THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THK AUTHOR A PELICAN'S TALE FIFTY YEARS OF LONDON AND ELSEWHERE BY FRANK M. BOYD HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED YORK STREET, ST. JAMES'S LONDON, S.W. 1 fig fig MCMXIX PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON ASD SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND CONTENTS CHAPTER I PACB My birth and parentage. A really conscientious objector — Giving up a fortune for a belief — The start of things — Sir James Simpson, the inventor of chloroform, helps — His seal- skin coat and waistcoat — St. Andrews days — A seat of learning — Golf — And baps— What the head of Fettes said — Tom Morris the Grand Old Man of Golf — " Young Tom " — A place full of eminent people— Bishop Wordsworth and the rook's eggs — Shedding my blood in their defence — A brief chronicle of celebrities — -Concerning Charles Kingsley — " When all the world is young " — A modest vocalist — At Pat's — Some famous old boys— A headmaster who believed in leather — Sir Douglas Haig's hrst school — St. Andrews heroes — The medal day on the links — Mr. Arthur IJalfour as Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club — A famous play- wright — A Royal Captain — How he forfeited the good opinion of the golf caddies. . . . . . . .17 CHAPTER n At school and what I learned — Little that was of any use to me in after life — A knowledge of Shakespeare and how it was acquired — A Chair of general information badly needed — What lads of the time read — The Boys 0/ England and 2'he Sons of Britannia — Jack Harkaway and Tom Wildrake — Two wondrous heroes — WTiat Robert Louis Stevenson thought — My toy theatre — A youthful impressario — Something of a chemist — An indifferent fireman — The end of my penance — Settling my future career — The Tay Bridge disaster nearly puts an end to this — In Germany generally and Diisseldorf in particular — I fancy I am to be a painter — No one else does so, however — Distinguished artists who were fellow-students — The great day at Cologne — How old Kaiser Wilhelm com- pleted the cathedral — The most recent Kaiser and the ridicu- lous figure he cut on the occasion — What Moltke and Bis- marck thought about him — A disagreeable adventure which might have had consequences— -Von Moltke and the Wisdom of the Serpent — Bismarck drunk, but far from incapable . 32 CHAPTER ni Arranging a career — A latter-day Dick Whittington — I go to London to become a civic millionaire — Failing the so doing, A PELICAN'S TALE I drift into journalism — Life at Lloyd's — A resident in Pimlico — The dreadful significance of the name in those days — The Pimlico vestals — Sir Charles Cayzer and Sir John Muir — Where Cayzer threatened to send his " Clan " ships to — His reason for not carrying out his threat — A very con- scientious interviewer — My meeting with John L. Sullivan — The champion of the world in training for his fight with Mitchell — How I stood up to " the big fellow " and how I most successfully took the knock — An article on Lloyd's in The Bat which made history at the time — Clerical friends in high places — A kindly bishop — An impressive experience — A guest in company with five bishops — How Bishop Thorold lost his spectacles at the Athena;um — Who stole them ? — A dreadful supposition — How I became a regular contributor to The Bat — How its editor, James Davis, fled to France for safety's sake — How The Hawh came into being in its place . 49 CHAPTER IV Free of the city — How I gradually drifted into journalism — Small hapenings and how they affect one's career — I purchase The Haivk on behalf of a brewer — Augustus Moore as editor —How the brewer and his partner made £12,000 out of a £325 investment — How I became " registered proprietor " of the paper — Also writ-receiver in chief — A paper of many libels — Alec Knowles and his " Wrinkles " — A remarkable series of articles — Why they were not repubhshed in book form — — The staff of The Hawk — Some men who got on — The Whistler-Moore fracas at Drury Lane — How they slapped one another to the amusement of onlookers, and did little harm — How Charlie Mitchell, champion boxer of England, told me a funny story " not for publication " — How it found its way into The Hawk by way of Augustus Moore — How Mitchell and Pony Moore subsequently called at the office to have a heart- to-heart talk with us — The consternation of the editor on hearing of their visit — How I decided to leave The Hawk and start The Pelican — A wise move which proved a highly satisfac- tory one in after years ....... 64 CHAPTER V Starting on my own account — The creation of The Pelican — r How The Tattler — with two t's — did not help matters — A scheme which failed— The first money taken— VVTiere it dis- appeared to — How the paper came by its title — Ser\dng on a jury— If likely to be convicted, be careful in the selection of your judge '.—The finish of The Hawk and the success of The Pehcan~The death of " The Smart Paper for Smart People " — Wise advice from George R. Sims — " Dagonet " on the folly of making enemies— How The Sporting Times and The Pelican nearly became amalgamated — " Tale-Pitcher " Bmstead— A real humorist—" The Dwarf of Blood "—How Colonel Newnham-Davis came by his style and title— Bessie CONTENTS Bellwood's pantomime — The " Dwarf " as a cookery genius — His famous Guy Fawkes dinner, and those who were present at it — A born story-teller — A very distinguished ad- mirer of " Pitcher " — How he was mistalcen for a German spy — His singularly apt retort ...... 76 CHAPTER VI Our first big " scoop " — The Tranby Croft affair — What Ed- mund Yates said about it — Also what the eminent solicitor thought — How we cornered the " Baccarat scandal " market for a time — The author of the articles — No harm in men- tioning his name now — Some Pelican contributors — Willie Wilde of The Daily Telegraph — His marriage to Mrs. Frank Leslie, the great American newspaper proprietress — His neg- lected opportunities of great things — A very different man from his notorious brother Oscar — Oscar Wilde's desire — How it went unfulfilled — His subsequent appearance at the Old Bailey — His departure therefrom to do " two years' hard " — Some murder trials — The Milsom Fowler affair at the Old Bailey — How Fowler nearly murdered Milsom in the dock — A real sensation scene — The Tichborne Claimant — What he said — Fleet Street swindlers — Bogus advertising agents who preyed on new papers — I suffer from them — And some of them suffer from me — The simple art of protecting oneself — Sometimes an easier matter than calling in the police — How it answered in my case ....... 89 CHAPTER VII The new offices — A nest of ladies' journals — Distinguished sub- editors — Our only libel action — On trial at the Mansion House — Mr. Charles Gill, k.c, and Mr. Justice Avory — Didcott the music-hall agent — Father Stanton of St. Albans, Holborn — A fine priest and a great man — An unpaid curate for fifty years — " Dad's " opinion of great wealth — The law of balance — Money and misfortune — The frequency with which they go together — What Charles Frohman said about it — His story of the Satrap and the phj^sician — The man who had no shirt — Frohman and Barrie — How Frohman died in the Lusitania tragedy — Barrie and Peter Pan — How Peter nearly had another name — A wonderfully successful play — How its author believed it would be a financial failure — How Barrie meant to indemnify Frohman against loss in connection with its production ! — The play he meant to present Frohman with .......... 105 CHAPTER Vin A London first night at the theatre — The terror thereof for the players — An audience of professional play-goers — Every one a critic — Interruptions from the front — How some actors answered them — The mistake of so doing — A revue A PELICAN'S TALE PAOK comedian's error — How a well-known player in Called Back suffered — Mr. Lowenfeld's opinion of his audience — Sir Charles VVyndham and " The Man in the White Hat " — The elder George Grossmith and the humorist in the gallery — How Sir Henry Irving lost his temper — What Edmund Yates said about the happening — Bessie Bellwood and the retort courteous — The Younger George Grossmith's first good part — How he made it grow — Mr. John L. Shine's prophecy con- cerning George, which came true — The curious mishap at the opening of the Shaftesbury — The worst of " cheap houses " — ^70,000 for a ;^i6,ooo theatre — A jump in prices — The Old Pavilion — My friend the Chairman — Mr. Arthur Roberts and Mr. James Fawn in the heyday of their music- hall triumphs — How Mr. Roberts forsook the halls for the theatres • . . . . . . . . .121 CHAPTER IX The Pelican Club and something about it — Who the Pelicans were — How the club was started — Shifter's enterprise — The coming of Swears — A strong committee — An era of boxing — How Swears bought Shifter out — What became of half of the " monkey " Shifter received for his share — A sound philosopher — What the club was like — Its remarkable adornments — How King Edward visited the place when Prince of Wales — The result of a broken promise — Fatty's chair — Major Hope- Johnstone's celebrated moustache — How- Lord Esme Gordon bought it — The Pelican page-boy who sought to better himself — The coaching set — Jem Selby its High Priest — The celebrated record drive to Brighton and back — Those who took part in it — The bet won with ten minutes to spare — How the event was celebrated . . 131 CHAPTER X With regard to the future — The candidates' Book of the Pelican Club — A specially remarkable entry therein — The man who nearly made himself Empe'- of the French — His sensa- tional finish — The courtier v. sought information from the bandmaster on behalf of Queen Victoria — A dreadful title — What the good Queen must have thought — The Victoria Cross — The Queen and the Highland officers — King Carlos of Portu- gal—A happy monarch— Clement Scott of The Telegraph — The famous interview which led to his downfall — How he tried to come back, and did so for a time — Success on the London stage — How it came to some lucky ones— Fame at a jump — Mr. Hayden Coffin's arrival — Others who became famous in one night — Miss Edna May and her first success among us — Brevity the soul of criticism .... 145 CHAPTER XI The generosity of the theatrical profession— Concerning certain great healers and their remarkable kindness— Sir Morell Mac- CONTENTS 9 kenzic and Kaiser Frederick of Germany — Lennox Browne, a warm friend of the Stage and a great throat specialist — What ■• Ell Bte " said about Sir John Bland Sutton— A strange coincidence — The working of Fate — Sir Frederick Treves — The value of personal appearance to a surgeon — Sir Alfred Fripp the famous operator, and kindly man — How some plays succeed and others fail — The remarkable difference between the opinions of London and the Pro- vinces — Both good, but different — Van Biene and his Broken Melody — First night audiences and others — A threefold scheme — What Sir Arthur Pinero thought about it— Sir Arthur Pearson and his wonderful work for the blind — The good he has done for his fellow-sufferers — His remarkable early days — The start of Pearson's Weekly — How he left Tit Bits office to accomplish it — The series of miracles which occurred — How Sir William Ingram helped- — The start of the Daily Express — The purchase of The Standard ...... i6o CHAPTER Xn What a well-known player said — Her advice to budding actresses — Lady Orkney at the Gaiety and elsewhere — The Sisters Gilchrist — " The Little Grattans " — Mr. Harry Grattan's early experiences — How luck comes to some — And how others refuse her advances — Colonel North and Nunthorpe's City and Suburban victory — A long-priced winner — Sir Joseph Lyons and the start of a great business — A lost op- portunity — The real beginning of the great Lyons' concern — How a single song made a singer — The story of " Far, Far Away " — Miss Lottie Collins and her " Boom-de-ay " success —Mr. Arthur Roberts and his zebra bathing suit — His philo- sophical dresser — The smart restaurants of the time — Those who controlled them — The passing of the famous bars — " Captain Criterion of London " — Romano and his presenta- tion loving cup — His very sudden death — Miss Gladys Cooper's first supper party — Gaiety girls who got on — Nellie Farren's reason for never quarrelling with a chorus girl — Very sound advice . . . . . . . • ^75 CHAPTER Xin Something about Cecil Rhodes — Meeting him in Sir Starr Jame- son's flat — A wonderful man — His remarkable opinion of the German Kaiser — How Mr. Rhodes signed his photograph — His long-drawn-out death — WTiat he said to Jameson near the end — An indifferent musician — But an appreciative listener — Some eminent composers at their best — How I saved Sir Arthur Sullivan's life — Sir William Gilbert — A " Gentish " Person — Lewis Carroll — Golf stories — Music-making in strange places — How Ivan Caryll thought his fortune was made early in life — Miss Bessie Bellwood and the retort courteous — A remarkable cabman — A private recital by Paderewski to an audience of six — Bessie's opinion of Provi- dence — How Mr. James Buchanan came to London — And 10 A PELICAN'S TALE PAGE how Sir Thomas Dewar followed his lead — Fortunes out of whisky — Spirits which you drink, and spirits which you see— The ghost at Glamis Castle — The story Lord Strath- more told — The subscription-seeking clergyman and the embarrassed spectre — How the ghost was effectively laid — Willing but impecunious — Frank Richardson the " Whisker " expert — My list of suicides — A sad and curious coincidence . 190 CHAPTER XIV The bad old days and the present time Stage — The Theatre as a profession for men and women — Not at all a bad one for the latter — The connection between the Church and the Stage — The bygone mystery of the actor's calling — How and why it has disappeared — Some curious stage slips — " Beetle " Kemble's little mistake in Hamlet — The libel on Sir Charles Wyndham's sobriety — Henry Irving as a singer — A sub- stitute for Sims Reeves — Actors and actresses who sing — and some who shouldn't — Miss Marie Lohr's first visit to Sir Herbert Tree — How Miss Marie Tempest came to forsake musical-comedy — A matter of trousers — An understudy's opportunity — The tiny turns of Fate which make up history — Miss Jose Collins at Daly's — The clever daughter of a clever mother — " Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay " and how its singer jumped into fame on two continents — An incredible success . . 208 CHAPTER XV How history repeats itself — In the matter of night clubs and other things — The Old Lotus — Fatty Coleman as secretary — Evans's — The Corinthian— Dudley Ward and the Gardenia — The Alsatians — La Goulue in Leicester Square — Her rival Nini Patte-en-l'air at the Duke of York's — A remarkable rehearsal — Maurice Farkoa's London debut — A theatre on fire — How a panic was averted at Birmingham — Arthur Roberts to the rescue — Oceana the Beautiful — Her begin- ning and parentage — WTiimsical Walker and the purchase of Jumbo the elephant — How Barnum made ;^540,ooo out of a £3000 investment — James Bailey's ofhce hours at Olympia- About Zazel — John Strange Winter and Bootle's Bai What the Bishop of London said — George Augustus and his " Journal " — " Winter's Weekly " — Clement Scott's " Free Lance " ........ aa2 CHAPTER XVI The Duke of Fife as a bicyclist — A friend in need — A good Scotch name — The ill-fated voyage of the P. and O. Delhi — Wrecked off Cape Spartavento — King Edward and the champagne — How the term " Boy " originated — The Bishop and the Peer — How the Duke scored — Turning the tables with a vengeance — Mr. G. P. Huntley's experience in Petro- grad — An audience which didn't know its owTi mind — The CONTENTS II hangman's letter and his hope — What an execution is really like — Not so thrilling as it is usually painted — Sir Augustus Harris and his idea of luck — The Baddeley cake and its cutting, at Drury Lane — A remarkable function of former days — " Hawnscrs fer Korrispondinks " — The beginning of Lord Northcliffe's fame and fortune — Mr. Charks Cochran and the circus — The last Covent Garden circus — George Batty and King Edward — Present-day threatrical salaries — Their remarkable size — What George Edwardes said about An Artist's Model — Where will theatrical expenses end ? . 237 CHAPTER XVII Journalists of the past and the present — Edmund Yates of The World — How I first met him — " A good low-comedy face " — More than that needed for an actor — A great friend and a disciple of Dickens — Why I did not go on the Stage — Mr. Labouchere and Truth — How I was able to help " Labby " — The syndicate which wanted to purchase Truth — How King Edward and " Labby " agreed to differ for a time — Cherchez la fcmme ! — How George Lewis set things right again — Briefing a future Lord Chief Justice — " A young fellow named Isaacs " — How the " young fellow " won his case — Another co-religionist of a very different type — Ernest Benzon, the Jubilee Plunger — The man who got through a great for- tune in record time — Owners' tips — Fred Archer's triple tip — Matthew Dawson's superstition — The laying of the founda- tion-stone of Daly's Theatre — How Bill Yardley suffered on the occasion — How Harry Grattan and I wrote a musical comedy — Our stringent terms — An early revue which might have been produced at the Alhambra and wasn't . . 252 CHAPTER XVIII What John HoUingshead said about unlucky theatres — " Prac- tical John " — The ill-fortune of the Olympic — Concerning the Opera Comique and the Old Globe — D'Oyly Carte's first success — The Olympic as a music-hall — How Wilson Barrett c«une to Wych Street — How he also nearly reached Carey Street by so doing ! — His subsequent triumph with The Sign of the Cross — The Kingsway and its numerous other names — The Court Theatre in former days — A big success at little Terry's — Mr. Charles Hawtrey's triumph with The Private Secretary — How Sir Herbert Tree appeared as The Rev. Robert Spalding — How Penley followed him in the part — An extraordinary success — Rare Fred Leslie ! — A change from romantic opera to Gaiety musical-comedy — The Gaiety almost a stock company theatre — How Mr. Seymour Hicks and Miss EUaline Terriss came to the Gaiety — The George Grossmith period — A very successful management ...... 