“Hi, master,” shouted the owner, disturbed at his meal, “that be moine.”
“Not it, man,” yelled Hastings; “it’s mine; jump in,” and, without a murmur, the worthy man obeyed.
“Where to, master?” was the next inquiry. “I be going for a load of gravel to Scotland Yard.” And within half an hour four bucks with white ties were shovelling in gravel as if their lives depended on it.
Scotland Yard in those days was a public gravel-pit, and its name did not convey the painful suggestions of after years.
“Where now, master?” inquired the yokel again, and St. John’s Wood was the order.
Here, before a palatial mansion, the cart pulled up, and the load was shot on to the steps. Johnny MacNair, the handsomest man in the Highland Brigade, who was too “exhausted” to be moved, was then pushed into the hall, and the cortège again departed.
To describe further would be a physical impossibility. Exhausted nature, bad wine, possibly the bacon and eggs, all combined to make memory a blank. Suffice that the house was the private residence of a corpulent ratepayer and respected member of St. Stephen’s Church, who appeared in the “Court Directory” as Mrs. Hamilton.
The final episode was the appearance of Johnny MacNair at Rawling’s Hotel at three in the afternoon very irate, and only appeased on being assured that the episode was a blank to others beside himself.
People may say how scandalous all this reads, and how thankful we ought to be to be living in these decorous twentieth century days! But reflect, virtuous reader. The sixties, if apparently bad, were not so bad as the days of the Georges, which again compare favourably with the golden days when Charles (of blessed memory) was King. Vigilance societies did not then exist as now, and fifty institutions with their secretaries and staff had not to be supported by seekers after morality. London was not even blessed with a County Council, and John Burns probably could have robbed a birds’ nest as deftly as the veriest scapegrace in those long-ago roystering days.
Place a file of the Divorce Court proceedings in the scales, add the scandals that occasionally get into print, and, having adjusted them carefully, decide honestly whether the balance is much against the London of the long-ago sixties.
The entrance to Kate Hamilton’s may best be located as the spot on which Appenrodt’s German sausage shop now stands, although the premises extended right through to Leicester Square.
“Don’t go yet, dear,” appealed a sweet siren as Bobby, looking at his watch, swore that when duty called one must obey, but eventually succumbed to a voice like a foghorn shouting, “John, a bottle of champagne,” and the beautiful Kate bowed approvingly from her throne. Kate Hamilton at this period must have weighed at least twenty stone, and had as hideous a physiognomy as any weather-beaten Deal pilot. Seated on a raised platform, with a bodice cut very low, this freak of nature sipped champagne steadily from midnight until daylight, and shook like a blanc mange every time she laughed.
Approached by a long tunnel from the street—where two janitors kept watch—a pressure of the bell gave instant admittance to a likely visitor, whilst an alarm gave immediate notice of the approach of the police.
Finding oneself within the “salon” during one of these periodical raids was not without interest. Carpets were turned up in the twinkling of an eye, boards were raised, and glasses and bottles—empty or full—were thrust promiscuously in; every one assumed a sweet and virtuous air and talked in subdued tones, whilst a bevy of police, headed by an inspector, marched solemnly in, and having completed the farce, marched solemnly out.
What the subsidy attached to this duty, and when and how paid, it is needless to inquire. Suffice to show that the hypocrisy that was to attain such eminence in these latter enlightened days was even then in its infancy, and worked as adroitly as any twentieth-century policeman could desire.
“Now we’re all right,” explained the foghorn, as the “salon” resumed its normal vivacity. “Bobby, my dear, come and sit next me,” and so, like a tomtit and a round of beef, the pasty-faced youth took the post of honour alongside the vibrating mass of humanity. The distinction conferred upon our hero was a much-coveted one amongst youngsters, and gave a “hall-marking” which henceforth proclaimed him a “man about town.” To dispense champagne ad libitum was one of its chief privileges—for the honour was not unaccompanied with responsibilities—and Florrie or Connie (or whoever the friend for the moment of the favoured one might be) not only held a carte blanche to order champagne, but to dispense it amongst all her acquaintances, by way of propitiation amongst the higher grades, and as an implied claim for reciprocity on those whose star might be in the ascendant later on.
