The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 by Various

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When I had to leave the Plevna front, my colleagues temporarily took
charge of my field equipment. But I had brought back to Bucharest my
best riding horse, and during my illness he had been standing at livery
in the stables of the English Tramway Company. Determining now on the
melancholy necessity of selling an animal which had on many a hard day
and many a long night-ride served me staunchly, I drove to the stables,
and instructed the manager to sell my horse. "Your horse!" he exclaimed,
in evident surprise; "your horse was sold weeks ago! Your man, Andreas,
came here with a message that we were to dispose of it; and I sold it
next day to General Todleben on his way through Bucharest to take the
command before Plevna. It fetched a good price, 105 ducats, more than
you gave for it; Andreas called for the money, and, of course, I gave
it to him."

So Andreas was thief and rogue--deliberate thief and rogue. I was angry,
but I was yet more heart-sorry that so fine and true a native should
have thus fallen. Just as I was leaving Bucharest for England, a letter
came to me from a friend in Galatz, a commercial city of Roumania, near
the mouth of the Danube. Its P.S. only is worth quoting. "So you have
parted with your man, Andreas. I thought from what you had told me that
you would retain him for life. He is here now, I saw him drunk in the
street yesterday. He told Kennedy that he believed you were dead."

[Illustration: "ANDREAS DROPPED ON HIS KNEES."]

I went straight to Galatz, a long half-day's journey. Andreas was not
hard to find; he was smoking in the "Concordia" saloon. I saw him before
he saw me; he had a furtive air, he was pallid and his lips twitched; he
looked to me on the verge of _delirium tremens_. I approached him from
behind, and uttered the one word, "Andreas!" At the word, he started as
if he had been shot, spun round, dropped on his knees, with his hands
raised beseechingly, and cried in a broken voice, "Before God, master, I
thought you were dead, else I should never have done it! I have not had
a happy moment since I threw away my good name--I could not go home!
Kill me, send me to prison, punish me how you choose. I shall rejoice to
suffer!" And the poor wretch grovelled before me on his stomach.

I had meant to punish him; but he was too broken for chastisement. I
could not send to prison the man who had saved my life among the
pine-trees of Djunis. I wonder if he really thought me dead--not that,
if so, his act was thereby materially palliated. And I thought of two
little sentences which my mother taught me when I was a child: "Judge
not that ye be not judged," and "Lead us not into temptation." I pulled
the man on to his feet and grasped his hand, then with the words, "Give
me my father's watch--good-bye, Andreas. I shall remember all the good
in you, and forget those last bad days." I turned from him, and quitted
the "Concordia" with a lump in my throat that I could not swallow down.

* * * * *

TOLD BY THE COLONEL.

X.

A MATRIMONIAL ROMANCE.

BY W. L. ALDEN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK.

"And by the way," continued the Colonel, "a curious thing about this
Josiah Wilson was that he was married for fifteen years and never had
any wife whatever."

The Colonel had begun a story concerning one Josiah Wilson, which
promised to be interesting, but his incidental allusion to Mr. Wilson's
matrimonial experience awakened our curiosity, and we begged him to
interrupt his narrative long enough to tell us how it came to pass that
Josiah was a married man who never had a wife.

[Illustration: "HOWLED FOR HELP."]

"The marriage laws in the United States," said the Colonel, giving his
chair an increased tilt backwards, which was his usual way of beginning
a fresh anecdote, "are as peculiar in their way as are the divorce laws.
You would think to look at them that they would permit anybody to marry
anybody else in any way that either of them might choose, but for all
that they sometimes make it impossible for a man or a woman to get
married. There was a couple who intended to be married in a balloon,
which is a style of lunacy that is quite fashionable in some parts of
the country, though I can't see why a man should want to risk his neck
in a balloon on his wedding day unless it is that it takes so much
courage to be married at all that a man forgets all about such minor
dangers as are connected with ballooning. The bride, the minister, and
two witnesses of assorted sexes went up in the balloon at the appointed
time, and, naturally, the bridegroom intended to go with them, but he
accidentally caught his foot in a neglected guy-rope, and went up head
downwards about twenty feet below the car. The party in the balloon
could not haul him up because they could not get hold of the rope, and
the bride would not consent to give up the trip, because the groom had
always been a little shy, and she was afraid that, if she let him go
this time, she might not be able to land him again. So the parson went
on with the ceremony, and the groom made most of his responses in bad
language, and howled for help when he wasn't swearing. When the ceremony
was over, the aeronaut managed to land the balloon without seriously
damaging the bridegroom, but when, a year or two afterwards, the bride
wanted to get her divorce, the court held that there had never been any
marriage, for the reason that both the groom and the bride had not
appeared together in the presence of the officiating minister, and that,
furthermore, there was no provision in the law which would permit a man
to be married upside down.