275 12 A PELICAN'S TALE CHAPTER XIX PAGE The passing of Sir Herbert Tree — A terribly sudden ending to a great carter — The last letter he wrote — His remarkably successful management — A fine character-actor — A master of make-up — How he puzzled his audience when The Red Lamp was produced — Tree's visit to Berlin — Max Beerbohm's retort — Sir George Alexander and the St. James's — His earlier days at the Lyceum — The first venture into management at the old Avenue — Alexander as an eccentric dancer — The romantic actor as a robust comedian — The murder of William Terris — WTiat became of his hat ? — George Alexander and the dramatic author — " A matter of moonshine " — Oscar Wilde and Lady Windermere's Fan — Alec's old Scotch nurse and what she thought of his profession — A very sensitive and kindly natured man — The secret of his great personal popu- larity 287 CHAPTER XX The Genesis of the Christmas Pelican — A rather remarkable production — The extraordinary list of authors — The strongest cast not merely in London but in the world — Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, and Herbert Tree as story-tellers — The editorial difficulties of dealing with the eminent scribes — The Maharaja of Cooch Behar — A fine sportsman and a very " white " native — His theatrical supper party, and what occurred at it — The lightning change of the Maharaja from an English gentleman to an Eastern potentate — What he said to his dependant — The extraordinary effect his words produced — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in real life — My main object in starting The Pelican — How I was fortunately able to realise it — How the war nearly finished us — but didn't— I decide to retire — The sale of The Pelican to a syndicate — Out of the pull and push — And very glad and thankful to be so . 302 Index 313 ILLUSTRATIONS The Author ..... Prontispiece PACING PAGE The Very Rev. A. K. H. Boyd 20 Charles Kingsley .... 26 "Old Tom" and "Young Tom" Morris . 36 Nellie Farren ..... 54 Fred Leslie ..... 64 Kate Vaughan ..... 80 Father Stanton .... IIO Ernest Wells ..... •36 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert 148 Mr. Arthur Roberts .... 182 Cecil Rhodes ..... 192 "Dr. Jim" and Charles Boyd 204 Mr. G. p. Huntley .... 224 Dan Leno ..... 340 Fred Archer ..... 266 13 A PELICAN'S TALE A PELICAN'S TALE CHAPTER I My birth and parentage. A really conscientious objector — Giv- ing up a fortune for a belief — The start of things — Sir James Simpson, the inventor of chloroform, helps — His sealskin coat and waistcoat — St. Andrews days — A seat of learning — Golf — And baps — What the head of Fettes said — Tom Morris the Grand Old Man of Golf — " Young Tom " — A place full of eminent people — Bishop Wordsworth and the rook's eggs — Shedding my blood in their defence — A brief chronicle of celebrities — Concerning Charles Kingsley — " When all the world is young " — A modest vocalist — At Pat's — Some famous old boys — A headmaster who believed in leather — Sir Douglas Haig's first school — St. Andrews heroes — The medal day on the links — Mr. Arthur Balfour as Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club — A famous play- wright — A Royal Captain — How he forfeited the good opinion of the golf caddies. TO most of us the term Conscientious Objector has no pleasant sound, and suggests one who shamefully shirked his job, and for the sake of his skin or his purse, or both, placed painful, disagreeable, and dangerous duties, rightfully his own, upon the shoulders of others. But there are exceptions to all rules, and when one finds a man giving up a considerable fortune B 17 i8 A PELICAN'S TALE and resigning very brilliant financial and other prospects for what he conceives to be his dut}^ one can at least understand his point of view, even if one may not entirely sympathise with it. In such case was my father, the late Very Rev. A. K. H. Boyd, d.d., Minister of the First Charge of the Parish of St. Andrews — such is the official style and title — who gave up much in order to follow the dictates of his heart, when he forsook the English Bar to become, as his great grand- father, his grandfather, and his father had been before him, a minister of the Kirk of Scotland. He was the favourite nephew of Mr. Hutchinson, one of the greatest and most prosperous London solicitors of his time, and had been as a young man practically adopted by this relative. It was planned that he was to be Mr. Hutchinson's heir, and that he was to go to the English Bar, where, owing to the briefs the firm could and would send him, a second fortune seemed assured. But after becoming a member of the Middle Temple, the young man came to the conclusion that he was meant for the Church, and greatly to the vener- able solicitor's disgust, gave up his brilliant prospects and became a clergyman, and by so doing was promptly cut out of his uncle's will, that legal luminary expressing the opinion that if his nephew was mad enough to prefer the Kirk of Scotland with no prospects to speak of, to a practically assured position at the English Bar, A. K. H. B. 19 he was no fit person to have the control of the Hutchinson fortune. And there that part of the matter ended. Let it be said here once and for all, that my father never for one moment regretted the course he then took. I mention this merely because one has several times read contrary statements made by writers who obviously did not know their facts. A. K. H. B. did well by the Church of his Fathers, and the Church did well for him in return, for after a time she gave him one of her prize livings, for such St. Andrews is, and in due season called upon him to serve his year of office as Moderator of the General Assembly, which is the highest honour in his own calling a minister of the Kirk can come to. St. Andrews was A. K. H. B.'s fourth living, for in addition to having been assistant at St. George's, Edinburgh, he had been Minister of Newton-on-Ayr ; of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, close to Dumfries ; and of St. Bernard's, Edinburgh, and it was in " Auld Reekie " on the first day, of the second month, of the third year of the Sixties, that I made my first appearance on any stage, being aided in my arrival by Sir James Simpson, an intimate friend of my parents, a great physician, and, as everyone knows, the inventor of chloro- form, which has done so much to deaden the agony of suffering millions. 20 A PELICAN'S TALE One can but dimly imagine through a mist of horror, what a surgical operation must have been like before the coming of chloroform, when the unfortunate patient was dosed with whisky or brandy till more or less senseless, was strapped down to the operating table, and was then duly performed upon. It is not to be wondered at that in those days " grand " operations were usually fatal. The marvel is that any of them ever succeeded. Of Sir James Simpson, whom I came to know as a child, my chief recollections are, of his very kindly face, his long grey hair which fell over the collar of the sealskin coat and waistcoat, and which he, like Du Maurier's Svengali, always wore, and of an unforgettable fragrance of sherry, which seemed to be attached to him, for I was usually taken to see him after luncheon, and the great doctor, with sound judgment no doubt, believed in doing him- self as well as might be at his meals. Although I was born in Edinburgh, my earliest recollections are of St. Andrews, whither I was^ brought at the mature age of two, and where are to be found among many other excellent things, the oldest University in Scotland, the most famous golf links in the world, and the finest baps in creation ; and as such things are but little known on this side of the Tweed, let me hasten to explain that a bap is a species of breakfast roll of most admirable quality, seldom to be encountered out THK VERY REV. A. K. H. BOYD, D. 1 ). . LL.I). GRAND OLD TOM MORRIS 21 of Scotland, and assuredly never to be found in greater perfection than in the Capital of Golf land, though I recall the late Dr. Potts, first and per- haps greatest headmaster of Fettes College, men- tioning upon the occasion of encountering one of these things at St. Andrews, that he had known its equal when a boy at Shrewsbury. The state- ment seemed to me and my brethren wellnigh in- credible, and verging very close upon blasphemy. Of St. Andrews children it has been said by no less an authority than grand old Tom Morris, most famous of golfers, who controlled the links for many years, and whose portrait painted by Sir George Reid, r.s.a., hangs in a pride of place on the wall of the chief room in the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, that they are " born with webs to their feet and clubs in their hands," significant of the facts that youthful St. Andreans of both sexes learn to swim, and to play the Scottish national game, very early, and very well ; and, like many another St. Andrews youngster, I received my earliest lessons in the great game from " Old Tom." Even at a period when he must have been a young man, Tom Morris was always known as " Old Tom," no doubt to distinguish him from the still .greater golfer — perhaps the greatest player who ever lived — "Young Tom Morris," champion golfer of the world for several years. ^ 1 It would be a privilege to write here of the two famous players, whose names at least are familiar in whatever part of the world the 22 A PELICAN'S TALE St. Andrews was always remarkable alike for the number of distinguished literary people who dwelt in it permanently, and for those who came to see it, and then usually returned to it again and again, for the place is full of fascination, and Carlyle spoke the bare truth when he said of it, "Grand place St. Andrews. You have there the essence of all the antiquities of Scotland in good and clean condition." To name the famous people who even in one's own recollection were connected with the place, would fill more space than can be spared, but one thinks of grand looking Principal Tulloch of St. Mary's College, of Principal Shairp of St. Salva- tor's, of Mrs. Oliphant, of Dean Stanley of West- minster, Mr. Froude, Sir John Millais, and of Bishop Wordsworth, in whose trees one used to bird-nest. In this connection I do not forget how, upon an occasion, the fine old Bishop discovered me descending from one of his trees, my cap full of crow's eggs, and devoid of speech by reason of my mouth containing another. " I know," said he, with great tact, placing his hand upon my shoulder instead of on my head, " that you wouldn't steal the rooks' eggs, and I am quite sure game is played, but the thing has already been done so well and so fully by my old friend the Rev. Dr. W. W. Tulloch in his admirable Life of Tom Morris that to try to do so would savour almost of impertinence. Old Tom was in every way a celebritv, a great and good man. It was my privilege to write the first interview which appeared of Tom Morris in the Dundee Advertiser at a time when such things were regarded with greater favour than is now the case. THE BISHOP'S REBUKE 23 you only climbed up to look at them. You see I am an old man, and it is a great pleasure to me to see and hear the crows. If anyone took their eggs they might fly away, and I should feel their going very much." I had risked my limbs to get those eggs, but I risked them again to put them back, when the dear old man had gone ; and not only did I never again take more of them, but I afterwards constituted myself the special guardian of the Bishop's rookery, and shed my blood in its defence on several notable occasions in combat with would-be marauders. Bishop Wordsworth was not merely a great scholar, but was also a great athlete. He had much to do with the institution of the University Boat Race, and in the first of these contests he himself stroked the Oxford boat, while his brother the Bishop of Lincoln pulled stroke for Cambridge, and, as no doubt many persons are aware, he was at one time Mr. Gladstone's tutor. When the pupil became Prime Minister, it seemed likely tiiat anything the Church of England had to offer might have come his way, more especially as he would have been quite equal to it, but for reasons which it is not needful to go into here, Wordsworth and Gladstone had agreed to differ upon certain subjects, and as a result a poor Scottish Bis- hopric was the best that came the good Bishop's way. 24 A PELICAN'S TALE The Blackwoods of the famous magazine, although of course mamly associated with Edin- burgh, were also closely connected with St. Andrews, and during the last twenty-five years of his life, Mr. John Blackwood abode at Strath- tyrum, a fine place within a mile of the ancient city, while Mr. Chambers, of Chambers' Journal, lived on and off in a house on the famous Scores, facing the North Sea, and Mrs. Tweedale, the well- known novelist, when Miss Violet Chambers, was one of the earliest lady golfers to play upon the links proper, as opposed to the Ladies' Putting Green, up till then considered to afford strenuous enough sport for the fairer sex. One could go on recalling famous people in- numerable who either lived at St. Andrews or came periodically to it, like Mrs. Lyn Lynton, Dean Liddell, Dr. Liddon of St. Paul's, who seeing the grand old ruins of the cathedral, beneath the walls of which so many illustrious sons and daugh- ters of St. Andrews lie in their last sleep, said, ''Take my word for it, this church zejill be rebuilt." It may be that one day Liddon's prophecy will come true ; but it seems an, unlikely thing for many reasons, one that it would cost quite half a million of money to do it. Matthew Arnold came there, Sir Theodore Martin, when Lord Rector of the University, accompanied by Lady Martin, much more famous as Helen Faucit, the greatest actress of her day, I SING TO CHARLES KINGSLEY 25 Macready's leading lady, Andrew Lang, and so on. To mention them all would be to write down the names of many of the most distinguished men and women of letters. Of the coming of Charles Kingsley to the home of my childhood, I have special recollections. Everyone liked the author of The Water Babies, and he loved children, a love which all his little friends most cordially returned. In these very youthful days I am told I pos- sessed rather a nice singing- voice, but my modesty was such, that I could seldom be prevailed upon to perform outside my own nursery, and even then my best efforts occurred while concealed below the table, the centre leg tightly clasped to my bosom. One evening, after my nursery tea, I was alone in my kingdom, my female guardian having left me for a time, and, seated under my table, I was singing away to myself for all I was worth, my song being the famous '' When all the World is Young," from The Watcy Babies. As I sang, a corner of the table-cloth was pulled up, and I saw a kuidly, grave face, looking at me very intently. The owner of the face was on his hands and knees, and, struck dumb by the apparition, I ceased my song with a snap. " Don't stop," said my visitor, " just sing me that last verse over again," and I said I would provided he left me under my table and withdrew to a judicious 26 A PELICAN'S TALE distance ; and when I had finished, the kind- looking gentleman pulled me out from my fastness, put me on his knee, and kissed me. And then I saw that he had been crying. Later on in recount- ing the happening to my nurse, and seeking for information as to my visitor, I was told that he was Mr. Kingsley, who had come to stay with us for a time. He often called on me in my nursery, and won my affection by the stories he told me, which he said were good for me, and by the sweets he gave me, which he was equally positive were bad for me. However, with the sweets and the stories we got on very well together, and Charles Kingsley was my earliest and best-loved hero. Little children are usually uncommonly keen judges of character, and if they approve of a man or woman, there is as a rule not much the matter with either. All children loved dear Charles Kingsley. St. Andrews was always a famous seat of learning, not merely for students — as the under- graduates are called — at the University, but for boys as well. At the present time it possesses, in St. Leonard's, one of the largest and most famous schools for girls in the country. In my day there were lots of schools to choose from, for in addition to St. Leonard's, at that time a boys' school conducted by Dr. Browning, there were the big Madras College, Abbey Park, Hodge's, Blunt's, and Clifton Bank, the last named being commonly CHARLES KINGSI.EY SIR DOUGLAS HAIG AT SCHOOL 27 known as " Pat's " for the reason that its head- master was Dr. Paterson, a very tall, stern, kindly-hearted Domine of the old school, who believed in a somewhat liberal use of the tawse, as the leather weapon of chastisement was known. Perhaps the cane prevails to-day in Scotland, as it did and does in this country, but in my time of suffering, tawse were the terror of evil-doers, and, as I can personally vouch, were a very sufficient reason for acquiring such knowledge as was deemed needful. Dr. Paterson was amongst those who cordially believed in the virtues of leather. It was to this school that I was sent in due course, a school which, although not a very large one, produced some boys who became notable men. It was Sir Douglas Haig's first seat of learning, and there the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces acquired his primary instruc- tions, and perchance wallopings. Of this I am unable to speak with authority, for Haig was before my time. But another distinguished soldier was there with me, although he was my senior in age by a short distance, and my superior in ability by a very long way. He was General Sir David Henderson, k.c.b. and D.s.o. — who had so much to do with the making of our Air Service, of which he was Director-General for several years. As everyone knows, Sir David is a very gallant and distinguished soldier, and in these days when he 28 A PELICAN'S TALE has become a great man, and can well afford to smile at minor matters, I am sure he won't mind my recalling the time when he was head-boy at Pat's, and was known as " Porri Henderson," the nickname being a diminutive of porridge, of which he was either inordinately fond, or held in extreme abhorrence — I cannot now recall which. There were other notable future soldiers among the boys of St. Andrews at that period, and among them one specially recalls, poor Major " Mauray " Meiklejohn of the Gordon Highlanders, who won the V.C. so gallantly in the Boer