Bobby, it is needless to say, was a proud man. But six months ago he had left school, and it seemed but yesterday that loving hands of mother and sisters had vied with one another in marking his linen and making brown holland bags with appropriate red bindings that were to contain his brushes and other requisites of his toilet. But these had long since been discarded as “bad form,” and a dressing case—on credit—with silver fittings had taken their place. It had been a question, indeed, whether the pony chaise would have to be put down to enable the worthy rector to provide the requisite £100 a year that was essential over and above the pay of a youngster in the service, and here was a young scamp swilling champagne like water, whilst the sisters’ allowance had been cut down to enable their brother to meet necessary expenses, and the boy that cleaned the knives had to look after the pony vice Simmons, the groom, dismissed. Not that Bobby was vicious by nature; on the contrary, his follies were to be attributed to that short-sighted policy that drives a youth on the curb up to a given moment, and then gives him his head; a lad who had never tasted anything stronger than an aperient suddenly engulfed in a deluge of champagne. In appearance he was delicate almost to effeminacy, with a gentle, courteous address, fair curly hair waved around his silly head, and he was popular alike with men and women. His good looks were his misfortune, and his amiability of temper led him into numerous scrapes, such as entanglements with designing chorus girls and the accompanying folly of too much champagne with too little money to pay for it. Not long previous to his arrival in London he had fallen desperately in love at Taunton with a strolling actress old enough to be his mother, who played very minor parts, and whose forte was pirouetting and pointing her huge foot at any patron in front whom she desired to signal out for honour. It had taken the combined talents of the adjutant, the rector, and George Hay to buy the sweet siren off with a promise that her son (nearly as old as poor Bobby) should get a berth on a sea-going merchantman. As a fact, he had promised to marry the charmer, and eventually to find money to run a company, and it was only by the accident of the show being in pawn in a Somersetshire village (where Julia Jemima was playing Juliet to a drunken former admirer’s Romeo) that an urgent appeal for funds brought the escapade to light.
“Of course,” Julia had once said by way of exciting his enthusiasm, “we can’t expect you to ‘go on’ all at once, but in time you could play up to me. You just study Romeo and get up Rover while you’re about it, and Hamlet and some of Charlie Matthews’s parts—you can easily knock them off, and one part do so ’elp another, dear.” Not that Master Bobby had been brought to realise at once the histrionic fame in store for him; on the contrary, he had jibbed considerably at the contemplation of having to don the spangled velvets and tights that constituted the “property” of the strollers, and it was only the herculean exertions of the lovely Julia Jemima—on her benefit night—smiling more bewitchingly, pirouetting if possible more gracefully, and gliding on one toe across the stage till the muscles of her calves stood out like a Sandow’s, that poor Bobby succumbed, and vowed that come who, come what, nothing should tear him from the divine creature. Happily our hero had not anticipated the effects of a combined attack of adjutant and father, and so, being rescued from one pitfall, we find him sailing steadily towards another amidst the brilliant scenes at Kate Hamilton’s.
“I’ve been in the profession, dear,” Connie was explaining as Bobby leaned over the throne to gaze on her, “and I often have half a mind to go back to it.” (She had once carried a banner through the run of the pantomime at the “Vic.”) The word “profession” acted like an electric shock; the lad blinked as the scales appeared to fall from his eyes; Julia Jemima appeared visibly before him; the spangles, the tights, and the muscular calf in mid-air floated through his brain in deadly proximity, as pulling out his watch with a shudder he bade a hurried good-bye, and dashed off in the fleetest four-wheeler to join the Major’s “lady” under the inhospitable walls of the Tower.
In the long, long ago the entertainments provided by Leicester Square were not of an exciting nature. The “Sans Souci,” Walhalla, and Burford’s Panorama (where Daly’s Theatre now stands) divided the honours till ’51, when Wylde’s Globe occupied the entire enclosure. This huge erection was sixty feet in diameter, and remained in existence till 1861, when it was pulled down to make way for entertainments combining instruction with pleasure.
In 1863 the “Eldorado” Café Chantant, which was leading a precarious existence, put up the shutters, when a section of the (non-speculative) public made the brilliant, loyal, and dutiful suggestion that somebody should erect a “Denmark” Winter Garden as a memento of the Prince of Wales’s recent marriage, but the loyal, dutiful, sycophantic proposal did not commend itself as it no doubt ought to have done, and probably would to-day. The requisite capital was not forthcoming, and so not till 1873 did the new era commence, when £50,000 was offered for the Square by that monument of aspiring greatness, “Baron” Grant, who burst upon the horizon and then fizzled into space as meteors are wont to do.
