The Secrets of a Savoyard

of a S

poultry run-Captain Corcoran and the crooks-Floricultural topsy-turvydom-The flowers that did not bloom i

. It was not only that my gallanty show as a boy ended disastrously. This, of course, was itself a bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and that the g

a "star" in America. It was one of those rollicking farces which, one would have thought, would have filled the house every night. I was playing elsewhere at the time, but we got together a really excellent company, amongst whom were the Broughs. But fate was against us fro

to let them have the use of my name in booking a tour for the provinces, as they themselves were unknown to theatrical managers. Upon that basis an eight weeks' tour was arranged. Gathering together about sixty artistes all told, they rehearsed them and bought all the scenery, and were almost on the eve of the first production of "Melnotte." Then one fine morning there came the thunderbolt. They told me that all the money they had put into the venture had gone! It had gone before the company had even left London. What was to be done? Seemingly their idea was

a thoroughly bad speculation. Something certainly was amiss. I could not leave London myself, and the only alternative was to offer a friend his railway fare and expenses and ask him

the spot to superintend the production. The only satisfaction I had out of it-and I admit it with some feelings of pride-was that of standing by my fellow professio

of a public-house in Holloway. I lent him the cash, and later on he came to repay me, with many thanks for thus giving him his opportunity. Years afterwards we met again. Upon the basis of that little public-house he had built a comfortable fortune, for he was

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n Alaska. He brought some nuggets to show me, and they were so plentiful, he told me, that he had picked these from the top of the grou

ought quite a number of chickens and wired them within a very small space. The poor things had nothing like enough room, and they began to get bad tempered, to fight one another, and to pull out their feathers. Further, having pulled out their rivals' feathers and found the oil

decided that it was time the little wretches had their first swim. I accordingly carried them down to a pond to put t

and were quite out-of-place in my suburban garden at Chiswick. To begin with we could not get the kennels into the garden. For hours they were on the street pavement while we cogitated just how we were going to get th

came to my house and said they wanted to see me about a dog. They were Americans, and they wanted, they told me, to buy "Captain Corcoran." I told them I would not sell him-not at any price. They found it a waste of time to try to fix up a deal. "Well," they said as their parting shot, "we're going to have him, anyhow." Within a day or two police officers

said nothing. It was a case of "leave him alone, and he'll play for hours." From Holland I ordered an immense number of bulbs and put them into the ground. Months went by, but not a sign was there

ardener. "Oh," he declared, doing his best to soften the blow, "you've planted the bulbs upside down." And so I had! The poor little shoots had to dig

e down. Before I entered the room they would reverse the chairs, the settee and anything they could lay their hands upon, and then they w

ned very literally to get the place into bad odour. But there are two recreations to which I still remain faithful, and they, after all, are worth all the rest put together. One is golf and the other painting. Golf is a great game for keeping the actor fit

with a wonderful bust of Nero, in connection with which I received enormous help from my old friend, the celebrated sculptor, Albert Toft. From my waist downward I was encased in what appeared to be a blood-marble pedestal. My face was whitened, my eyes were closed, and my brow was adorned with the laurel leaf, and when the lights were focussed on my rigid figure and the plaster frame it was acclaimed as a marvellously clever i

blesome car was held up in the roadway. When I drew up and asked whether I could help him, he told me he had been a quarter-of-an-hour trying to get the engine to go, though he was due at a very critical operation some miles away. It was, indeed, a matter of life and death, and in my own car h

n." The problem was easily solved. I offered to take her where she was going. She had never been in a motor-car before, and in trying to stammer her thanks, she asked me to tell her my name "so that I shall never forget you." So I handed her my card-she certainly did not know anything about me or what was my profession-and went on my way. Judge of my surprise when, soon after

in his library we sat chatting until the early hours of the morning. He told me many graphic stories about his expeditions into strange lands, about the tigers and elephants he had shot, and about his marvellous escapes. One story was about a faithful servant of his, a powerfully-built black, who stood right in front o

de it silent and still, was really uncanny. I heard my host walk along the corridor, open one or two doors, and apparently enter the garden. He had left me alone in that house! In a few moments I heard an unnat

ming like an apparition into that room, it seemed to be the biggest and most ferocious and most ghastly sight on earth. Large beads of perspiration were on my forehead, my heart was b

ed to assure me that the beast was "quite all right." It flopped down by his side, and as he stroked it, the cub purred in a manner which, to me at all events, was not at all pleasant.

taken his strange pet away. I've an old-fashioned notion that a library is not the happiest place for a menagerie. I heard that just a mont

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