War and lost his arm in so doing, and who, it will be remembered, met his end by being thrown from a restive horse at a review in Hyde Park, a curiously trivial and tragic finish to so gallant a career. Then there was Captain Ernest Towse, also of the Gordons, who likewise gained the greatest distinction a soldier or sailor may come by, in Africa, v/hen he lost his precious sight. • There was Freddy Tait, too, of the Black Watch, who gave his life for his country in the Boer War, and was one of the best amateur golfers who ever lived, as well as one of the most amiable of men. Never was there a more popular occasion on St. Andrews links than when Freddy Tait won the gold medal presented by King William IV with the fine score of 78, a year which was specially memorable in the annals of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, for the reason that Mr. Balfour was MEMORIES OF ST. ANDREWS 29 Captain of the Club, and " struck off " at the start of the competition, to the booming of the little cannon, which is fired at the beginning and at the finish of the Medal Day at St. Andrews. Captain Robert Marshall, the well-known play- wright, who died in the midst of his success, was a Madras boy at that time, and I well remember how he gave me the outlines of his first play Shades of Night, and asked me to whom he should submit it, as he was new to London stage-land at that period. I suggested Mr. Forbes Robertson, as Sir Johnston then was, and the piece was duly accepted and produced by him at the Lyceum Theatre. Afterwards in quick succession came His Excellency the Governor, A Royal Family, pro- duced at the Court, and other plays. Marshall's best work was The Second in Command, which it will be remembered had a long run at the Haymarket. In his plays Marshall usually described circum- stances and people he was familiar with, for he had seen a deal of service both at home and abroad, and had been, among other things, A.D.C. to the Governor of Natal. Poor Arthur Playfair the well-known actor who died so sadly at Brighton, and who was a grandson of Sir Hugh I^yon Playfair, a famous Provost of St. Andrews, also spent his boyhood in the classic place. Harking back to the Medal Day at St. Andrews, and to many famous Captains of the Royal and Ancient, one recalls the year when the late Prince 30 A PELICAN'S TALE Leopold, as the Duke of Albany was then styled, was Captain, and duly struck off on the great occasion. Of course all St. Andrews was at the Teeing ground to see him do the deed, but the shot His Royal Highness made was not a specially brilliant one, despite the coaching he had received from Tom Morris on the previous day. The golf caddies, keen judges of men and matters, were there in force ready to estimate the merits of the Prince by his stroke, and when that occurred and was found to be somewhat lacking, one of these candid critics, in a voice which I fear our royal visitor must have heard, gave vent to the historical opinion, " He may be the Queen's son, and the deil himsel', but he canna play gough a damn." Golf is played everywhere now, and there are links innumerable all round London, and indeed all over the country, but thirty-five years ago, when I first came as a lad to the Capital, those at Wimble- don and Blackheath were the only familiar ones, and people generally were curiously ignorant of the most rudimentary points connected with the game. Thus it was that a very distinguished lady to whom I had the honour of being presented, during my earliest days in town, expressed special interest in my humble self because I had come from "the Newmarket of Golf." "Now," said she, " you can tell me whether at St. Andrews they play with wooden or with iron golfs ? " A DIPLOMATIC RETORT 31 It was too Herculean a task to even attempt to enlighten such darkness, and, realizing the abso- lute hopelessness of the situation, I merely mur- mured : ** With both," which reply appeared to give complete satisfaction, and all was well. CHAPTER II At school and what I learned — Little that was of any use to me in after life — A knowledge of Shakespeare and how it was acquired — A Chair of general information badly needed — What lads of the time read — The Boys of England and The Sons of Britannia — Jack Harkaway and Tom Wildrake — Two wondrous heroes — What Robert Louis Stevenson thought — My toy theatre — A youthful inipressario — Something of a chemist — An indifferent fireman — The end of my penance — Settling my future career — The Tay Bridge disaster nearly puts an end to this — In Germany generally and Dtisseldorf in particular — I fancy I am to be a painter — No one else does so, however — Distinguished artists who were fellow-students — The great day at Cologne — How old Kaiser Wllhelm com- pleted the cathedral-The most recent Kaiser and the ridiculous figure he cut on the occasion — What Moltke and Bismarck thought about him — A disagreeable adventure which might have had consequences — Von Moltke and the Wisdom of the Serpent — Bismarck drunk, but far from incapable. ^ T school I learned the usual things the /% average boy gets into his head during / % the period of his penance, and then gets out of it as soon as schooldays are over, unless he goes to one of the Universities, a thing I did not do. I acquired the regulation indifferent knowledge of Latin, Greek, Geometry, and the other things which I did not at the time believe were likely to be of any subsequent service to me, and which I am now absolutely certain were of none. Had I devoted the same time and 32 THE BARD AS A PUNISHMENT 33 study to French, Italian, Mental Arithmetic, and a dozen other matters of real value, I might have derived some benefit. Of course if a lad intends to become a doctor, a barrister, a Civil Servant, or a clergyman, dead languages are needful enough, but I was not destined for any of these callings, and much of what I was compelled to learn, with great suffering, physical as well as mental, proved to be not of the slightest use to me in after years. One thing I did acquire, and I have always been glad of it. It was the special joy of our Headmaster to inflict punishment on such as deserved it by making them learn off so many dozen lines of Shakespeare. As a result of considerable minor evil-doing, I know my Shakespeare fairly well, and am still capable, upon provocation, of repeating entire scenes from several of the best known plays. I do not know that this knowledge is to be specially commended. It is true it enables you to correct your friends if by chance they are guilty of misquotations, but as such corrections are seldom received in really friendly spirit, and as it is still more seldom possible to induce the doubting mis- quoters to back their opinions with coin of the realm, there isn't much real advantage about this. I have always thought that it would be a most valuable thing if older boys in their last term at 34 A PELICAN'S TALE school, could be given a number of pointers upon general information. For instance, I would have them taught the difference between a bull and a bear on the Stock Exchange ; the correct amount which waiters ought to be tipped at the various restaurants, for of course there is an unwritten scale of such things ; how one ought to comport oneself on coming aboard a man-of-war ; what to do when one dines at a regimental mess for the first time ; how to play sundry games of cards, together with the terms and expressions connected therewith ; how to politely fend off the would-be borrower ; and the like, all matters which have to be subsequently learned in the battle of life, and the learning paid for at greater or lesser cost of coin and self-respect. No doubt the time will arrive when in each school there will be at least one master whose special duty it will be to give his youthful charges really valuable tips upon many matters, and who knows but that we may yet come to find chairs endowed at the 'Varsities, with professors whose classes will be taught the exceedingly valuable matters of how to do, and how to avoid being done. It may come to pass ; you never can tell. I was always an omnivorous reader, and even at a very youthful period had accumulated quite a large library in a small way. I don't know what papers the youth of to-day reads, but in my time there were many boys' weekly journals which JACK HARKAWAY 35 found tremendous favour in the sight of the multi- tude. Perhaps the most popular of these were Thr Boys of England and its companion paper The Young Men of Great Britain, though The Sons of Britannia and its allied journal The Young Briton ran them closety. The tales contained in these journals were mainly about highwaymen of the most dashing, heroic, and chivalrous sort ; or of sailor heroes who experienced the most marvellous and thrilling adventures. Also there was usually a school story, wherein the boys did pretty well as they liked with their masters and everyone else, and those of us whose memories go back to The Boys of England and The Sons of Britannia will recollect the serial stories " Jack Harkaway's Schooldays " in the former, and " Tom Wildrake's Schooldays " in the latter. It has, I know, been stated that Mr. Harcourt Burrage was the creator of " Dabber," the wooden legged seaman so full of strangely mangled verse, but certainly " Tom Wildrake's Schooldays," wherein Dabber figured, always purported to be work of the editor of the paper, Mr. George Emmet t. As a matter of fact Dickens was no doubt the inspirer of the character, and those famiUar with " Our Mutual Friend " and Silas Wegg who with his wooden leg was so prone to drop into poetry for the benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Bofiin, Mr. Venus, and others, will have no difii- 36 A PELICAN'S TALE culty in tracing the family resemblance between the two characters. ** Tom Wildrake's Schooldays " was a remark- able story, and according to my recollection ran tor several years, being followed in due course by "Young Tom's Schooldays" which was practi- cally the same thing over again. As for Jack Harkaway in The Boys of England, he was a prodigious fellow, the creation of Mr. Bracebridge Hemyng, and lasted for many years in various forms. First there was "Jack Hark- away 's Schooldays," then his " After Schooldays," " Jack Harkaway at Oxford," " Jack Harkaway 's Adventures Round the World," and so on ; and when Harkaway had done everything, and been sent everywhere by his author, " Young Jack Harkaway " came into being, and the thing started once more. I don't suppose any papers ever endeared themselves to lads as did The Sons of Britannia and The Boys of England, and they must in their day have been possessed of huge circulations. No less a light than immortal Robert Louis Stevenson has left it on record how much the latter paper was to him, and for my humble self I can truthfully say that on the night preceding the weekly arrival of The Boys of England from London, I hardly slept. One of my first pilgrim- ages when I came to Town as a lad, was to Fleet Street, for the express purpose of gazing in awe P.'iot,'. Rodger, St. yl7idre-(.is "old TOM '■ AND -'YOUNG TOM " MORRIS, THE OLD TIME CHAMPION GOLFERS AN IMPRESARIO 37 at the dingy office from which this greatest of papers was pubHshed. It was something of pain and surprise to find the building one of lesser consequence than Buckingham Palace. At the office of The Boys of England were to be purchased small toy theatres, and periodically there were issued sheets of characters and scenes of various plays such as '* Alone in the Pirate's Lair," " Jack Cade the Rebel of London," and others of the same sort. These sheets you coloured for yourself, mounted on cardboard, and cut out, that is if you were a specially industrious and economical student of the drama. If your soul abhorred drudgery, and your purse ran to it, you bought your characters and scenes " Coloured, cut out, and ready for use." My theatre was my chiefest and dearest toy, and on its boards I produced many a play. My most noticeable successes as given before audiences composed of my parents, brethren, and such of the maid servants as could be induced to attend my performances were " Rifle Volunteers " and '* The Waterman." I favoured these master- pieces chiefly by reason of the fact that each of them contained few characters, and was a work of comparatively easy manipulation. Some of my pieces were such stupendous productions, that they were never fully completed, and the curtain usually had to be lowered about half-way through. A play of especially overwhelming proportions 38 A PELICAN'S TALE was " The Miller and His Men," the production of which necessitated the use of hundreds of card- board actors, and of scenes innumerable. " Douglas " also ran it close as a dramatic barrier not to be lightly overcome by the most skilful manipulator and producer. There were trap-doors in the little stage, which were used with great effect, and at Christmas when of course like all well-conducted managers, I had to produce my pantomime, red and green fires were burnt with great effect. Being an early devotee of chemistry, I used to make my own red and green fire powders. Some- times they burnt brilliantly as intended, at other periods they either failed me ignominiously, like Zero's bombs in " The Dynamiter," or exploded with considerable violence and detestable odour. On more than one occasion my soul for realism was rejoiced bj^ the fact of my theatre catching fire. As this might have led to considerably extended conflagration, the grown-up portion of my audience used then to evince an unholy desire to extinguish my flames by whatever rough and ready means occurred to them. Such, however, was no way for a well-conducted theatre manager. I had my own little lire engine : with that and nothing else should the flames be fought. Some- times I am forced to admit the fire engine proved not wholly equal to its task, and the results were unsatisfactory. Articles of furniture were burnt GOOD-BYE TO SCHOOL 39 and I myself suffered. This last I did gladly in the cause of Art, and on the particular occasion when I had to carry my arm in a sling as the result of a specially big conflagration, my pride was perhaps equalled, but certainly not surpassed, by that of, say Mr. Arthur ColHns, on the occasion of a successfully concluded Boxing Night at Drury Lane. When my schooldays came to an end, and I have never regretted their termination, my parents could not determine what they should make of me, and I being of a fairly even and philosophic tem- perament, did not mind much so long as my lines led to London. I wanted to get to the place which seemed like heaven on earth to me, as speedily as possible. However, that was not to be just yet. The son of some friends of my people was going to Germany for a year to learn the Huns' language, and generally finish off his education, and it was, after much discussion, decided that I should go along also. Before departing to the Fatherland, something happened which nearly rendered the idea of going there or anywhere else futile. I had gone over to Edinburgh from St. Andrews to see the pantomime, and in those days there was no Forth Bridge, the Frith being crossed in a small paddle steamer called the John Sterling. I was to have returned on Saturday from Edinburgh, but a great storm arose and the boat could not cross the Forth. 40 A PELICAN'S TALE On Sunday morning the boat was still unable to cross, but on enquiry at Waverley Station in the afternoon of that day, I found that a train would leave Edinburgh for Granton in the even- ing, and that it was hoped a crossing to Burnt- island might be effected. When we got to Granton the gale was still blowing great guns, but a number of the passen- gers had to get to Dundee that night in order to be in time for their work next morning, and so the brave little John Sterling duly set out on her distinctly perilous voyage across the Frith. In an ordinary way the crossing should have taken three-quarters of an hour. That night it took two and a half hours, and at last, after con- siderable suffering, we got into harbour at Burnt- island, on the Fifeshire side of the Forth, and there the Dundee train was waiting. I had to get out at a small junction station called Leuchars on my way to St. Andrews, the train then going to Dundee some twelve miles further on. It was well that I did get out there, for the train and its passengers never reached their destination. They got on to the big bridge crossing the Tay, and when in the middle of it, a specially strong gale blew the entire middle por- tion of the bridge down, and not a soul was saved from the terrible Tay Bridge disaster. The present Tay Bridge is, in spite of its great length and height, a very solid and safe creation with a A VAIN AMBITION 41 double set of rails. The old bridge which collapsed, was a much slighter matter and just the width of a single line of rails. The wonder is not that it fell down when it did, but that it stood up at all in the frequent gales sweeping down the Frith of Tay, which it had to face. Later on behold me on my way to Hunland generally, and Diisseldorf on the Rhine in particu- lar, partly to learn as far as possible the singu- larly brutal and hideous language of the country, which seems so wonderfully suited to those who speak it,and partly to acquire the polite art of paint- ing in oil colours, for which I had shown a certain amount of skill as an amateur, with a possible view to adopting the calling of the painter as a means of livelihood. I had won the open prize for drawing at my school and was accounted fairly ready with my brush, but the difference between the best amateur and the worst professional is tremendous, and I was by no means even in the best class of amateur artists. As a painter with any chance of making a living at the game, it was soon very clear to myself as well as to everyone else, that I had not the ghost of an idea. I was a moderately good amateur ; no more than that. However, if I wasn't much good as a painter myself, some of those who were with nie at Diisseldorf learning their trade, came to achieve considerable things. My old friend Caton Wood- 42 A PELICAN'S TALE \'ille, the famous military painter, was just leaving for Paris, but among other promising students were Lockhart Bogle, and Dudley Hardy, whose clever work is familiar to everyone in these days. I dwelt in the house of an eminent professor, one of the very few Germans I ever cared for, and two other English lads lived there at the same time. It ma}^ interest people who can't quite under- stand the Huns' hatred of us to know that even in those days, on no single occasion can I recall walking in the streets of Diisseldorf without the passing school children and tradesmen's boys calling out " verdamter Engiander," which of course signifies " Damned Englishman." These boys are the men who fought against us in the Big War. The}^ hated us when they were grown- up, but they hated us as far as they were capable — and had been taught to hate us in school and out of it — when they were children. In Diisseldorf we lived the usual life of the art students, that is to say there was a certain amount of work, a vast deal of beer drinking, a smattering of duelling, I myself being exceedingly careful to be merely a spectator, a good deal of rough-and- tumble fun, and so on. I expect young men are pretty nmch the same all over the world, and fairly objectionable to those no longer of their own age and ways of thinking. THE WAY OF THE HUN 43 The most memorable day to me in Germany was that on which old Kaiser Wilhclm, grandfather of the most recent ruler, lowered the final stone, by means of a pulley somewhere, on to the roof of Cologne Cathedral in the Spring of 1881. That was a great occasion, for most of the interesting people of Germany managed to crowd themselves into the singularly unfragrant city. I started the day somewhat unfortunately, for I was at the time unable to speak the language, and my Professor who accompanied me desiring to send a telegram, told me to wait for him at the corner of a street near the post office. While I was doing so, a wretched child rushed out of a doorway and fell over my feet on to his face. The child's nose bled ; some idiot called out that I had hit the little brute ; a crowd collected and I was unable to explain matters at all. Then one whom I presumed to be an elder brother of the lad, shook his fist in my face and appeared to be threatening me with various things, so I hit him on the nose, causing that to bleed also, and then up came a policeman accompanied by the regulation sword, and I was being walked oft, I presume, to the nearest police station, when my Professor happily arrived. I told him my story and the Professor, being of some consequence in Germany, soon straightened matters out, the policeman saluted, I took off my hat, and we parted quite pleased with one another. 