It is impossible to deny the fascination that Leicester Square has for a considerable majority of Londoners. Up to the days of Charles II. the entire space was composed of rustic hedge-rows and lanes. Then Castle Street, Newport Street, Cranbourne Alley, and Bear Lane came into existence, the Square was railed round, and all the chief duels of the day were fought within its historic precincts.
Lord Warwick, Lord Mountford, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Mohun (a professional bully and expert shot), and a host of smaller fry have avenged their honour within its boundaries—and then adjourned to Locket’s Coffee House in its immediate vicinity. This ancient institution must not be confused with the palatial establishments known as Lockhart’s.
In the days of which we are writing, Leicester Square was a barren waste surrounded by rusty railings, trodden down in all directions; refuse of every description was shot into it, whilst in the centre stood a dilapidated equestrian statue that assumed various adornments as the freaks of drunken roysterers suggested. On the north side (where now stands the Empire) was The Shades, a low-class eating-house in the basement, approached by steps, where every knife, fork and spoon was indelibly stamped “Stolen from The Shades” as a delicate hint to its patrons. On the opposite side stood a huge wooden pump, of which more anon. At the adjoining eastern corner were the “tableaux vivants,” presided over by a judge in “wig and gown” where more blasphemy and filth was to be heard for a shilling than would appear possible, all within one hundred yards of such harmless (if disreputable) haunts as Kate Hamilton’s, which were overhauled nightly. It was many years afterwards (July, 1874) that the barren wilderness was made beautiful for ever by the generosity of “Baron” Grant. One can see him now, arrayed in white waistcoat and huge buttonhole, accompanied by an unpretentious bevy of councillors and Board of Works men, over whom a few bits of bunting fluttered, presenting his gift of many thousands in a speech that was quite inaudible. But, like medals and decorations, gifts in those days were not rewarded in the lavish manner of to-day. Had such a public benefit been conferred now, the donor would have been dubbed a baronet, or a privy councillor at least, with every prospect of a peerage should he again spring £20,000. Apropos of this gift, there was a peculiar sequel. When asked at the time whether he gave or retained the underground rights in addition to the recreation ground, the great man, in the zenith of his success, replied, “Yes, yes; I give it all.” Years after, however, when poor and friendless, hearing that underground works had made the subsoil more valuable than the surface, he enquired whether some remnant could not be claimed by him, but was forcibly reminded of the follies of his youth by a prompt negative, and left to die in penury without a helping hand.
Perhaps never was the irony of Fate more clearly exemplified than when, years after, two yokels who were gazing on Shakespeare’s monument were heard to say “That’s ’im as give the place.”
Situated exactly on the site of the Criterion Buffet was the “Pic,” a dancing saloon of a decidedly inferior class, where anybody entering (except perhaps the Angel Gabriel) was bound to have a row. Hat smashing in this delectable spot was the preliminary to a scrimmage, and when it is recollected what “hats” were in the long-ago sixties, it will be easily understood that any interference with them was an offence to be wiped out only with blood. Hats, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, were the Alpha and Omega of dress amongst every section of the community; the postmen wore hats with their long scarlet coats; policemen wore hats with their swallow-tails; boys the height of fourpence in copper wore hats; the entire field at a cricket match wore flannels and hats; and the yokels and agricultural classes topped their smocks with hats. Not hats, be it understood, of the modern silky limited style, but huge extinguishers, with piles varying from solid beaver to the substance of a terrier’s coat; and to enter the “Pic” was tantamount to the annihilation of one of these creations. The “Kangaroo,” of whom mention is made elsewhere, was a standing dish at this establishment, and to such an extent was his position recognised that many men tipped him on entering to obviate molestation.
The “Pic,” despite its central position, never attained popularity, and was the resort of pickpockets, bullies, and “soiled doves” of a very mediocre class. On Boat Race nights, however, an organised gang of University “men” invariably raided it, and by smashing everything balanced the account to a certain extent.