[Illustration: "SMITH'S BULL-DOG."]

"But to get back to Josiah Wilson. He lived in Indiana, close to the
boundary line between that State and Illinois, and he courted Melinda
Smith, a young woman who lived a little way up the mountain side with
her father and three brothers. The girl was anxious to be married, but
her family was dead against it. You see Josiah was a Republican and a
Methodist, while the Smiths were Democrats and Baptists, and, naturally,
they hated each other like poison, and one night as old man Smith and
Josiah met on their way to rival prayer meetings, they exchanged
revolver shots, without, however, doing any harm. Then once Josiah had
most of the calf of his leg taken off by the Smiths' bull-dog, and twice
the Smith boys came into the sitting-room where Josiah was calling on
Melinda, and suggested to him with their shot-guns that he had better go
home. Gradually Josiah and Melinda came to the conclusion that her
family was resolved to discourage the match, so they determined to elope
and be married without the knowledge or consent of anybody.

"One dark night Josiah carried a ladder and planted it under Melinda's
window. He had advised her to walk out of the front door, which was
always left unlocked at night, but she refused, saying that if she was
going to elope she should do it in the proper way, and that if Josiah
had no respect for her, she had some little respect for herself. She
climbed down the ladder with a good deal of difficulty, because she
insisted that Josiah should help her, and also that he should stand
forty yards away, for reasons connected with her ankles, and he found it
rather trying to follow out these contradictory orders. However, Melinda
reached the ground at last, and the pair started in a carriage that had
been waiting just around a bend in the road, in company with the
Methodist minister. Their plan was to drive to the next town and there
to be married, but it happened that one of the Smith boys, being
restless, got up in the night, and, looking out of the window, saw the
ladder standing at Melinda's window. In about twenty minutes after the
young people had started, the whole Smith family and their shot-guns
were following the runaways in a waggon, and gaining on them fast.

"The Methodist minister, whose hearing was unusually good, heard the
sound of hoofs before Josiah noticed it, and told the young people that
there was not the least doubt that they were pursued, and would be
overtaken in a very few minutes. 'And then, you know,' he added, 'the
chances are that, being Baptists, they will shoot first, and ask for
explanations afterwards. The only thing for us to do is to get the
marriage ceremony over before they come up. Then they will see that
opposition is of no use, and will listen to reason.'

[Illustration: "THEY WERE MARRIED."]

"Josiah and Melinda at once consented, and the parson, noticing a little
clearing in the woods on the left hand side of the road, and a flat sort
of tombstone standing in the middle of it, said that he would stand on
that stone and marry his young friends so quick that it would make their
hair curl. He was particularly glad to meet with a handy tombstone, for
he said that a tombstone was the next thing to a church, and that to be
married by the side of a tomb would be almost as solemn as to be married
in a minister's study. So the party hastily descended; the parson
mounted the stone; Josiah and Melinda joined hands in front of him, and
they were married, and the parson had kissed the bride and pocketed his
fee just as the Smiths' waggon drove up and the Smith boys cocked their
guns and covered the party. But the parson was wide awake. He had his
revolver out and old man Smith covered before anybody had taken aim at
him, but, instead of shooting, he remarked that he was a minister of the
blessed gospel of peace; that there was no necessity for bloodshed, and
that he would blow a hole through old Smith unless the Smith boys
lowered their weapons and consented to argue the matter. 'The fact is,
Colonel Smith,' said the parson, 'you're too late. The young people are
legally married, and the sooner you accept the situation the better. I
married them not two minutes ago, standing on that identical tombstone.'

[Illustration: "'YOU'LL COME STRAIGHT HOME WITH ME.'"]