44 A PELICAN'S TALE 1 was fortunate enough to get a good place from which to watch the big procession to the cathedral, and it was very interesting to see the old Kaiser, the then Crown Prince Frederick, " Unzer Fritz," and behind them, walking in most ridiculous fashion, and doing all he could to attract attention, the latest Kaiser. He was walking near Bismarck and Von Moltke and it was interesting to see how these two really great men regarded this strutting peacock, and then exchanged glances with one another. My old companion said as the Arch-Hun passed amidst the half -shocked, half -amused glances of the onlookers, " It's all very well to smile at him, but there will be great trouble for us when that young man comes to the throne." One way and another there has been a good deal of it, not merely for his own countrymen but for the whole world as well. The most memorable incident to me was quite a small one, but it was one where in a flash you got a sort of inkling of Bismarck's brutal nature. As the big man walked along with great dignity, the really outstanding hgure of the entire pro- cession, he wore his characteristic frown, and it was impossible to help noticing the very heavy eyebrows. Just as he passed where we were, his foot caught on a stone and he stumbled slightly, his dignity was upset. In a moment the immense frowning eyebrows seemed to come down, not BISMARCK AND VON MOLTKE 45 merely over his eyes, but over his entire face, and when they lifted you saw an expression of abso- lutely bestial bad temper. You felt that if the road sweeper who had neglected to clear away that stone liad been anywhere handy, his life wouldn't have been worth a second's purchase if Bismarck could have had the handling of him. Moltke, who of course was the real brains of the Franco-Prussian War of '70 and '71, who walked near Bismarck, was a very curious looking old man with a dull red face lined with thousands of wrinkles. He was, or certainly looked as if he was, a perfectly hairless man, that is he had no eyelashes or eyebrows, and the fair hair he wore on the top of his withered old bald face was his only by right of purchase. He walked along looking very much like a singularly observant old owl, and if he did not say much, he seemed to think a great deal. There was precious little which went on for a hundred yards all round that very disagreeable old gentleman which he did not see ! In these days of great moderation in the use of alcohol, it is interesting to recall the fact that at least one Chancellor of a big European Power has, like many a lesser mortal, slept the sleep of the inebriated on the Embankment, and though it may shock Pro-Germans and others to know it, that singularly disagreeable and brutal old gentle- man, Bismarck, on at least one occasion, found 46 A PELICAN'S TALE the neighbourhood of Cleopatra's Needle a suit- able place whereon to recover himself after certain too longtliy potations. Tlie story is an old one, is quite familiar to a few, and there is no reason why others should not read it now. Everyone who knows his comparatively modern history, is aware that " The Man of Blood and Iron " was at times a stupendous toper, could put away more liquor than most, and was more- over exceedingly proud of his capabilities in this regard. Beer in the days which preceded the period when the Pilot was Dropped, was a matter of considerable moment to him, provided it ap- peared in sufficient quantity, and thus it was that during one of his visits to Queen Victoria, he caused himself to be taken over a well-known brewery in Town. One of the possessions of this brewery was a glass of extraordinary amplitude, which held several pints of liquor. It was a great feat to be able to drink the contents right off without spill- ing a drop, not merely because of the quantity of liquid, but also because of the vast height of the glass which necessitated the possession of a speci- ally long and strong arm. Bismarck who had lunched with great heartiness prior to going the rounds of the brewery, was given various samples of beer to drink, including a little measure of a very special brew of ale, of " I AM DROONK " 47 prodigious strength, meant of course to be drunk in quite small quantities. Towards the end of the big man's visit, the famous large glass was exhibited to him, and on being told that only twice in the memory of man had anyone succeeded in emptying it at one draught without spilling a drop, he at once ex- pressed a desire to become a third hero, expressly stipulating, however, somewhat to tlie alarm of his hosts, that the glass should be filled with the specially potent brew above alluded to. The Hun Chancellor not only succeeded in getting rid of every drop of the liquor in the correct fashion, but to the amazement of the beholders, one of them the late member of the Cabinet who told me the story, requested that the glass might again be filled ; when he once more did the trick. Then the visitors left the brewery to drive back to the Palace, but soon after the start Bismarck said to his special temporary monitor and guide, '' I am droonk ! " It being plain that he was as stated, it was considered desirable that Her Majesty's guest should be got back to the Palace as quickly as possible, and be put to bed for a time ; but Bismarck would have none of this. ** Take me to the Embankment," he said, " and let me sit down and look at the river for two hours, and all will be well." 48 A PELICAN'S TALE And so he was taken to the Embankment, the carriage being sent away and the coachman ordered to return in a couple of hours, and there Bismarck sat on one of the seats with his big soft felt hat pulled well over his features, while a couple of agonised courtiers kept watch and ward on him from the opposite side of the road. At the end of two hours the carriage returned, the Hun Chancellor wakened from his reverie, got in with no assistance whatsoever, and was duly driven back to Buckingham Palace, and only some half-dozen people have ever been the wiser of the occurrence up till now. CHAPTER III Arranging a careei' — A latter-day Dick Whittington — I go to London to become a civic millionaire — Failing the so doing, I drift into journalism — Life at Lloyd's — A resident in Pimlico — The dreadful significance of the name in those days — The Pimlico vestals — Sir Charles Cayzer and Sir John Muir — Where Cayzer threatened to send his " Clan " ships to — His reason for not carrying out his threat — A very conscientious interviewer — My meeting with John L. Sullivan — The champion of the world in training for his fight with Mitchell — How I stood up to " the big fellow " and how I most successfully took the knock — An article on Lloyd's in The Bat which made history at the time — Clerical friends in high places — A kindly bishop — An impressive experience — A guest in company with five bishops — How Bishop Thorold lost his spectacles at the Athenaeum — Who stole them ? — A dreadful supposition — How I became a regular contributor to The Bat — How its editor, James Davis, fled to France for safety's sake — How The Hawk came into being in its place, IT having been decided with regard to my future, that it was wholly unhkely I should ever succeed in passing any sort of examina- tion whatsoever, my good parents thought that perhaps the best thing for me would be to get into a business office of some sort or other, with a view to becoming, after a few years' toil, a commercial millionaire, and no doubt in due course Lord Mayor of the City of London. I deemed it improbable that I should ever be D 49 50 A PELICAN'S TALE one or the other of these desirable things, but my excellent father, although a very able man at his own caUing, was hopelessly innocent of all com- mercial knowledge, and had a sort of vague idea that the Dick Whittington Act was a quite common occurrence even in these times. For myself I did not much mind what happened so long as I got to London, which had always ap- peared to me the most desirable place in this world wherein to abide, and so it was I was taken to see our late local Member of Parliament, Mr. Stephen Williamson, a wealthy Liverpool business man, with considerable influence in the City of London, and his assistance was duly invoked on my behalf. In a short time word arrived from Mr. William- son in London, that he had secured an opening for me in the ofhce of one of the best known firms of East India Merchants in the City. Of the seven deadly years I went through in that firm's service, I prefer to write but little. I can truthfully say that I cordially detested every hour of my office life during that time. The work was hard and tedious to a degree. The prospects were simply non-existent to a man unrelated to one of the several partners, and the salary paid me, even at the end of seven years of very hard, and, according to the testimonials I received, quite satisfactory work, was simply ludicrous, and such as I never dreamt of offering even to junior clerks PIMLICO DAYS 51 when I subsequently came to employ such in my own office. The fact is the assistants of the firm in ques- tion were largely drawn from the sons of people with whom the firm had business relations, who came into our place to learn the ropes, and naturally enough didn't care what sort of salaries they were paid. Of course there were some elderly regular clerks too, but they were content with very little, and whether they were content or otherwise didn't matter. In my own case it cost my parents a con- siderable allowance in order that I might be privileged to perform extensive and important duties for the firm which was a very Scotch one in the worst sense of the term, and gave uncom- monly little away. Being ignorant of many matters and of none more so than the reputation of certain localities in London, when I came to Town I took rooms in Alderney Street, Pimlico. In these days the word Pimlico conveys very little. In the early eighties it stood for a good deal, and its reputation was such that the name was seldom used in polite society, those who abode in or near it preferring to say that they dwelt in " South Belgravia." Briefly, PimUco, like St. John's Wood, was the special province of the hundreds of ladies of the ** oldest profession," and it was difficult in those days to light upon a house in Alderney Street, 52 A PELICAN'S TALE Winchester Street, Cumberland Street, and the rest, which was not to be described as " gay." By sheer good fortune my camping ground was quite correct, and my landlady a most well con- ducted and worthy soul. Nowadays Pimlico is, I believe, all it ought to be, and to have been, but when I first knew it — well it wasn't. Let it go at that! I shall never forget how in the very early days of my life in London, while paying a call on some friends of mj^ people, I was asked by my hostess whereabouts I was living, and in all innocence responded promptly and perhaps rather loudly ** At Alderney Street, Pimlico." The drawing- room was full of people, all busily talking, but my magical address reduced them for several seconds to the stoniest of silences. Women blushed slightly and looked at their boots, men scowled at me, and one sportsman, thinking himself out of range of all but myself, made vigorous signs expressive of the fact that I had committed a very special bloomer. Of course I knew at once I had said something or other which I ought not to have done, but it was only later on, when I had an opportunity of consulting one of the sons of the house, that I discovered that the name of my abiding locality was like that of the Clan MacGregor, a forbidden one. However, when I came to know Pimlico quite A DISPUTE 53 well, and a good deal concerning its inhabitants, I stayed on there. It was not expensive and being near Victoria it was very central for nearly every- where, and this I may say, that no matter how rowdy the fair inhabitants of the quarter may have been elsewhere, they behaved with all possible propriety in their own streets, and one saw little of them excepting late at night, when of course one ought to have been in bed, when they re- turned from their evening constitutionals about the Haymarket and Waterloo Place, in hansoms, literally by the hundred. It was soon clear to me that office work was not the job that my soul hankered after, for its deadly monotony was terrible, although there were little episodes one recalls which were not wholly devoid of humour. There was, for instance, the occasion — it has become historical — when the late Sir John Muir, then head of our firm, who was a very important person in the East Indian Commercial world, as well as Lord Provost of Glas- gow, had a somewhat heated argument with another personage of consequence. Sir Charles Cayzer, chief of the " Clan " line. Muir was a very tall man, while Cayzer — the father-in-law, by the way, of Lord JeUicoe— was quite small in all respects, save in that of his enormously large head. A dispute had arisen concerning the destination of certain of the "Clan " boats, when little Cayzer, standing on his tiptoes so that he might the more 54 A PELICAN'S TALE readily reach the ears of the tall Muir, gave vent to these memorable words, which are, I am sure, still recalled in City shipping circles, " John Muir, I will send my ships where I like. I would send them to hell if it wasn't that I know you have an agent there already ! " About this period I had begun to write a bit for various papers, hoping that the time might come when I should have enough of that sort of work, which I liked, to make it good enough to get out of the City, which I loathed. As is the case with most newcomers to journalism, the way was un- commonly hard. I wrote an immense deal for journals which, when, and if the}^ paid at all, paid very little. I fancy, too, I must in my sim- plicity have done as much work for bogus pro- prietors who never paid a farthing and never meant to, as most writers I have come in contact and compared notes with. After a time as a free-lance I managed to secure one or two regular, if ill-paid, jobs. Thus I wrote for two or three years a weekly article of two columns, for a provincial paper called the South Glasgow Gazette — I don't know if it still exists to-day — for 7s. 6d. ; a weekly interview with a topical celebrity of three columns for a deceased weekly called The Society Times, published in Wardour Street, for a like sum, and three columns of dramatic notes for another weekly for 5s. The theatrical article I liked, chiefly because by NELLIE FARREX THE HURRICANE FIGHTER 55 its means I gained free admission to the theatres and music-halls, and the interviewing business I also was keen about, because of the interesting people it brought me in contact with. And in this connection one of my most interest- ing subjects was the late John L. Sullivan, prob- ably the greatest "hurricane" fighter who ever lived, Sullivan was for many years champion of the world, and it was when he came to this country, and was in training for his celebrated bare-knuckle fight with the late Charles Mitchell that I tackled him on a memorable Sunday at his training quarters in Windsor. Sullivan was doing his training from a hotel therein, the Royal Adelaide. Its landlord was the somewhat notorious Harry Bull, better known in racing circles as Chippy Norton the bookmaker, and my visit to Sullivan was paid just five days before he met Mitchell in France, to fight for the champion- ship of the world, with what are known as the raw 'uns, which signifies with gloveless fists. The big man who was always in those days pretty much of a brute, was as most men are when in hard training, in anything but good temper. However, he agreed to see me, and as the Press of the world w^as at that time full of the forthcoming combat, the interview looked like being a valuable scoop for my paper. I duly saw Sullivan, went through part of his training with him, asked as many questions as I 56 A PELICAN'S TALE dared and as his trainer would allow, and no doubt made myself as much of a nuisance