No place of amusement has passed through so many convulsions as the edifice now known as the Alhambra. Erected in the sixties, it began life as a species of polytechnic, where it was hoped that the instruction afforded by the contemplation of two electric batteries and a diving bell, in conjunction with the exhilarating air of the neighbourhood, would attract sufficient audiences to meet rent and expenses; but the venture not having fulfilled the expectations of its youth, its portals were closed, and it next came into prominence during the Franco-German war. Here “patriotic songs” were the pièce de résistance, and towards 11 o’clock a dense throng waved flags and cheered and hooted indiscriminately the “Marseillaise,” the “Wacht am Rhein,” and everything and everybody. Jones, calmly smoking, would, without the slightest provocation, assault Brown, who was similarly innocently occupied, and who in turn resented the polite distinction. Stand-up fights took place nightly, and, as was anticipated, drew all London to the Alhambra towards 11 o’clock.
These indiscriminate nightly riots attracted, as may be assumed, all the bullies and sharpers in London, amongst whom stands prominently the “Kangaroo,” a gigantic black, who was known to everybody in the sixties. This ruffian, who was admittedly an expert pugilist, was the biggest coward that hovered round Piccadilly. No place was free from his unwelcome visits, and his ubiquity showed itself by his nightly appearance at the Pavilion, the Alhambra, the Café Riche, Barnes’s, the “Pic,” the Blue Posts, the Argyll, and Cremorne. From such places as Evans’s and Mott’s he was absolutely barred, and the moral effect of the reception he would have received deterred him—in his wisdom—from making the attempt.
His modus operandi was simplicity itself; seating himself at some inoffensive man’s table, he helped himself to anything he might find within reach; if remonstrated with, he knocked the remonstrator down, and coolly walked out of the room.
On other occasions he would demand money, and if refused, applied the same remedy; if a party were seated at the Alhambra watching the performance, a black arm would suddenly appear over one’s shoulder, and glass by glass was lifted and coolly drained. Occasionally he met his match, when, having pocketed his thrashing, he commenced afresh in an adjoining night-house.
A plethora of coloured ex-prizefighters roamed about these latitudes in the long-ago sixties. Plantagenet Green, an admittedly scientific boxer unaccompanied by any heart, was everywhere much in evidence, and Bob Travers, one of the best and pluckiest that ever contested the middle-weight championship, might have been seen years after selling chutnee in the streets. In those unenlightened days prizefighters, although made much of, never forgot their place, and the illiterate abortions in rabbit-skin collars that intrude into every public resort at the present day and dub themselves “professors” were creations happily unknown.
Needless to add that the Alhambra, with its miscellaneous attractions, stood very high in the estimation of our subalterns, or a considerable portion who deferred to Bobby on all matters relating to “form.”
Armed with diminutive flags of every nationality in Europe, a select team were one evening enjoying the delights that led up to the “patriotic era,” as sitting around a table on the balcony they agreed upon the rendezvous should circumstances—and the fights—separate them. Ladies, moreover, graced the board, and sipped from time to time the exhilarating fluid that sparkled in various tumblers. George Hay meanwhile was explaining to an interested houri how by an extraordinary coincidence red, white, and blue predominated in most of the National colours of Europe, while Bobby was urging some argument on a fair creature in inaudible tones, when an apparition a yard long, and as black as ebony, passed over his head and deliberately seized a tumbler. Dazed for a moment, and ignorant of the notoriety of the “Kangaroo,” one and all sat spellbound as the ruffian deliberately emptied the glass and replaced it on the table.
George was the first to grasp the situation, as, springing from his chair, he confronted the bully, and inquired: “What are we to understand by this?” But, “What you d— please!” was barely out of his mouth when a swinging blow on the jaw sent him staggering towards the counter.
Dropping his cane and hat, the “Kangaroo” now advanced in an attitude that meant business, and dashing in his long left arm, essayed to fell George with one blow. But his adversary was prepared for this, and springing back lightly, got beyond danger. The “Kangaroo’s” arms, when reposing by his side, reached almost to his knees, and gave him an incalculable advantage with any but the most nimble. Realising this fact, George decided to change his tactics, and to direct all his blows for the neck or body of his opponent; he had been taught, indeed, that a negro’s head is practically invulnerable, but that a swinging slog in the loins would double up the most seasoned. A shower of blows now rattled on the black’s sides, as springing out of danger after every onslaught, the “Kangaroo” began to show signs of distress; standing well out of range, he appeared but to wait the opportunity, and picking up his hat and cane, he bolted down the stairs.
The “Kangaroo” had learnt a lesson, and was profoundly ignorant of the fact that his meek-looking opponent had a heart as big as a lion’s and was a pupil of Ben Caunt.
But patriotism and loyalism of the blatant type are apt to cloy even on the most gushing, and the fever pitch having been attained, the cooling process set in, and then a series of experiments ensued to try and keep up the demand for the disrated Alhambra.