"Colonel Smith was a lawyer, and the sharpest one in that part of the
country. He saw the force of the minister's remarks, so he told the boys
to put up their guns, and he shook hands with the minister. Then he
inquired, in a careless sort of way, where Josiah and Melinda had stood
while they were being married. The parson showed the footprints of the
bride and groom, and then Colonel Smith turned to Melinda and said,
'You'll come straight home with me. There hasn't been any marriage yet.
That stone is the boundary mark between Indiana and Illinois, and you
were standing in Indiana and that other idiot was standing in Illinois
when the parson tried to marry you. Nobody can marry in two States at
the same time, and I shan't recognise the pretended marriage till a
court of law compels me to do so, which will be never. I hope this will
teach you the folly of fooling with Methodism. When you want to get
married next time try a Baptist minister, who will know the difference
between a tombstone and a boundary mark.' There were too many Smiths,
and they were too well armed to be reasoned with successfully, so the
upshot was that Melinda went home with her family, and Josiah and the
parson went to see a lawyer.

"The next day Josiah brought a suit for divorce against Melinda. It was
a friendly suit, you understand, and his only object was to test the
question of the validity of his marriage, for, of course, no man can get
a divorce unless he first proves that he is married. Old man Smith
conducted the case on his side, and a lawyer named Starkweather, who is
now a member of the Illinois Legislature, appeared for Josiah Wilson.
Colonel Smith argued that while the parson who conducted the alleged
marriage ceremony could undoubtedly have married a couple in the State
of Indiana, he could not marry a woman in Indiana to a man in Illinois,
for the reason that the man and the woman could not be in the same place
while they were in two different commonwealths, and that hence Josiah
and Melinda had not legally appeared together before the officiating
minister. Furthermore, he argued that the minister at the time of the
pretended marriage was standing neither in Indiana nor in Illinois, but
on the boundary line; that the statute defined the boundary line as 'an
imaginary line' running from such and such a point to such and such a
point, and that a minister who stands in a purely imaginative locality
stands virtually nowhere, and hence cannot perform any function of
his calling.

"On the other hand, Josiah's lawyer claimed that the minister had
married Melinda Smith in the State of Indiana; that consequently she
must have been married to somebody, and that that somebody was
unquestionably Josiah Wilson. As to the point that the minister stood in
an imaginary locality because, as was alleged, he stood on the boundary
line, the lawyer maintained that it was a physical impossibility that a
minister weighing two hundred and fifty pounds could stand in a purely
imaginative place. Moreover, he was prepared to prove that, while
performing the ceremony, at least one of the minister's feet was in the
State of Indiana, which was sufficient to make him legally present in
that State.

"The arguments lasted three days, and the court before which it was
tried, consisting of three judges, took all the third day to deliver its
verdict. It decided that Melinda Smith was legally married to some
person unknown, though not to Josiah Wilson, and that Josiah Wilson was
also married to some unknown woman, who was not Melinda Smith, whoever
else she might be; that no marriage between the plaintiff and the
defendant had ever taken place, and that no divorce could be granted,
but that if either of them married anyone else, he or she would be
guilty of bigamy.

[Illustration: "SHE WAS A GOOD DEAL CAST DOWN."]

"The Smiths, with the exception of Melinda, were delighted with the
decision, for it made it reasonably certain that Josiah could never be
recognised as her husband. She was a good deal cast down about it, for,
like every other Indiana girl, she had looked forward to being married
and divorced as the natural lot of woman. Now it appeared that she was
married, but in such an unsatisfactory way, that she could never have a
husband, and never be divorced from anyone. As for Josiah, he was
furious, but there was no help for it, the law was against him, and, as
a law-abiding man, he was obliged to respect it, especially as he could
not hope to kill off all four of the Smiths, if he decided to make a
family feud of it; he himself having no family whatever, and no one to
help him to keep up his end of the feud.