as possible. ^Mlen we got back to the hotel after a hard walk, Sullivan arrayed in a vast number of sweaters, and he was being rubbed down by his small army of camp followers, Chippy Norton asked me if there was anything further I wanted to know before the hero went to rest for a bit. It was then that by evil fortune I sought to enquire as to the slight injury to his right arm which Sullivan had come by in America, shortly before sailing for England. He explained briefly and forcibly that he had struck his arm against the head of his sparring partner. If I had been a more experienced and less conscientious journalist, I would have let it go at that. But I again asked to have the matter more clearly explained to me, being desirous of having my facts quite accurate. " Well, you see, I hit him like that," said Sullivan, " and he raised his head like this, and my arm got across him so. Now do you under- stand ? " And I was ass enough to say I did not. " Well," he said, " put up your hands and I will show you." And madness having clearly come upon me I did so. Of course I know it was a silly thing to have done, but at the time it never occurred to me that Big John L. Sullivan, in hard training for I STAND UP TO SULLIVAN 57 the championship of the world, would hit a lad who obviously knew little or nothing of the game, but the moment I raised my hands I became aware by the smiles I saw out of the corner of my eye, on the faces of those present, and by the gleam which came in the big fighter's optics, that I was going to get at least one smack. Naturally I was not idiot enough to dream of hitting Sullivan, my intention being simply to get out of the way of the light blow which might be coming, drop my hands at once, and say that I now clearly under- stood how the mishap had occurred ; moreover, there was of course the fact that I should be standing up to John L. Sullivan with bare knuckles, a thing which up till then no Englishman had ever ventured to do. That counted for some- thing ! But while I was thinking of the matter I got my blow right enough, and it was no light one either, for I was struck in the centre of the fore- head so quickly that I hardly saw the blow coming, and so hard that it lifted me right off my feet on to a sofa some little way behind, and there I sat for a minute or two wondering if an earth- quake had happened, or if I had merely been struck by lightning. It was not Uke a blow from a human fist at all. It seemed exactly as if a big blacksmith had hit me on the forehead with his forehammer, and the next thing I recollect was Chippy Norton holding a stiff glass of brandy to 58 A PELICAN'S TALE my lips and asking how I felt now. I said I hoped I should feel all right in a week or two, and seeing that I wasn't making a song of the matter, Sullivan shook me warmly by the hand and said : " Well, say, anyhow no other Britisher ever stood up like that to John L. Sullivan." ** Very likely," I said, " and if I hadn't been a blanked idiot I wouldn't have done it either." Now it is something of a coincidence that a few days after the big fight had taken place, I had a chat with Mitchell about it, and he was describing how one particular round had been fought, and to make things clear to me said as Sullivan had said before him, '' Put up your hands and I will show you." But this time I thought not ; and I told Mitchell that I had already done this to his adversary and that it was to him I owed the large bruise on my forehead which was still well to the fore. " Well," said Mitchell, " at all events you and I are the only people in this country who ever stood up to John with the raw 'uns." And this is a fact although the duration of my up- standing was just about the hundredth part of a second. It was while I was in the City, and one of the representatives of my firm on Lloyd's, the big insurance place, at the Royal Exchange, that I wrote an article in the deceased Bat which made a deal of talk at the time. It was called " A Luncheon at Lloyd's," and brought in most of the " A LUNCHEON AT LLOYD'S " 59 best known men in " the room " under thinly disguised aUases. I worked in all the little bits of gossip and personality that I knew about the members, and as a result, when that week's issue of The Bat was published, the demand for copies in the city generally and on Lloyd's in particular was remarkable. The paper went out of print that week. Some of the members smiled ; others did not, and it might have been disagreeable for me if they had known who the author of the amus- ing if mischievous article was. I, however, was not desirous of acquiring fame and so kept my know- ledge to myself, listening with interest to the comments of those who figured in the literary effort, and to the direful threats of vengeance promised the unknown writer if his identity could be discovered. Perhaps some of those who can recall the occurrence will accept my belated apologies now, for as Michael Finsbury in Robert Louis Stevenson's Wrong Box says, there is " nothing like a little judicious levity," and I meant no real harm. Among those who were especially kind to me during my early days in London none was more so than Bishop Thorold of Rochester, an old friend of my father, and I was frequently fortunate enough to be invited to stay at Selsdon Park near Croydon, which was at that time the Palace of the See of Rochester. In the home of that kindest of men, who was a 6o A PELICAN'S TALE widower, I was privileged to meet many digni- taries of the Church, and on one occasion — I think of it still with awe — I stayed there when all the other guests, five in number, were Bishops. The only man at table not a Bishop was Dr. Thorold's Chaplain. Thus I was the only layman there, and felt myself in very good and decidedly exalted company. It was a memorable experi- ence for a young man, and I am not likely to for- get it, and the many intensely interesting things I heard the Prelates discuss. Bishop Thorold of Rochester and anon of Win- chester, was one of Gladstone's Bishops, and on one occasion he returned to Selsdon after spend- ing the day in Town in considerable distress. He had lost his spectacles, they were old friends, and he felt their going keenly. " I can't think how it happened," said he. " I had them with me when I went into the reading-room of the Athenaeum, and I only laid them down for a second or two while I searched my pockets to find a letter I wanted to answer. When I looked for them they were gone ! " Then the good Bishop was asked who were m the room at the time, as well as himself. " That's the dreadful part of the story," he said, " for there were only present the Bishop of London, the Bishop of St. David's, the Archdeacon of Rochester, and Mr. Gladstone ! " Who actually, by accident or intention, collected the glasses, history does not THE BOY AND THE BISHOP 6i state, but it is a fact that their legal owner never cast eyes upon them again. It may or may not have been at Selsdon too that a rather young footman entered on his duties the day that Dr. Claughton, Bishop of St. Albans, came to stay there, and it was explained to the well meaning but rather stupid lad, that when he took up tlie Bishop's shaving water next morn- ing, he was to knock at the bedroom door. The Bishop it was believed would say " Who is there ? " And the instructions were that the young foot- man was to reply " The boy, my lord." On the morning, the lad duly knocked at the Bishop's door, and the Prelate of St. Albans spoke his part according to the book, and called out " Who is there ? " whereupon the over anxious footman responded in a voice somewhat shaken by nervousness, " The Lord, my boy ! " which, as Bishop Thorold in subsequently retail- ing the story said, was "a very alarming state- ment ! " I have told of my first article in The Bat which made a certain amount of talk, chiefly of a venge- ful nature, and it appealed so much to the editor, the late James Davis, better known perhaps as " Owen Hall," the name under which he wrote A Gaiety Girl, The Geisha, An Artist's Model, and other triumphant successes produced at Daly's Theatre by George Edwardes, that he asked me to call and see him, and invited me to write regu- 62 A PELICAN'S TALE larl}^ for his paper, which was a sixpenny weekly with a fairly big circulation. The Bat was usually amusing, always more or less enterprising, and as a rule decidedly clever, so I was quite pleased that Davis should have thought my work good enough for his columns, and I did quite a lot of writing for him. Jimmy Davis simply could not keep out of libel actions, and one of these resulted in his going to prison, the paper being carried on in his absence by the late Alec Knowles, who was well known on the Evening News, The Sporting Times, and elsewhere, over his signature " Sir Affable." One article I sent to The Bat called " Cam- bridge Conned " appeared, to my considerable surprise, in a new paper resembling The Bat in shape and all particulars, other than the title, for it was called The Hawk. With the copy of the paper came a letter from Mr. Augustus Moore informing me that The Bat had ceased to be, that The Hawk had taken its place under his editorship, and that he hoped I would continue to contribute to the paper under its new title. Later on I ascertained that Davis, being aware an action for criminal libel was about to be brought against him, and being of opinion that he did not desire to return to Holloway Prison, had bolted to Boulogne, and there he stayed for several years till the well-known peer who had brought the action, forgave him, agreed JIMMY DAVIS 63 to withdraw the summons, and permitted him to return to London. It was after this that Jimmy, having decided his pen was too dangerous a weapon for himself, when engaged in newspaper work, turned his attention to Musical Comedy writing, with very great success indeed. He was a clever fellow and a most amusing one as well, and although he was a kindly natured man, his writing could be of a very bitter sort. Later on he became an occa- sional contributor to a journal I edited, but though his work was always good, it was also usually dangerous, and one had to read every word of it very carefully, with the largest of blue pencils close at hand. Jimmy Davis came of a family of clever writers, for one of his sisters is Mrs. Aria, and another was the famous novelist who wrote under the name of " Frank Danby," whose son Mr. Gilbert Frankau is rapidly follow- ing in his distinguished mother's literary foot- steps. CHAPTER IV Free of the city — How I gradually drifted into journalism — Small happenings and how they afiect one's career — I pur- chase The Hawk on behalf of a brewer — Augustus Moore as editor — Plow the brewer and his partner made £12,000 out of a ;£325 investment — How I became " registered proprietor " of the paper — Also writ-receiver in chief — A paper of many libels — Alec Knowles and his " Wrinkles " — A remarkable series of articles — Why they were not republished in book form — The staff of The Hawk — Some men who got on — The Whistler-Moore fracas at Drury Lane — How they slapped one another to the amusement of onlookers, and did little harm — How Charlie Mitchell, champion boxer of England, told me a funny story " not for publication " — How it found its way into The Hawk by way of Augustus Moore — How Mitchell and Pony Moore subsequently called at the office to have a heart-to-heart talk with us — The consternation of the editor on hearing of their visit — How I decided to leave The Hawk and start The Pelican — A wise move which proved a highly satisfactory one in after years. TOWARDS the latter end of my seven long years in the City, I had come to have so many regular journalistic jobs that my life had become one of con- siderable slaver}^ So much had to be written each week, that after my day's work in the City I had to tackle my scribbhng, and keep on at it till all sorts of hours next morning. Sunday instead of being a day of rest had become one of additional toil, and one way and another the 64 FKED LESLIE A FIRST NIGHT 65 game did not seem good enough, so I decided to take my courage in both hands and let the City take care of itself without further interference from me, devoting myself entirely to such writing jobs as I had already got, or might further obtain. Just about this lime, too, Fate sent me a regular engagement in a newspaper office, which quite decided my course of action. It is curious how a very small matter may affect one's subsequent career, and it was through a casual visit to the Old Globe Theatre one evening, to see a new first piece, that I first met Mr. W. Morley Pegge. Mr. Pegge had at that time but recently married Miss Florence Sutherland, a member of Mr, Edward Terry's theatrical company, and I had had the privilege of meeting her some time before. It was she who made me known to her husband, and after the theatre, the Pegges invited me to supper at their flat in Victoria Street, and it was then and there Mr. Pegge explained to me that his chief reason for desiring my acquaintance was not so much on account of my plain looks or pretty wa3^s, as because he wanted to find out certain facts about The Hawk, the sixpenny weekly paper to which I have already alluded, and he believed I could give him the information he desired. Briefly, Mr. Pegge wanted to become a news- paper proprietor, and thought he saw a chance of 66 A PELICAN'S TALE turning several honest pennies in the accompUsh- ment of his scheme. If there was one thing Mr. Morley Pegge understood better than another it was the poUte art of making a bargain with as Uttle trouble to himself as possible. Mr. Pegge had been a brewer, and had recentty had a good deal to do with the conversion of J. Nunnerley and Co. of Burton-on-Trent. He wanted to knovv^ if TJie Hawk could be pur- chased from its then proprietor, Mr. John Gretton, a barrister, who later on came to be intimately associated with Colonel North, the Nitrate King. I knew that Mr. Gretton was most desirous of getting rid of his property, which was at that time being edited by Alec Knowles, Augustus Moore, the previous editor, having had his services dispensed with. Pegge believed that Moore, a brother, by the way, of Mr. George Moore the novelist and dog champion, was the right man to run The Hawk and invited my opinion as to this. I agreed that he was. Would I tackle Gretton, find out what he wanted for his propert}^ secure Moore's services as editor, become manager, sub-editor, and registered proprietor myself, at a certain salary ? I would, and I did. The first number of The Hawk had been pub- lished on February 7th, 1888, and it was in the autumn of that year that I began my negotiations with Gretton, and after much discussion, for there A SUCCESS 67 were many complications, and sundry libel actions pending against the paper, I purchased The Hawk on behalf of Pegge for the exceedingly small sum of ;f325, clear proof that its owner was reasonably glad to be rid of his property. I had previously secured the services of Moore, whom I found intensely willing and desirous of returning to his old job, and almost painfully full of thanks and apparent gratitude to me for helping him to do so. Various amounts have been stated in print as the sum paid for The Hawk on that occasion. The above is the correct one, and I ought to know for I signed the cheque myself on the National Pro- vincial Bank, Lincoln's Inn. Mr. Pegge's remark- able financial luck stuck to him in his newspaper investment. The paper began to pay almost at once, chiefly by reason of the extraordinary boom in Prospectus advertisements which occurred about this time and lasted for several years after- wards, to the great glory and satisfaction of quite a number of hitherto struggUng journals. Week after week The Hawk used to come out with eight or ten pages of prospectuses all paid for at full scale rates, and Moore, who was in his way an undoubtedly clever man, and next to Jimmy Davis just the right editor for a newspaper of the kind, did his portion of the business very well. A series of articles of quite remarkable ability and versatility which did a lot for the paper, 68 A PELICAN'S TALE called " Wrinkles, being a series of letters from Sir Affable Hawkc to his nephew Tommy Hawke on starting his career in London," attracted a lot of attention. They were written with real " in- side " knowledge, and dealt with all sorts of subjects, people, and phases of life, as it was then lived in Town. They were very cynical, very worldly, full of information of a marvellously versatile sort, and were really clever. Moore was supposed to have written them all. As a matter of fact he wrote three or at the most four, the majority of them being written from his own information, or *' from information received " as the police witnesses say, by Alec Knowles, who for many years afterwards used to sign his con- tributions to various papers " Sir Affable." The " Wrinkles " were so good and so popular that in response to numerous suggestions from the public, Morley Pegge considered the re- publishing of them in book form. On consultation with Moore, that gentleman agreed the idea would be a good one, provided his name appeared on the title page as their author ! Naturally Knowles would not hear of this and the scheme fell through. Moore certainly had a deal to do with the success of The Hawk at one time, but he was not its entire source of triumph by a very long way. The clever paragraphs at the start of the paper were always a strong feature of The Hawk's contents. They usually contained real news, A GALAXY OF TALENT 69 were genuinely clever and amusing, except to the persons written about, and were sometimes libellous. My old friend Mr. James Glover of Drury Lane celebrity was one of the most prolific writers on The Hawk and was responsible for most of the theatrical notes. In those days friend James was a tall, rather thin, hatchety faced young man, very different in outward seeming from what he is to-day. Others who wrote more or less regularly for the paper were Francis Gribble the well-known author, who had so disagreeable an experience at the hands of the Huns in Ruhleben, Justin Huntley McCarthy who had not then married Miss Cissie Loftus, Clement Scott, the famous dramatic critic of the Daily Telegraph, James Runciman (John A'Dreams), Bernard Shaw, Charlie Williams the War Correspondent, George Moore the novelist, A. B. Walkley, at that time dramatic critic of the Star, and