If any of the Bucks of the sixties were suddenly brought to life and placed in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, no labyrinth could more completely puzzle them than the structural alterations of to-day. Abutting on to where Shaftesbury Avenue commences was a dismal row of houses, with here and there an outlet into the purlieus of more dismal Soho; where the obstruction for the accommodation of flower-sellers now raises its useless head, another block of houses ran eastwards, dividing the present broad expanse into two narrow thoroughfares; the huge monument to the profitable industry in intoxicating drinks takes the place of the ancient “Pic,” and the Haymarket, from the exalted position of centre of the surging mass of nocturnal corruption, has descended to the status of a dimly-lighted thoroughfare, with here and there an unlicensed Italian restaurant and a sprinkling of second-class pot-houses.
Instead of the promenade from which strollers are now hustled off the pavement by a zealous police, the strip between Windmill Street and the Raleigh Club was the favoured lounge, and the Haymarket literally blazed with light (till daylight) from such temples as the “Blue Posts,” Barnes’s, The Burmese, and Barron’s Oyster Rooms. This latter place, although palpably suffering from old age and the ravages of time, and propped up by beams innumerable, was the nightly rendezvous of oyster-eaters, where, sandwiched in between “loose boxes” upstairs and down, champagne and other drinks were consumed to excess.
Often amid these sounds of revelry, ominous cracks and groans warned the revellers that all was not right, till on one never-to-be-forgotten night a sound that vibrated like the crack of doom caused a stampede, and leaving wine, oysters, hats, unpaid bills, every one rushed helter-skelter into the street. Old Barron, staring disconsolately from the pavement at his fast-collapsing house, suddenly appeared to remember that his cash-box was in the doomed building, and rushing frantically in, was seen hurrying out with the prized treasure. And then a crash that might have quailed the stoutest heart rang through the night, and Barron, cash-box, and lights, all disappeared in a cloud of dust that ascended up to heaven. Days after the old man was found firmly clutching his treasure. Let us hope its possession compensated him in his passage across the Styx.
The decorous Panton Street of to-day was another very sink of iniquity. Night houses abounded, and Rose Burton’s and Jack Percival’s were sandwiched between hot baths of questionable respectability and abominations of every kind. Stone’s Coffee House was the only redeeming feature, and, as it existed in those days, was a very spring of water in a dry land.
But it must not be assumed that, although Percival’s was a “night house,” it was to be classed with its next door neighbours. Here the sporting fraternity radiated after all important events; here Heenan lodged after his fight with Tom King; and one can see him—as if it were yesterday—receiving his friends and backers on the following Sunday with his handsome features incrusted in plaster of Paris and smiling as if he had been awarded the victory he was undoubtedly choused out of.
But perhaps no spot has undergone more structural and social change than Arundel Place, an unpretentious court that leads out of Coventry Street. At one corner now stands a tobacconist’s shop, and at the other an eating bar, where hunks of provender are devoured at the counter, and cocoa retailed at a penny a bucket; whilst the court itself is practically absorbed by the Civil Service Stores, through whose windows “gentlemen” may be seen weighing out coffee, and “bald-headed noblemen” tying up parcels.
In the sixties, however, the place had considerably more vitality—after nightfall. On the eastern side stood a public-house of unenviable repute, owned by an ex-prizefighter, to which the fraternity congregated in considerable numbers; whilst at the end furthest from Coventry Street was a coffee-house, whose open portals discovered nothing more dangerous than an oil-clothed floor, chairs and tables over its surface, and an unassuming counter for the supply of moderate refreshments. During the day a spirit of repose pervaded the entire area; the public-house appeared to be doing little or no trade, whilst the coffee-house was chiefly remarkable for the persistent scrubbing and emptying of buckets that went on, as a mechanical charwoman, in the inevitable bonnet, oscillated to and fro between the door and the pavement. But for the old woman, and an occasional apparition in a startling check costume that flashed in and out between the coffee-house and the pot-house, one might have imagined the entire place was uninhabited, so subdued and reposeful was everything.
