternoon of March 
 11, 1914, in Indianapolis, at the handsome 
 Murat Theatre, where three years later, 
 November 21, 1917, his mother, as Juliet, 
 made her first appearance as a "featured" 
 actress. His father carried him onto the 
 stage at the fall of the final curtain on 
 "The Merchant of Venice." The two 
 Robert Bruce Mantells appeared between 
 the folds of the maroon plush and took a call 
 together. The younger Mantell waved his 
 tiny hand to the applauding audience. 
 
 Robert Bruce Mantell, Sr., has auto- 
 graphed a photograph of himself to Robert 
 Bruce Mantell, Jr. A doubtful meaning in 
 the inscription, resulting from the omission 
 of a punctuation mark, was not intended 
 at the time, but the elder Mantell, after
 
 256 ROBERT MANTELL'S ROMANCE 
 
 the discovery of the joke, allowed it to 
 stand: 
 
 To My Dear Little Son Bruce 
 God Protect Him Always 
 From His Loving Father. 
 
 HERE ENDS THE RECORD OF AN 
 UNENDED CAREER.
 
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