now employed in similar capacit}^ on The Times, Robert Hichens, Frederick Greenwood, Henry Murray, brother of the famous Christie, Herbert Collinson, and several others. That Mr. Pegge did not do badly, financially, with Tiic Hawk may be taken from the fact that some six months after he had had tiie paper pur- chased for him for £325, he sold half a share of it to Mr. Frank Harris at that time editor of The Fortnightly Review, for £3,500. Later on Pegge and Harris sold their property to a syndicate, in which were Clement Scott and George Edwardes 70 A PELICAN'S TALE among others, for £12,000. At least that was the sum reported. I fancy it was not all in cash however. Still the sellers did uncommonly well out of their bargain, for even at that time the paper had passed the high-water mark of its financial success, and soon after began to decline slowly and surely owing to a variety of circum- stances. It was Whistler the artist who first wrote of " The Polite Art of Making Enemies," and cer- tainly Augustus Moore possessed the faculty of so doing to an extraordinary degree. He was not a particularly unkind man in himself, but his fatal faculty of saying cruel and needless things in his paper, and of persistently making enemies, stood in the way of his success, and when things went somewhat awry with him, and when The Hawk was secured by a new proprietorate which had no use for his services, and when help generally would have been very welcome, it was just not given. As " Registered Proprietor " of The Hawk it was my privilege to receive the writs for libel, and these were ludicrously frequent of arrival, for Moore's recklessness, both of writing and editing, led to lots of employment for the " professional quarrellers." Of course these libel actions, actu- ally mattered very little to me, for on receipt of the writs I merely sent them on to George Lewis, the solicitor who acted for the paper, and notified WHISTLER AT FISTICUFFS 71 Pegge, who did most of the worrying, and had tlic fun of paying the lawyer's very considerable charges. Moore and I worked in one room at a couple of tables, and though I have no desire to say any- thing unkind of a dead man, I cannot help record- ing the fact that wc had no specially brotherly love for one another. I don't know which of us was to blame. Perhaps both. One of the few things recollected about Moore to-day is, no doubt, the diminutive combat which took place between him and Whistler, the cele- brated artist, in the foyer of Drury Lane Theatre. Moore did not knock Whistler down as he stated in print, on several subsequent occasions. What happened was that after hitting Moore once or twice with the small cane he carried, Whistler made a specially energetic cut, missed his man, tripped over the foot of Charles Brookfield, who accompanied him, and fell. I was the only person present as an onlooker at the start of the proceedings, and saw the entire entertainment from beginning to end, and accord- ing to a fairly vivid recollection neither man looked much of a hero, and there seemed to be a good deal of let-me-get-at-him-hold-me-back about the pair of them. Whistler was very red and ex- cited, Moore was ghastly pale and looked as if he were going to faint. However, the old enemies are gone now : peace be to them both. 72 A PELICAN'S TALE Moore, who fancied himself as a boxer, although I for one never saw the slightest evidence of his ability in this regard, nearly had a chance of giving an exhibition of his qualities at The Hawk office one da}', but discretion proved the better part of valour all round, and nothing happened. What occurred was this. Meeting the late Charles Mitchell, at the time champion boxer of England, late one evening, that hero regaled me with an account of an escapade which he had taken part in. There is no occasion to recount his story here. Let it suffice to say that it was a rather brutal, but at the same time, amusing story, and as he told it to me, Mitchell said, '' Remember this is in confidence, and not for the paper." In an evil moment I repeated the story to Moore the next day, the day, by the way, on which The Hawk went to press. I explained that the story had been told me in confidence and was not for publication, and I understood him to give me his word that he quite realised the position of matters. Considerably to my surprise, when I looked at the contents of The Hawk the following morning, there was the Mitchell story told at great length, and considerably embellished with a number of disagreeable comments about the pugilist. In those days, Mitchell was a man of somewhat hasty temper, and so I foresaw trouble ahead. Of course he would believe that I had broken my CHARLIE MITCHELL ARRIVES y^ word, and about this I naturally felt very uncom- fortable. I became no happier shortly after my arrival at The Hawk office, when a clerk appeared and in a very agitated manner told me that two gentle- men desired to see me, '' but," he added, " if I were you, sir, I wouldn't see them. They seem very angry." " Did you ask their names," I said. " Oh yes," he replied, " they are Mr. Charlie Mitchell and Mr. ' Pony ' Moore." Now the idea of seeing these two pleasant, but at the time irate visitors, without a witness of our meeting, pleased me not at all. I did not mind anything that might be coming to me if I had someone else to look on, and so knowing that Moore would probably turn up at about half-past twelve, I told the clerk to say I was out, but would be back, and glad to receive my visitors at one o'clock. When Moore arrived, I told him as directly as I could, what I thought of his action in failing to keep faith with me, but he could not see that he had done anything out of the common. " After all, what does it matter ? " he said. '' It was too good a story to miss. Mitchell won't see it, and even if he does he won't dare to come here." " Won't he ? " said I. " Well, it may interest you to know that he has been here already with his father-in-law. Pony Moore, and they are coming back at one o'clock." ** Are they, by Jove," said 74 A PELICAN'S TALE Moore, " then I'm off. I'm not going to stop here and have a row with those people. Outside is good enough for me. You had better clear too." I said I would do nothing of the kind, and that now I had made things plain to him, I would stop and meet Mitchell and Moore when they came, tell them the exact facts of the matter, and take my chance of whatever was going to happen. I waited on till two o'clock but no one turned up. Later on I heard that the festive pair had gone to Romano's after their first call, and had stayed there for some time, and no doubt the soothing influences of the Roman's very old brandy had made them think of better things than of returning to lay me out. It was several years afterwards before I had a chance of explaining matters to Mitchell, and as he said it was just as well they had not come back, for no matter what he himself might have done or left undone, " Pony " would certainly have had my gore. I don't know if Moore after- wards encountered Mitchell. If he did, he didn't brag about it to me, or so far as I know to any- one else. One way and another there was a deal of liveli- ness in being attached to The Hawk ; rather more than I cared for, in fact. I did not mind making such enemies as 1 required for myself, but I did object to having them made for me at the rate of some six or eight a week. I PLAN A PAPER 75 It was also becoming clear to me that there was precious little money to be made by writing for someone else's paper, and it might be more profitable, and certainly more interesting, to possess a journal of one's own. Thus I made my plans for starting The Pelican, and when I had got these all cut and dried I resigned my position on The Hawk and cleared out with the liveliest satisfaction to myself, and I doubt not to that of my editor as well. CHAPTER V Starting on my own account — The creation of The Pelican — How The Tattler — ^with two t's — did not help matters — A scheme which failed — The first money taken — Where it dis- appeared to — How the paper came by its title — Serving on a jury — If likely to be convicted, be careful in the selection of your judge ! — The finish of The Hawk and the success of The Pelican — The death of " The Smart Paper for Smart People " — Wise advice from George R. Sims — " Dagonet " on the folly of making enemies — How The Sporting Times and The Pelican nearly became amalgamated — " Tale-Pitcher " Bin- stead — A real humorist — ' ' The Dwarf of Blood ' ' — How Colonel Newnham-Davis came by his style and title — Bessie Bellwood's pantomime — The " Dwarf " as a cookery genius — His famous Guy Fawkes dinner, and those who were present at it — A born story-teller — A very distinguished admirer of " Pitcher " — How he was mistaken for a German spy — His singularly apt retort. I SUPPOSE that almost every journalist, at some time or other, desires to own and edit a paper, just as every actor wants to be a manager, and give himself the sort of parts he believes he is best suited to ; and so it was not out of the common that I should have decided that the way to a sufficiency of " the root of all evil," to keep me when the time came when I should tire of work, was to create something for myself. Being a contributor to journals was well enough in its way, and 1 had been reasonably fortunate. 76 EARLY STRUGGLES ^^ Sub-editing was all right too, but what I wanted was to be Commanding Officer of my own ship, and I desired, moreover, to know that at least a portion of whatever my work was producing was actually going to come my way. And so I started The Pelican , and on November 2nd, 1889, the first number thereof was born at 84 Fleet Street, with Punch as a next-door neigh- bour. I started with no preliminary advertisement or heralding, principally because I couldn't afford the former very costly matter, but, all the same, the little paper, apparently, filled the regulation " long-felt want," alluded to by most new periodi- cals, for it was a success from its first issue. In subsequent years, every now and again, a specially eagle-eyed correspondent used to write and point out that though he or she had acquired a copy of the first number, they were greatly puzzled to find it stated thereon that it was *' No. 115, Vol. 5." The reason was a very simple one, and was thuswise. In those days it was — and perhaps still is — a matter of difficulty to get a new paper on to the bookstalls at its start, for the newsagents said, rightly enough, " Wait till the public ask for it, and we will take it ; but not till then." Wherefore I thought of a plan to get on to the stalls, especially the railway bookstalls, right away. I purchased for a small sum, a paper 78 A PELICAN'S TALE which was dying, but which possessed the advan- tage of a place in the bookstall sun. It was a pcnn}' paper with an orange coloured co\'er, like the familiar Pelican contents' bills, and it was called The Tattler, spelt, you will notice, with two t's, unlike friend Clement Shorter's well-known weekly. I produced one number of The Tattler, and stated in large letters on the wrapper thereof, that the title of the paper would be changed to The Pelican, the cover would become brown — I copied this idea from the old Bat — and numerous other alterations and improvements would be made ; and thus I hoped all was going to be well, and when W. H. Smith and Son, Willing, and the other big wholesale agents, sent in their orders the following week for Tattlers, they were given Pelicans instead. But the scheme was a ghastly failure. The newspaper distributing magnates would have none of us. They returned their Pelicans and said they had not ordered them, and so the money spent on the purchase of The Tattler went for nothing. That was my first smack in the e3^e in connection with my new venture. I got a good many of these one way and another ; as I no doubt deserved. However, although the newsagents wouldn't have us on the morning of our birth, the public having got to hear about us, somehow or other, and having started to ask at the bookstalls con- COUNTERFEIT 79 cerning our whereabouts, the agents sent in orders during the afternoon of the same day, and The PeUcayi duly found itself displayed among the other journals on the railway station and other bookstalls, and so all was well, honour was satis- fied, I and a cousin-partner shook hands with one another, and said, " Well, hang it all, at any rate we have started." It was a curious omen, and one which I did not regard favourably at the time, to find from our pubhsher that the first money actually taken over the publishing office counter was a bad two- shilling piece. My dear old friend, Arthur Bin- stead, famous all the world over as " Pitcher " of The Sporting Times, and as the first editor of Town Topics would have it that great good luck was clearly heralded by the advent of the spurious coin. " Pitcher " was one of the most really humorous writers I ever knew. He was an actual genius in his way, and singularly superstitious, although he always believed he wasn't. The base coin was duly nailed to the counter as a warning to all future would-be evil-doers that we had already had some. Sometime after it was found to be gone. Someone had stolen it ; and I devoutly trust he subsequently got locked up for attempting to pass it, as he no doubt tried to do. And talking of this sort of thing recalls how the sentences awarded to criminals so often vary 8o A PELICAN'S TALE mysteriously in degree according to the judge who tries the cases. Thus, not very long ago, I was a juryman at the Central Criminal Court, when a case which came before my jury -brethren and myself, was that of a hero who had defrauded a considerable number of persons of very large sums. We found him guilty, and he received a sentence of three months' imprisonment from a very lenient judge. Later on the same day I again juried, when an unfortunate lad was tried for passing a bogus ten shilling Money Order. This time Mr. Justice Avory, the judge who tried the case, considered that justice would not be arrived at with a smaller sentence than fifteen months ; and this he duly awarded the luckless young fellow, luckless, chiefly, according to my way of looking at matters, that his case came before the latter, instead of the former judge. But to return to our mutton. Many people have asked why the journal was called The Pelican, and the reason was thuswise. The paper pur- ported to be one for men-about-Town, and all the young men at that time were members of the famous Pelican Club, and when we were casting about for a suitable name for our new paper it was suggested that The Pelican would be a good and expressive title. Another name cropped up and was thought a good deal of, and so a week before the paper was published, we tossed up which KATE VAUGHAX A SMART PAPER 8i of the two names it should have, and by reason of half a crown, produced for the purpose, by the way, by the late Duke of Manchester, then more familiar to many as Kim Mandeville, falling tail upwards, the paper was duly christened The Pelican. I fear the beginning of The Pelican was also the ending of The Hawk, for people found they could get pretty much the same sort of news in The Pelican for a penny, that they got in The Hawk for six times that sum. Anyhow after going down hill, more or less unsteadily, for some years, The Hawk, which among other things had prophesied three months of life for its smaller rival, ceased to be and died the death. I don't think its end was regretted by many, for during its time on earth the paper had managed to make quite a remarkable number of enemies, who openly rejoiced at its downfall. It called itself " A Smart Paper for Smart People," and assuredly it used to make a lot of people smart each week. Of course it amused some persons to see their best friends attacked or held up to ridi- cule, and perhaps the so doing sold a few extra copies, but by the following week, the attacks were all forgotten — except by the persons at- tacked. They remembered them, naturally, and when the chance came of getting a bit of their own back, they took it with great promptitude and 82 A PELICAN'S TALE satisfaction, and with at least equally disastrous results to the paper. Having seen the suicidal folly of making enemies, an J of having them made for me, during my connection with The Hawk, I made up such mind as I possessed that the policy of The Pelican should be to be fairly smart and spicy — hateful words, but I know of none better to explain my present meaning — and at the same time though not being too indefinite, to make as few enemies as possible, and as many friends as I could. Any ass with a paper, or perhaps without one, can make enemies ; that I am convinced of, for it is simplicity itself to be rude to people, whether you are an editor, or the follower of any other trade. On the other hand, it is difficult to make friends and to keep them, and if there is one thing I am more glad of than another, in my over twenty- eight years' connection with The Pelican, it is, that while I believe I made very few enemies, I know I made many kind, loyal, and valuable friends, for the paper and for myself. I remember well in this connection how my good friend, George R. Sims, the world famous " Dagonet " of The Referee, early in The Pelican's career took me into a corner of the big room of the old Eccentric Club one night, and gave me a most valuable talking to. Said he, among much other kindly and greatly valued advice, " Don't make more enemies than A COSTLY VENTURE 83 you can help ; you can easily make them and they will never do you any good. Make all the friends you can — that's the clever thing to do." Well, that was the idea I did my humble best to follow during the time The Pelican was under my charge, and it was a plan which proved reasonably satis- factory. Twenty-eight years is a longish time in the life of a paper like The Pelican, and the fact that I kept it going in my possession for that time, is the best answer as to whether it was a success or not. A paper is a costly thing to produce, and you may take it that if it had not been worth doing, it would not have been done. Whether the success was deserved or not is of course another story, and hardly one for me to try to tell. Many people were good enough to offer to become my partners during the time The Pelican was in my hands, and on several occasions I could have been relieved of it