Tall and angular by nature, with skin-tight overalls and a coat the colour of a Camden Town ’bus, Jerry Fry was the undisputed landlord of the unpretentious coffee-house, and recognised director of a gang of sharpers who made human nature their study, and scoured the highways and byways nightly in search of profitable quarry. Not that the above costume was the sole one in Jerry’s extensive wardrobe, which boasted amongst others the huge cape and whip associated with rustic drivers, a clerical outfit, evening clothes, and a white tie the size of a poultice. Jerry as a strategist was without a rival, and it requires but little effort of imagination to assume that he has turned in his grave times innumerable in the contemplation of the sorry sharpers of the present era who have usurped his functions in the despoiling of their species. Any promising subject that appeared on the horizon immediately became the object of Jerry’s personal solicitude, and once the victim’s besetting sin was accurately diagnosed, no time was lost in placing a specialist on his unsuspecting track. It was not long after the arrival of the “Line” garrison in London that George Hay was focussed as an inveterate gambler, and as the “Landed Gentry” vouched for his being the eldest son of a county magnate, no time was lost in laying lines in every direction in the hope of catching him. Not that play—in which he was by no means an expert—was his only delight; on the contrary, he excelled in every kind of manly sport, and could hold his own with the gloves with many a man who had the advantage of him in height and weight.
When in the country cards never entered his mind; in London, however, with the fascination ever before him, the temptation was irresistible, and the three fly-blown cards of a racecourse manipulator or chemin de fer at the Arlington held him like a vice whilst the fever was upon him.
It was a sultry evening in September when everybody (except four millions) was out of town that George and Bobby elected to stroll to the West End after an uneventful dinner at mess. Threading their way through the slums that abutted on the Tower, nothing worthy of record occurred till, casually stopping to light a cigar, they were accosted on the threshold of Leicester Square by a courteous individual who asked for a light.
George was nothing if he was not a gentleman, and without waiting to consider why the person should seek a light from him when gas jets were blazing outside every shop, he considerately acceded.
But the stranger apparently was of a sociable disposition, and persisted in hanging on to their skirts and essaying remarks on objects on their way.
“What have we here?” he inquired as, passing Arundel Place, a dense crowd outside the pot-house riveted his attention. “The fight, of course,” he continued, “the seconds and backers are squaring up, I expect. Will you step in, gentlemen, it’s all right, but I’d better perhaps go in and inquire, they all know me; one minute, gents, by your leave,” and he disappeared into the crowded court.
“Shall we go in, George,” inquired Bobby, “or have a peep at the ‘Pic’? D— it! we must have some sport after twenty-four hours of the Tower.”
“Go in? Of course we will if there’s anything to be seen,” answered George; “I’m half-inclined to shake up my liver by arranging with Ben Caunt to resume my ‘studies’ at the Tower, and there’s one consolation, Bobby, it’s not as expensive as the Arlington, and we haven’t much to lose if they do pick our pockets.”
So summed up the situation Solon George, as their cicerone made his reappearance.
“Right, gents; step this way,” intimated the stranger; “but we had best wait awhile in the coffee-house yonder; leave it to me to give you the tip,” and without further ado they all entered the hostelry.
George, with all his common sense, was a very tyro in the rudiments of the unwritten law of knavery, and certainly no match for a shrewd London rascal; to enter into conversation with an absolute stranger appeared nothing extraordinary to him, and when a punching match was the basis of the acquaintance, and the chance of meeting certain leading—if illiterate—lights of the fraternity the prospect, conventionalism with him was an infinitesimal quantity, and he entered into the sport with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy.
“But why here?” inquired George, as they found themselves the sole occupants of the oilclothed room.
“Wait a bit, gents, they’ll come presently,” replied their cicerone; “I’ve given them the office, but they’re a bit busy just now settling up the scores for this morning, maybe.” And then he proceeded with what purported to be a personal description of the fight, looking frequently at a huge clock that ticked in the corner, and fervently hoping that Jerry would not be long.
Bobby meanwhile was champing his bit, and bewailing the time that might so much more profitably have been passed at the “Pic,” when a man in the immaculate disguise of a coachman walked hurriedly through the room. Peering into every corner, and examining crevices that a cat would have been incommoded in, he hurriedly approached our heroes, and asked excitedly whether they had seen a gentleman such as he described. Without waiting for a reply, he next dropped his whip and rug on to a vacant chair, and whipping out a pack of cards, continued: “It drives me mad to think I should have lost such a stupid game; but I was drunk, gentlemen—forgive the admission—yes, drunk; but he has promised me my revenge here to-night,” and pulling out a watch the size of a frying-pan, he contemplated it as if wrapt in thought. Replacing it with a spasmodic jerk, he continued: “Just fancy, gentlemen, this was the simple thing; but I was drunk, alas!—happy thought, ’ware drink,” and he gave a halloa such as foxhunters give on the stage, and proceeded to rattle three cards.