"For the next fifteen years Josiah lived a single man except in name,
and Melinda mourned her hard fate and kept house for her father and
brothers; but one day Josiah's lawyer, who was by this time in the
Legislature, came to him and offered to have his marriage to Melinda
made legal in all respects for five hundred dollars. The lawyer was so
certain that he could do this that he was willing to wait for his pay
until after he had gained a verdict, and Josiah, after a little
bargaining such as every self-respecting man would have made, in his
place, consented to the lawyer's terms. It seems that the lawyer had
accidentally discovered that there had been a mistake in the survey of
part of the boundary line between Indiana and Illinois, and at the very
place where Josiah and Melinda were married, A rectification of this
mistake would move the line ten feet west, and so place the spot where
the pair stood during their wedding entirely within the state of
Indiana. The proper steps to obtain the rectification of the boundary
were taken, and it was rectified. Then Melinda in her turn began a suit
for divorce against Josiah, and had no difficulty in proving the
marriage and in obtaining a decree. Josiah paid the lawyer his five
hundred dollars, and was overjoyed at being finally able to call his
Melinda his own. But he met with a little disappointment. Now that
Melinda had obtained her divorce she thought she might as well live up
to it, and marry a fresh husband. So she married the Methodist minister,
who had just lost his third wife, and lived happily ever afterwards.

[Illustration: "OFFERED TO HAVE HIS MARRIAGE MADE LEGAL."]

"It was just after this that Josiah, being perhaps made a little
reckless by his disappointment, became involved in the affair that I was
going to tell you about when you interrupted me, and wanted to hear
about his marriage. Matrimony is a mighty curious thing, and you can
never tell precisely how it is going to turn out. That is one reason why
I was never married but once, though I spent ten years of my life in
Chicago, and had friends at bar who stood ready to obtain divorces for
me at any moment and without a dollar of expense."

* * * * *

[Illustration: IDLERS.]

* * * * *

"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."

No. II.--GEORGE GROSSMITH AND THE HUMOUR OF HIM.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.

(_Photographs by Messrs. Fraddle and Young and Alfred Ellis._)

[Illustration: MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]

A little, slight man, with a thin, clever, mobile, clean-shaven face, a
sharp inquisitive nose surmounted by a perpetual pair of _pince-nez_,
and a rather sarcastic mouth, from which wit and humour as light and
airy as the cigarette smoke which accompanied each remark
continually flowed.

Mr. George Grossmith, the well-known actor and society clown.

He stands on the hearthrug of his own special sanctum in his handsome
house in Dorset Square, with his back to the fire, cigarette in his
mouth, his hands now in his pockets, now waving in the air, as he
vivaciously tells me the story of his busy, energetic and wonderfully
interesting life.

[Illustration: MRS. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]

"I was born," said he, "in 1847. I come of a family of actors and
reciters. My father, whose portrait you see there on the wall, was a
well-known lecturer and entertainer. Sixty or seventy years ago my uncle
created a great sensation as a child actor, and he was commonly known as
the 'celebrated infant Roscius.' Come out into the hall," continued the
lively little entertainer, "and I will show you some old engravings
which represent him in his favourite characters. Then my brother Weedon,
as you know, is, of course, a well-known actor, as well as a clever
artist, and part author with myself of several sketches which have
appeared in _Punch_. My eldest son now begins to display the family
tendency to a most alarming extent. For my own part, I started my career
as a reporter at Bow Street Police Court, a training which I have found
invaluable in many respects ever since. My subsequent history as actor
and society clown is so well known that I need not trouble you with it
any further."

"I suppose you find the taste of your audiences has gone up considerably
within the last twenty years, do you not?"

"Why, yes," he replied. "They wouldn't stand to-day what they used to
roar at then. My music is quite elaborate compared with the two or three
chords which easily satisfied people in the sixties and early seventies.
Listen to this," continued my host, as he sat down to the _piano_ and
struck a couple of very simple chords. Then he glided softly into what
he termed a modern accompaniment. It was all the difference between "Ten
Little Niggers" and a slumber song of Schubert.

[Illustration: MR. GROSSMITH'S HOUSE.]

"And do you find the public very critical?"

"Well," he replied, with a smile, "they are very kind. It is your
professional critic who is severe, though I can honestly say they
invariably treat me well. Criticism up to a certain point is good
enough. Beyond that point it is absolutely disabling to me. My father
was a very severe critic. When we went out together he used to take the
first half-hour, and then go to the back of the hall and criticise me.
But it so hampered me by causing me to think of and consider every pose
that I had to beg of him to desist. And then again, as regards
criticism, I always think--it may be very conceited on my part--that I
know a great deal more what the public want than my critics do. I
declare to you I should have to take everything out of my sketches if I
attempted to carry out all the suggestions that are made to me. I can
absolutely feel the public pulse after so many years upon the platform.
I am almost always right. When I first started 'See me Dance the Polka'
it fell quite flat. I gave it up, although I felt sure it ought to go.
The public then demanded it, and it went with a swing. The public had
changed its mind. Not I."