altogether, on quite satisfactory terms, but I liked the work, hard though it was, and got a vast deal of interest and amusement out of it. At one time John Corlett, then proprietor of The Sporting Times, had a scheme for my joining forces with him, and running the two papers under one control, but though John's special friend on his staff. Colonel Newnham-Davis, the dear old " Dwarf of Blood," also did what he could to push the idea along, I held to the plan that I 84 A PELICAN'S TALE would prefer to hoe my own furrow, which I did, till finding I had had enough of the game, and desired to take things more easily, and, moreover, having achieved the sum of coin of the realm which I had set out to secure, I sold the Brown Bird to a syndicate headed by Mr. Charles Higham, who is now editing the paper in its new form so capably and well. Few men were better known, in what he used to term " Clean shirted Bohemia " than Newnham- Davis, and indeed it is only the bare truth to say of him that he was one of the most popular all- round men in London. He had been a Harrow boy, and when he joined the famous Kent regi- ment, The Buffs, he saw a deal of service in South Africa, China, and India. It was in Simla that he became famous as an amateur actor, and when he left the Service and came home finally, in '94, he became a member of the famous Old Stagers, who used to give performances at Canterbury, during the Cricket Week. While he was in India, Davis used to con- tribute periodically to The Sporting Times, and when he came home for good, John Corlett secured his weekly services, and his signature " The Dwarf of Blood " became a regular feature in the paper. For " Master " he also edited The Man of the World for a time, and was later practi- cally editor of The Pink 'Un, which he under- stood he was ultimately to control ; but Corlett THE DWARF OF BLOOD 85 somewhat suddenly disposed of the paper, to Mr. de Wend Fenton, and the old staff moved off and started Town Topics, with " Tale-Pitcher " Binstead as editor, and Mr. Kennedy Jones, M.P., as proprietor. How " The Dwarf of Blood " came by his curious signature has been told before, I know, but here is how it actually came about, once more. After a certain supper party, the revellers ad- journed to the house of Miss Bessie Bellwood, at that time by far the most popular and famous lady music-hall singer in London, and a highly remarkable impromptu pantomime was there and then produced. The " orchestra " was furnished by one of the best-known composers of the day, seated at the piano, while certain lights of the peerage, the Household Brigade, and Fleet Street, collaborated in the libretto. Poor Bessie herself became principal boy, and pretty Kate Leamar, of the famous " Sisters Leamar " was the heroine. The " comedians " were mainly men who have achieved eminence in other callings, and might feel coy about having their artistic endeavours recalled now, so we will let them go. Newnham-Davis, like the man in A Pantimime Rehearsal " Wanted to act," but the cast seemed complete, till Bessie, seldom at a loss for long, said, " I know ; you shall be the Dwarf of Blood, come out from under the table and groan at the 86 A PELICAN'S TALE right time." And so things were. The name stuck to Newnham-Davis, and he was ever after- ward " The Dwarf " to his many friends all over the world. When Romano, proprietor of the famous Strand Restaurant, died, Newnham-Davis and Walter Pallant, were the two prime movers in the re- generation of the place, and in the formation of the company which came to own it. Davis was a remarkable authority on cookery of all sorts and kinds, and his " Dinners and Diners " articles in the Pall Mall Gazette attracted a deal of attention when they were published. He was also one of the founders of Le Touquet as it now is, wrote a musical comedy for George Edwardes, called My Lady Madcap, and with the proceeds thereof built the delightful Chalet Madcap in the Forest of Le Touquet, in which I, according to a lengthy promise, was his first guest. " The Dwarf " used to delight in giving odd little dinner parties, and one of them which comes back to me vividly, was his famous Guy Fawkes dinner in a certain upper chamber at Romano's, when Mr. Teddy Bayly was manager of the place, previous to Luigi's successful reign. In the centre of the table, seated on a barrel of gunpowder was a big life-sized guy, while each of the guests had his own special guy facing him. Thus John Corlett's was a neat Little Pink 'Un jockey. Sir Frank Burnand's was a " Punch," A GOOD STORY-TELLER 87 which paper he was then editing. Bob Martin's was a Ballyhooley Irishman. Sir Douglas Straight, then editor of the Pall Mall, had an elaborate Native in front of him, in commemoration of his services in India. The guy of my old school- fellow, Captain Robert Marshall, the delightful playwright was a " Second in Command," while my good friend George R. Sims was faced with a wild-haired Tatcho golliwog, and your servant by a cheerful looking " Sunny Jim " reading an exact little copy of The Pelican in a brown cover. Of Arthur Binstead, who was mainly concerned with The Dwarf, and Mr. Horace Lennard, in starting Town Topics, one can truthfully say he was that very rare mortal, a genuine humorist. There was no midnight oil about his literary fun ; it was all perfectly natural and spontaneous — or at least gave you the idea of being so. He was one of the best story-tellers I ever knew, and I have had the good fortune to know some of the most famous of our time ; and he could make more out of slight material than any man of my experience. It was only when you heard someone else try to repeat a story you had heard " Pitcher " relate, that you quite realised the genius of the original teller. His articles and newspaper stories were good ; his books, such as A Pink 'Un and A Pelican, Gal's Gossip, Mop Fair, Pitcher in Paradise, and the rest, even better ; but best of all was to hear 8S A PELICAN'S TALE him tell at first hand, the latest story he had come by, or invented, to a few appreciative listeners. He delighted in telling a good story and telling it really well, just as much as his listeners liked hearing it. He was in his own particular way a great actor, and the slight gestures, the quaint expressions of countenance, with which the climax of the tale would be reached, are things one re- calls with sad pleasure, when one remembers that the teller is among those who have " gone on ahead." Among the many admirers of ''Pitcher's" writings none was more sincere than a very dis- tinguished scholar, at one time a Professor of St. Andrews University, and not long ago a certain interfering person in an omnibus, passing Kensington Church, and not apparently liking his appearance, bent over to the Professor and said, " Excuse me, sir, but you look very like a German spy ! " The one time professor gazed at the speaker with interest for a moment, and then replied in anything rather than the expected foreign accent, *' Excuse me, sir, but you look very like a German sausage ! " and then the conversation came to a very abrupt termination. CHAPTER VI Our first big " scoop " — The Tranby Croft affair — What Edmund Yates said about it — Also what the eminent solicitor thought — How we cornered the " Baccarat scandal " market for a time — The author of the articles — No harm in mentioning his name now — Some Pelican contributors — Willie Wilde of The Daily Telegraph — His marriage to Mrs. Frank Leslie, the great American newspaper proprietress — His neglected opportunities of great things — A very different man from his notorious brother Oscar — Oscar Wilde's desire — How it went unfulfilled — His subsequent appearance at the Old Bailey — His departure therefrom to do " two years hard " — Some murder trials — The Milsom-Fowler affair at the Old Bailey — How Fowler nearly murdered Milsom in the dock — A real sensation scene — The Tichborne Claimant — What he said — Fleet Street swindlers — Bogus advertising agents who preyed on new papers — I suffer from them — And some of them suffer from me — The simple art of protecting oneself — Sometimes an easier matter than calling in the police — How it answered in my case. FOR the benefit of those ignorant of the language of Fleet Street, I beg to say that a " scoop " is journalese for a piece of exclusive information. It is an occa- sion when you get ahead of your fellows with your, news, and naturally in a paper which only comes out once a week, the chances of getting in front of the morning and evening journals are limited. However, we managed to bring off quite a 89 90 A PELICAN'S TALE number of " scoops " in the Pelican at various times, and one of the earliest of these which called attention to the paper, and did its circulation a deal of good, was what was known as the Tranby Croft baccarat scandal. As will no doubt be still remembered, one of the house-party at Tranby Croft, the abode of the Wilsons, the big shipping people, was accused of cheating at baccarat, and as those staying there at the time included King Edward, then Prince of Wales, and a number of well-known people, the matter created a deal of history at the time, more especially as it ultimately found its way into the Law Courts, and there was a very considerable to do, which greatly infuriated that pink of propriety. Queen Victoria, who hated anything and everything of the kind. It will be recalled that it came out in course of the evidence in Court, that the entire house-party were sworn to secrecy concerning the happening, but some of them certainly talked. No doubt one man, or woman, told the story to his or her chief friend, in confidence, then he or she passed it on in the same fashion, and soon people were all whispering and nodding their heads about the mystery, concerning which few of them knew precise details. Then, one fine day — I am talking of course of the period prior to the trial — out came The Pelican with the whole story, with dates, chapter, and verse, and a considerable A SCOOP 91 sensation was produced. To start with, the paper promptly went out of print that week, and a second edition had at once to be put in hand. Half the editors of the London daily papers sent along their special men to see me, in order to obtain further pointers, and my good friend Edmund Yates of The World, sent a note along commanding my presence at once at York Street, Co vent Garden, where The World office then was. When I saw the good Edmund he promptly said, " My boy, you have either got hold of a very big thing indeed, or you have ruined yourself, and spoilt your paper for all time. Sit down and tell me all about it." But greatly as I liked Mr. Yates this seemed rather too much to expect and I told him so. I said that if he had read my issue of the current week, he knew all I had to tell so far, but that in next week's number I should have more to say, and then I resisted, as diplomatically as I knew how, the good " Atlas' " best efforts to pump me. I knew that from a newspaper point of view, I had got a plum, and I meant to stick to it, as long as possible. And this I did. A very eminent solicitor, who was later on engaged in the legal proceedings connected with the matter, honoured me with a visit, to point out that I shouldn't have printed anything of the sort I had done, without first having consulted him on the matter, and suggested vaguely that if 92 A PELICAN'S TALE I had done so, it might have been considerably to my benefit. I sat quietly and listened to what he had to say, for he was a much older man than myself, but I very steadfastly declined to give him the source of my information, although I was well aware of the very distinguished personage for whom he desired it, and this, too, in spite of considerable inducements held out to me to talk. As a matter of fact, now that the whole thing is over, and the writer of the article, like so many of the persons concerned in the affair, is no more, there is probably no harm in saying that " The Tranby Croft affair " and the succeeding articles dealing with it, were written by Jimmy Davis, better known to playgoers as " Owen Hall," and he got his information from one of the persons actually present at the happening. It was interesting to see how the other papers, daily as well as weekly, came out with mere repetitions of our facts, and had to wait on from week to week, in order to give their readers fresh " news." The matter was not merely an ordinary " scoop " for us, but was one which we kept entirely to ourselves for three weeks. We had got at the only source of information which could be tapped, and we held on to it tightly, so long as it was of any use to us. It was, as Edmund Yates had said, " a very big thing " for us, and did the paper a deal of good, bringing it well into the limelight. A GOOD-NATURED SOUL 93 Among those who frequently contributed to The Pelican, was that very brilliant writer, when he chose to take a little trouble with his work, Willie Wilde. He was a brother, it is true, of the notorious Oscar, but quite a different sort of per- son, in every way, from him. He was a most cheery good-natured soul, always hard up, no matter how much money he might be earning, but his manner was so agreeable, and his conversation so witty, that even those who knew he was about to borrow from them, were almost always glad to see him. For several years he was one of the special correspondents and leader writers of The Daily Telegraph, and his work attracted a lot of notice. Then Mrs. Frank LesHe, the celebrated owner of Frank Leslie's Weekly, and numerous other American papers, and magazines, fell in love with him, took him to the United States and married him. Willie had a great chance of making half a dozen fortunes, for owing to his wife's influence and his own ability, pretty well anything, journal- istically speaking, was open to him, but though he could, and did when he chose, work quickly, he was not at all keen about working often, or indeed at all ; and when he found himself married to a lady of great wealth and remarkable business capabilities, he appeared to consider that there was no need for more than one^of the combination 94 A PELICAN'S TALE to hustle ; and that perhaps he had better not be the one. The union did not turn out successfully, and " Wuffalo Will," as his friends called him, it being generally agreed that in many ways he bore little resemblance to the hardy, robust Buffalo Bill, saving in the matter of height and hair, returned to this country, but his star had gone down, and what ought to have been a very brilliant career did not fulfil the earlier hopes it had given. Edmund Yates was a great believer in Willie Wilde's journalistic abihties, and commissioned him to write one of the Christmas numbers of The World, in the days when these things were of considerable importance, and were a sort of revue of the life and people who had made history during the previous twelve months. The wonderful portrait cartoons by Alfred Brian were always a special feature of the Christmas World. As I have said, Willie was in all respects quite a different sort of person from his brother Oscar, and with all his faults, most of which were the effect of a far too easy-going and generous nature, he was in many ways, a good fellow, as well as an exceedingly brilliant man. I speak as one who knew him well. His brother I knew not at all ; nor did I ever wish to know him, even in the days of his greatest prosperity and notoriety, when he was sought after, and made much of, to what seemed to me. THE RETORT COURTEOUS 95 a sickening extent. I liked neither his appearance, his manner, his monstrous conceit, nor his evil reputation, and carefully avoided being introduced to him. On one occasion I was lunching at the Cafe Royal in the upstair room, and Oscar Wilde, encircled by a crowd of his young men admirers, was feeding at a table a little way off, holding a sort of court for the apparent benefit of everyone else in the restaurant. One of his young men came over to my table, and without any sort of preliminary remark said, " Oscar desires that you be presented to him." " Does he," I repUed, " then you can tell your friend that he may go to the devil so far as I am concerned, for I have not the smallest desire to be presented to him." The young man — he is older to-day and a deal more sensible — gasped with apparent horror. " Would you have me tell him that ? " he cried. " Yes, I would," I said, " and you can, if you like, add that I am a friend of Charles Brookfield, and of 'Q.'" "Philistine!" retorted the poet's mes- senger, and departed, presumably to make his report, while I paid my bill and cleared out. " Q" was of course, the late Lord Queensberry, who with Brookfield was then rapidly collecting the evidence which led to the downfall of the " Apostle of the Beautiful " at the Old Bailey, where not long after I saw Wilde, sentenced with his friend Taylor, to two years hard labour. 