LITMIR.BIZ

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craft or calling. Such ideas are due to ignorance. Why, in England, three hundred years ago—in Shakespeare’s time—in the years when he, more than any other human being in all that great age of venture and development, of search and research, was doing much to make the era famous, actors were but servants, and the stage was only tolerated by court license. A century later, in London city, actors were pilloried and the calling deemed vagrancy; while in France a Christian burial was denied to Molière’s corpse. The study of social history and development teaches a lesson in which you may read your answer. When bigotry and superstition fade, and toleration triumphs, then the work of which the stage is capable will be fairly judged, and there will be no bar to encounter. The lesson of toleration is not for the player alone; the preacher must learn it.”

III.

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      The first week in New York was, in a great measure, spent between the theatre and the hotel. Invitations to dinner and receptions were, as a rule, declined. The exceptions were breakfasts given by Mr. Vanderbilt and Judge Shea. Many distinguished persons called. All kinds of polite attentions were offered, some of which it is to be feared Irving had not time or opportunity to acknowledge as he could have wished. One gentleman placed his carriage at Mr. Irving’s disposal; another offered to lend him his house; another his steam launch. These courtesies were tendered gracefully and without ostentation. Flowers were sent regularly from unknown hands to the Hotel Dam. Miss Terry went driving with friends in the Park, and found the trotting-track a fascinating scene. Within forty-eight hours Irving was a familiar figure in the lower part of Fifth avenue and Union square, as he walked to and from the theatre. He and Miss Terry made their first acquaintance at Delmonico’s in company with myself and wife. An elegant little dinner, of which the ice-creams were its most successful feature. Artistic in construction, they were triumphs of delicate color. I think they were the chef’s tributes to Miss Terry’s supposed æsthetic taste. No wonder the Delmonicos made millions of dollars, when it is possible that the chief reminiscence of a dinner may be associated with the ice-creams and sweets. On Tuesday, after a rehearsal and a drive down-town on a pouring wet day, I piloted the new-comer to Sieghortner’s, in Lafayette place. This well-known café occupies the house in which the Astors lived. It is a building characteristic of the early days of New York’s first millionnaires—marble steps, heavy mahogany doors, rich Moorish decorations, spacious hall-ways. Close by is the Astor Library, a valuable institution, and the street itself has quite an Old-World look. It was once the most fashionable quarter of New York; but wealth has moved towards the park, and left Lafayette place to restaurants, boarding-houses, public baths, and stores. Sieghortner himself is a typical Dutchman, a veritable Knickerbocker of hotel-keepers, and a gourmet. He is almost the only “landlord” (as we would call him at home) in New York who will condescend to wait upon his guests. It is a pleasure to look upon his beaming face when you order a dinner and leave menu and wines to his judgment. As he stands by your chair, directing his attendants, he is radiant with satisfaction if you are pleased, and would no doubt be plunged into despair if you were dissatisfied. Shrewsbury oysters, gumbo soup, cutlets, canvas-back ducks, a soufflé, Stilton cheese, an ice, a liqueur, a dish of fruit, and a bottle of hock that filled the room with its delicious perfume.

      “It was perfection, Mr. Sieghortner,” said Irving, as he sipped his coffee, and addressed the old man—“the canvas-back superb. You are so interested in the art of dining that you will appreciate a little experience of mine in connection with the great American bird—I don’t mean the eagle, but the duck.”

      Sieghortner rubbed his hands, and said, “Oh, yes—why, of course!”

      “An old American friend of mine—dead now, alas!—when he was in his prime, as they say, frequently had numbers of canvas-back ducks sent to London from New York. On the first great occasion of this kind he invited thirty guests to eat thirty ducks. He spent a day or two instructing the chef of a well-known club how to cook them. The kitchen was to be well heated, you know, and the ducks carried gently through.”

      “Oh, yes, that’s the way!” said Sieghortner, rubbing his hands.

      “Well, the night came. His guests were in full force. The ducks were served. They had a whitey-brown and flabby appearance. Bateman cut one and put it aside. He tried another, and in his rage flung it under the table. The dinner was an utter failure.”

      “Dear! dear!” exclaimed Sieghortner.

      “My friend did not forget it for months. He was continually saying, ‘I wonder how that fool spoiled our ducks; I have tried to find out, but it is a mystery.’ Nearly a year afterwards I heard of the chef’s sudden death. Meeting my friend, I said, ‘Have you heard of poor So-and-so, the chef at the club—he is dead!’—‘I am very glad of it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you know, he cooked those ducks over the gas!’ ”

      “Dear! dear!” exclaimed Sieghortner, a quick expression of anger on his face, “why, he ought to have been hanged!”

IV.

       Table of Contents

      It is customary in American theatres for the orchestra to play the audience out as well as in.

      “We will dispense with that,” said Irving to his conductor, Mr. Ball.

      “It is a general habit here,” remarked the Star manager.

      “Yes, I understand so,” Irving replied; “but it seems to me a difficult matter to select the music appropriately to the piece. What sort of music do you usually play?”

      “A march.”

      “Ah, well, you see our plays are so different, that a march which would do one night would be entirely out of place the next. Have you the score of ‘The Dead March in Saul’?”

      “No,” was the conductor’s reply.

      “Well, then, I think we will finish as we do in London—with the fall of the curtain. If we make a failure on Monday night, the most appropriate thing you could play would be ‘The Dead March.’ As you have no score of it we will do without the exit music.”

      “And who knows,” said Irving, as we walked back to the hotel, “whether we shall have a success or not? The wild manner in which the speculators in tickets are going on is enough to ruin anything.[5] They have bought up every good seat in the house, I am told, and will only part with them at almost prohibitive prices. The play-goers may resent their operations and keep away; if they pay ten and twenty dollars for a seat, instead of two and a half or three, they cannot be expected to come to the house in a contented frame of mind. The more money they have been plundered of, the more exacting they will be in regard to the actors; it is only natural they should. Then we have no pit proper, and the lowest admission price to the gallery is a dollar. I would have preferred to play to Lyceum prices; but in that case they say I should only have been putting so much more into the pockets of the speculators. These operators in tickets are protected by the law; managers are obliged to sell to them, and the dealers have a right to hawk them on the pavement at the entrance of the theatres.”

      “This is a State or city law, only applying to New York. I don’t think it exists anywhere else in the Union. It certainly does not at Philadelphia and Boston.”

      “It is an outrage on the public,” he replied. “Legitimate agencies for the convenience of the public, with a profit of ten or twenty per cent. to the vendor, is one thing; but exacting from the public five and ten dollars for a two-and-a-half-dollar seat is another. After all, a community, however rich, have only a certain amount of money to spend on amusements. Therefore the special attractions and the speculators get the lion’s share, and the general or regular amusements of the place have to be content with short commons.”

      “If the ‘Sun’

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