[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]

"And how do you prepare your sketches?" said I, as Mr. Grossmith lit
another cigarette, and took up his position on the hearthrug again.

"Anyhow and anywhere the idea comes to me for a sketch. I am seated in a
railway train, and I think of a sea-side sketch. I close my eyes and try
to recall every single feature of interest on a crowded fashionable
beach in the height of the season. Nothing is too unimportant. The way
in which an old lady settles herself comfortably into her chair, the
manner in which a man, especially a shy man, walks into the room, all
these things, slightly exaggerated, but still true to nature, are
immensely appreciated. First I have the idea, then I elaborate,
sometimes for months, then I produce on the stage, and the people say,
'How remarkable it is you should invent all this on the spur of the
moment!' That, of course, is a great compliment. The song-writing is
always amusing," continued Mr. Grossmith, as he placed in my hand a
little notebook in which were suggestions and elaborations innumerable.
One thing I noticed, which he himself had condemned, but which was
decidedly amusing, although it has never been allowed to see the
light of day:

[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]

"I've been engaged to many,
Quite a score of times at least;
I don't think I with safety _can say_
Where I met my first _fiancee_.
Oh! 'tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all;
So I may say I have loved and _lost a lot_,
And my fickleness has _cost a lot_."

"Ah!" said Mr. Grossmith, as he leaned over me and saw what I was
reading; "my better judgment told me that was not good enough for
the public."

Then came a pencilled note in this little book, "You can take a horse to
water, but can't make him drink." "That gave me an idea," cried Mr.
Grossmith, as he sprang to his feet. "You can take a boy to the piano,
but you can't make him play.' Thought I to myself, that would make a
capital sketch. And here is how I set about it," continued he, as he
proceeded to illustrate his remarks. "Imagine a little fellow in the
corner there. I then begin in dumb show to encourage him to come to the
piano. 'Come on, my boy; you know you can play that pretty piece you
played yesterday. Come on, there's a good fellow!' Wonderful what you
can do with persuasion! He refuses. I attempt to lead him to the piano.
He won't budge an inch. I carry him under my arm and seat him in front
of the instrument, the audience roaring all the time. At last his
mistakes are so many and so ridiculous, I lose all patience and catch
him a mighty box upon the ears! Tableau!! Of course there is no boy on
the platform at all, I am quite alone, but I have so thoroughly lost
myself in my imagination that people have declared years after, 'Oh! but
I am quite sure you had a boy with you; why, don't you remember how you
boxed his ears?'"

[Illustration: "I ENCOURAGE HIM."]
[Illustration: "I ATTEMPT TO LEAD HIM."]
[Illustration: "I CARRY HIM."]
[Illustration: "I LOSE ALL PATIENCE."]

No less marvellous than his power of acting is his power of mimicry. "I
will show you how I do Irving," said he, and in a moment the little man
had ruffled his hair, had assumed to the life not only Irving's peculiar
gait, but, even more remarkable still, had managed to secure almost
exactly the very expression of the great tragedian's face.

[Illustration: "HOW I DO IRVING."]

"Then again, I find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the
moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose
amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches
which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is
Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing
how popular it is among all classes of the community." I will quote
pretty freely from this outlined sketch, as it will give my readers an
idea, better than anything else would do, of the manner in which Mr.
Grossmith prepares his delightful sketches.

"I am not going to treat the subject seriously," he writes, "but in my
own particular, impertinent way. The question often arises--are we a
musical nation? The foreigners think we are not. But where in the wide,
wide world is there a country where you will hear so many organs and
German bands? Where is the country, excepting ours, that can appreciate
the concertina? Where, except in England, can you hear that delightful
combination of harp and cornet outside a house of refreshment? The
prejudice of other nations is distressing; and as for their ignorance,
why, I don't suppose Italy and Germany have even heard of the ocarino
and the Jew's harp."

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