96 A PELICAN'S TALE The trial made a tremendous sensation at the time, not only in this country, but literally all over the world. However, it is an old and nasty story now, and better left alone, though the verbal duel in Court, between Wilde and Sir Edward Carson is not yet forgotten, and one still recalls the brilliancy of many of Wilde's answers, the way he scored off Counsel, and the curious bull terrier like way in which the Irish barrister, with his remarkable brogue, held on to his victim, and never let go, till he brought him down — very low indeed. Talking of the Old Bailey recalls other famous trials one has seen and listened to there, most of them, even the murder ones, being deadly dull affairs, till just at the end when sentence was pronounced. One of the most interesting and sensational that I recall, was the Muswell Hill murder case, when two ruffians named Milsom and Fowler, were tried before Lord Brampton, or Sir Henry Hawkins as he was then. This trial was full of grim details, the showing of blood-stained ex- hibits, weapons, and the like, and Hawkins was in great form throughout. It was generally known that Milsom had tried to turn Queen's Evidence, and on the last day of the trial, the two culprits sat in the big dock, with a burly poHce officer between them, as well as the usual gaoler behind, at the top of the steps leading down to the cells. THE MUSWELL HILL MURDERS 97 When the jury went out to consider their verdict, the judge left the Bench, but the prisoners were not taken out of court, for it was clear to every- one that there could only be a verdict of guilty and that it would be arrived at with very little delay. I was watching the two men very carefully, and was seated at the side of the court quite close to the dock, and I saw Milsom lean over towards Fowler and say with a sort of sickly grin, *' Not a chance, ' Bunny.' " In the next second. Fowler, who was an immensely big, powerful fellow, had leapt at Milsom, dashing the intervening police- man aside, and had got him by the throat. They crashed against one end of the dock, which was adorned with a number of panes of glass, and these were promptly smashed to smithereens. Then they swayed across to the other side, smash- ing all the glass there as well. In a couple of seconds the dock was full of uniformed and plain- clothes policemen, but Fowler was so powerful that he knocked them about like ninepins, and as nearly as no matter succeeded in his object of strangling Milsom. Everybody in Court yelled, barristers stood on their seats, Miss Minnie Palmer, the famous American actress, who was seated immediately in front of me, gave forth screams of wondrous size to proceed from so small a lady. All the other women in Court joined in, and for a few minutes 98 A PELICAN'S TALE there was as lively an imitation of a bear garden gone mad, as you could wish to see. Later on, when the two men were sentenced, they were brought in heavily handcuffed, and were kept carefully apart by a considerable body of police. In due course, when they were executed, it was generally supposed there would be another scene, but though they were hanged together on the same scaffold, nothing out of the way occurred, the authorities keeping them well apart, by placing a third victim to the supreme penalty, between them, with the result that at the right moment they were all three swung into eternity together, in what I am told was a most satisfactory and workmanlike manner. As I came away from the Court, after seeing Fowler and Milsom sentenced, I did so by the private staircase, thanks to my friend, the Under- Sheriff of the time, and coming down encountered a poor frail looking woman, crouched on the stairs apparently in the greatest distress. I tried to comfort her as well as I could, and told her to endeavour to cheer up, whatever her trouble was. " How can I cheer up," she said, " I am Mrs. Milsom." There was no answer to that ; and so I just came away as quietly as possible. One of the most famous trials of the world was that of the Tichborne Claimant. Arthur Orton is merely a name in these days, but there was a time when the whole of Great Britain was divided THE TICHBORNE CASE 99 into two great camps, those who believed that he was Sir Roger Tichborne as he claimed to be, and those who regarded him as an impudent humbug engaged in the biggest bluff on record. It seems incredible that an ignorant, aitchless butcher from Wagga-Wagga, should have induced many people to believe that he was the missing baronet, and even secured the sympathy and credence of old Lady Tichborne that he was her son, but he certainly did it, and so confident were many that the monstrously obese fellow was the actual man he purported to be, that they produced money in large quantities in order that he might be enabled to contest his claim. It was as " The Claimant " that Arthur Orton was generally known in this country, though he stuck hard and fast to the story that he was Sir Roger Tichborne, even after he had completed the long term of penal servitude which the law of the land awarded to him for his endeavours. After his return to freedom, there were some — not many it is true — who continued to believe that the ex-butcher, whom the rigours of Portland had reduced to normal proportions, was an ill- used martyr, scandalously kept out of his rights, and these confiding folk backed their opinion with coin of the realm, an action which it seems to me must always denote very solid belief. After a time even these credulous persons began to tail off, and dark days fell upon the Claimant, 100 A PELICAN'S TALE who was driven to various expedients in order to raise the wind, and among others to the joyful acceptance of the offer of an engagement to appear at the old Royal Music-hall, now the Holborn Empire, to exhibit himself for the benefit of the curious, and to make a brief statement of his woes. The manager of the place at that time was the late Tom Carlton, and knowing that I was ever interested in meeting people who had done any- thing out of the common, even if it were only " time " in sufficient quantity to take them out of the ordinary, he, Carlton, one day turned up at the office of my paper about luncheon-time, accompanied by a pleasant, quiet, sad-faced old gentleman, whom he introduced to me as " The Claimant of whom you have no doubt heard." Having done so from the days of early child- hood, since the period when Tichborne candy — " crack the rock where'er you will, you'll find Sir Roger in it still " — was one of my favourite delicacies, I was naturally interested in meeting so distinguished a celebrity face to face, and being about to adjourn for my midday meal, I invited my visitors to accompany me. Having heard all manner of persons, learned and foolish, legal and otherwise, discuss and quarrel over the innocence or wickedness of the Claimant's cause for many previous years, it was very interesting to hear the worthy man pour forth details of his very lengthy trials — there were " ARE YOU SIR ROGER ? " loi two of them — and of his infinitely longer term of penal servitude, at first hand. It took many great legal minds to decide whether Orton was himself or Tichborne, but on this occa- sion the answer to the conundrum was made plain in a flash, when after the Claimant had given vent to a number of what seemed to me singularly committing statements in the course of one of his lengthy and humorous stories, as to how he had " bested " the eminent Counsel arrayed against him, Carlton turned to him and said, " Look here, Claimant, are you or are you not Sir Roger ? " and I still recollect the Claimant's whimsical smile as he replied, " Well, Tommy ; you know how things are. What's the good of trying to kid ?> > It was more the tone in which they were spoken, than the actual words themselves, which served to make the thing perfectly clear to me, if indeed I had previously had any doubts about the matter. There used to be, and perhaps there still is in Fleet Street, a gang of swindUng, alleged adver- tising agents and canvassers, who made new papers their special prey, and on whose managers they unloaded advertisement orders of the most non-reliable sort, demanding, frequently with threats, prompt payment of considerable commis- sion — usually 20 per cent. As a rule a new paper finds great difficulty in securing the needful advertising support, without 102 A PELICAN'S TALE which it cannot exist, unless its proprietor is a philanthropist and a very wealthy one too. And so it is that the managements of such organs are usually rather too willing to believe that all advertisement orders brought to them are genuine, and worth coin of the realm later on, when they have been executed. Every new journal is a mark for these harpies, and at the time The Pelican was born, there hap- pened to have been rather a dearth of Fleet Street sucklings, for some time previously. Where- fore the entire gang of these robbers surged up our somewhat steep stairs at 84 Fleet Street, intent upon securing as much of our not too ample money as they could force out of us. I was caught with one or two of those bogus orders at the beginning, and duly paid the re- quired commissions, but after that I grew more cautious, and as a result the Fleet Street sharps became more wary and skilful in their tactics. Some of them, however, didn't condescend to the use of camouflage to any great extent, but relying on size and a bullying manner, would practically demand my money or my paper's life ! I was not keen about parting with either, and the climax came one day when an enormously large, red-faced, red-haired, rather drunken and very quarrelsome pirate, came up to our lair and demanded five pounds for orders which he said he might bring in at some indefinite future period. A PRECIOUS GANG 103 Looking through my window on to Fleet Street, I noticed several members of the gang waiting about to see whether I was likely to stand this latest and most dastardly attack. I felt the time had come for action, and so I temporised and talked to my bully while I slowly got him, with his very extensive back to the top of our very steep stairs. Then I let him have all I knew with my left and right on his chest, which had the effect of over-balancing him, and down he went right into Fleet Street, very much like a pole-axed ox. When he had picked himself up and found that only bruises had apparently resulted, he pro- claimed aloud the various ways in which he in- tended to kill me, and started to come upstairs again to execute his design. I pointed out as briefly as possible, and in as direct a language as I knew how, that I stood on the top step, that by the time he had got three-quarter way up, his head would be on a level with my foot, that my boots were thick, and that I proposed to use them to the best of my ability. After a remarkable flow of blasphemy from him and his companions, who now took a hand in the game, and sundry dark threats of what they would do when they got me outside, the deputation withdrew and I was left alone. Nor did the gang ever afterwards interfere with me in any way. Ours was, in a variety of ways, a distinctly strenuous life, at the start of the paper, and 104 A PELICAN'S TALE threats of various sorts were not infrequent ; but as I had even then heard and have since found out for mj^self, threatened men live fairly long. Of course I might have given my bogus adver- tisement friends in charge, but I should have had to devote a good deal of time to the matter, and should in the end have not merely failed to re- cover my money, but have had to spend more, and so my somewhat primitive methods seemed good enough. They answered all right, anyhow. CHAPTER VII The new offices — A nest of ladies' journals — Distinguished sub- editors — Our only libel action — On trial at the Mansion House — Mr. Charles Gill, K.c, and Mr. Justice Avory — Did- . cott the music-hall agent — Father Stanton of St. Albans, Holborn — A fine priest and a great man — An unpaid curate for fifty years — " Dad's " opinion of great wealth — The law of balance — Money and misfortune — The frequency with which they go together — What Charles Frohman said about it — His story of the Satrap and the physician — The man who had no shirt — Frohman and Barrie — How Frohman died in the Lusitania tragedy — Barrie and Peter Pan — How Peter nearly had another name — A wonderfully successful play — How its author believed it would be a financial failure — How Barrie meant to indemnify Frohman against loss in connection with its production ! The play he meant to present Froh- man with. IN course of time it became necessary to seek out larger offices than those wherein The Pelican had been born, and after a good deal of searching, suitable premises were found at lo and ii Fetter Lane, which is a largish building, almost opposite the Record Office. Here we found ourselves in a veritable nest of Ladies' Papers, for the building housed among others. Hearth and Home, Myra's Journal, and Woman. I fancy Mrs. Talbot-Coke was chief proprietor of these journals, and her son-in-law, a charming fellow named Langton-Bailey, 105 io6 A PELICAN'S TALE managed things for her. Hearth and Home had quite a number of men who got on as its sub- editors at various times. Among them being, Robert Hichens, one of the products of David Anderson's School of Journahsm, in Chancery Lane, and Arnold Bennett who later on became editor of Woman. In one respect at least I believe I scored some- thing of a record during my twenty-eight years of The Pelican, and it was in the matter of libel actions, for during that fairly lengthy period, we had only one case of the sort brought against us, and that one the Lord Mayor, before whom it was tried, in dismissing the action said, that in his opinion it never ought to have been brought. When you take into consideration that The Pelican was a paper which devoted a good deal of its space to personalities, and, moreover, that it usually spoke its mind very clearly, I think the fact that we escaped being pulled into Court more often than only once, at least proved our luck, if nothing else. Perhaps the bad two- shilling piece, taken so early in the paper's career, had something to do with this. Our only libel action was brought by a man who called himself Hugh Jay Didcott, and who was at the time quite a personage in the theatrical and music-hall world. He had by far the largest thea- trical business agency of its kind, and was, in the opinion of many, a man of great consequence. A POLICE COURT CASE 107 The trouble came about through the publica- tion of a story called " A Very Odde Volume," and in it there figured a music-hall agent who was called " Mr. York Road," in which locality, by the way, most of the agents at that time had their offices. Didcott said that " York Road " was meant for him ; but he was quite wrong in his belief. The man who wrote the story had never seen or heard, at the time, of Didcott, who was, among other things, the father of that clever little actress, Miss Maudi Darrell, who died all too young, soon after her marriage to the very wealthy Mr. Ian BuUough, who subsequently married Miss Lily Elsie. Now it is a fact that no matter how hard you try to do so, you will find it impossible to write a story of any sort or kind, which won't fit some- body or other in the world ; for everything con- ceivable has been done to, or by someone, and when Didcott said that " York Road " was meant for him, I saw to my very considerable con- sternation, that there were many marked points of resemblance between the real man and imaginary one. In spite of my denial that '' Mr. York Road " was meant for him, Didcott hailed me before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House Police Court on a charge of criminal libel. This meant of course that if the Lord Mayor had sent the case for trial, I should have had to defend myself at io8 A PELICAN'S TALE the Old Baile}/, and if I had lost, I should have been sent to prison. The late Mr. Stead gave utterance to the opinion that it was requisite as well as neces- sary, for the complete journalist to have been in prison at least once, as he himself had been. But I venture to think otherwise. I can imagine lots of funnier things than doing time. The case was duly heard before Sir Stuart Knill, the Lord Mayor ; Mr. Charles Gill, in- structed by Sir Charles Russell, defended me, and Mr. Horace Avory, now a judge of the High Court, appeared to prosecute. The results of the case might have been most serious to me, but fortunately Didcott was a man with a highly remarkable past, and under a very terrible cross-examination at the hands of Mr. Gill, it was made clear that his character had not been damaged, and that, to quote Counsel, " he had no character to clear, and it would be absolutely impossible for him to do so, if he tried." In the end the Lord Mayor dismissed the case, and everyone was quite pleased, except, of course, Didcott. To defend " an action which never should have been brought " cost me £250. How- ever, we got this back again in advertisement, for every paper in the Kingdom, from The Times downwards, alluded to the affair, in most cases at considerable length. This was the only action FATHER STANTON 109 for libel The Pelican had while under my control. There were threats of one or two others but they came to nothing. Some little time after the Didcott action I was at the Eccentric Club one evening, when Sir Simeon Stuart, who was at that time City Marshal, came in, with a kindly faced old gentleman, to whom he presented me. My name, if he caught it, conveyed nothing to my new friend, but my countenance apparently did, for after looking at me fixedly he said " I fancy we have met before, but I can't think where. I seem to know your face quite well." I hastened to assure him that his was equally familiar to me, and that I was not soon likely to forget it, for I had regarded it with much more than ordinary interest for an entire day at the Mansion House Police Court. He was, of course. Sir Stuart Knill, the Lord Mayor, whom I afterwards came to know in- timately. A near neighbour of ours in Fetter Lane, and a very dear friend, was the famous Father Stanton, of St. Albans Church, Holborn, and his somewhat sudden and unexpected death, left a real blank in the hearts of the many who knew and loved him. We were all aware that Father Stanton — dear old " Dad " as he was generally known to his flock — had been very ill, but it was hoped that he was well over his trouble and that he would soon be coming back to us. "I am to get quite no A PELICAN'S TALE well, so they say," he wrote to me, shortly before the end came, " but the process is necessarily slow at 73." Still we hoped he was to be with us again " after Easter " and the news of his death came as a shock and very real grief to people all over London and the country. The Daily Tele- graph spoke of him as " one of the most widely known and best loved Anglican clergymen in London." He was all that at least. The paper also said " London lost one of the best and noblest, one of the vitalising Christian forces she could ill afford to spare." The break up of one of the most remarkable brotherhoods of clergy which ever existed in this country, came when the " old gang " of famous St. Albans, Holborn, ceased to be after the going of Father Suckling, the Vicar. The little band of brothers which dwelt together in such perfect unity, for so many years, in the Clergy House adjoining St. Albans Church, consisted, in addi- tion to the Vicar, of Father Russell, Father Hogg, Father Pearkes, and the famous Father Stanton, who might, of course, have had pretty well any sort of preferment he desired, but who was con- tent to remain for more than fifty years, an un- paid curate of the famous and beautiful church, which has meant so much to so many. In addition to being a wonderful preacher, a great parish priest, and one of the saintliest men who ever lived, Father Stanton possessed the rh.