“Now, gentlemen, just for fun, which is the knave?” And Bobby, without a check, selected the correct cardboard. “Again, gentlemen, if you please, it will bring my hand into practice; shall we say half a crown? Thanks!” and again, with the accuracy of a truffle dog, Bobby discovered the card.
Again and again was this farce perpetrated, till Bobby’s winnings amounted to £4, and in his generosity he seemed loth to take advantage of such a greenhorn.
George meanwhile had caught the infection and bet and won as the stakes were made higher.
“Five pounds for once, gentlemen? I think I’ve earned my revenge,” pleaded Jerry, and fickle Fortune as if of the same opinion, decided in his favour.
Any one but the veriest tyro would have deemed this a favourable opportunity to stop, but George, as we have seen, had his own ideas of honour; the fever, moreover, was upon him, and, producing the contents of his own pocket, he again backed his opinion.
Gone in a twinkling, he next turned to Bobby, and the lad at once proceeded to supply him with his cash. Meanwhile their original acquaintance whispered imploringly to George to have done with it, but he might as well have spoken to the winds. “D— it, man, if I’m cleaned out of ready money I’ve still my ring and sleeve links; go on, sir,” he continued to Jerry. “I’ll bet my jewellery against a tenner.”
But fortune was still against our friends, and divested of his trinkets, in his turn he appealed to his opponent.
“Come, sir, I gave you your revenge, now give me mine, and anything I lose I’ll give you my cheque for.”
But Jerry was of a practical nature; cheques were occasionally stopped, and officious detectives might come to hear of it, so he decided to decline the tempting offer, but promised revenge on the morrow. The first stranger meanwhile came to the rescue. “I know you’re a gentleman,” he whispered, “and mayn’t like to lose those things, why not offer the gent to redeem them to-morrow?”
The idea seemed a happy one, and the party dispersed, on the understanding that at twelve the following day they should all meet at the Pump in Leicester Square.
But our heroes were not yet done with casual acquaintances, as passing along the Haymarket they were again accosted by a man. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” was the abrupt introduction, “I saw you parting company just now with two well-known sharpers; I’m Detective Bulger of the police, may I ask if you’ve been robbed?”
And then the painful truth began to dawn upon the victims that two officers in Her Majesty’s Service had been overreached at a game that a Blue-coat boy would have jibbed at.
The sequel is briefly told. The next day the appointment was punctually kept by all except Jerry, who, oddly enough, deputed another man to explain that he was sending off an urgent telegram, and had requested him (if the coast was clear) to conduct our friends to him.
Followed at a respectful distance by the detective, the jewellery was duly redeemed; but just as Jerry was pocketing the money, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he found himself in the clutches of Sergeant Bulger.
George refused to prosecute; his money was however, restored to him, and binding Bobby to secrecy, he thus escaped the chaff that would have cleaved to him for life.
The “Kitchen” was situated in St. Martin’s Court, abutting on Castle Street, now known as Charing Cross Road; adjoining it was a famous à la mode house kept by two brothers, each of whom could turn the scale at thirty stone. It was explained by way of accounting for this extraordinary freak of nature that, by never leaving the establishment and inhaling the greasy fumes from night to morning, their pores were constantly imbibing from a thousand sources the oleaginous vapours that conduce to obesity; be that as it may, the entire front of an upper chamber had to be removed to allow of the usual formalities of Christian burial when one of the firm died, and it is doubtful if the place was not afterwards demolished.
Here nightly were to be found actors since known to fame; journalists such as Horace (Pony) Mayhew and his brother Gus, George Augustus Sala—then writing to measure—and a sprinkling of golden calves with theatrical proclivities. The refreshments, of course, left nothing to be desired on the score of satisfying, and à la mode gravy in pewter pots stimulated many a jaded reveller during the small hours of the morning.
It was on our way to this refined hostelry that we on one occasion met Polly Amherst, and the sequel was so absurd that I give the story special prominence.
Polly was a delightful companion. Just down from Oxford, he was destined to take up a fat family living in the neighbourhood of Sevenoaks, but being seen one night in a bird’s eye tie amid the revels of Cremorne, and the birds of the air having carried it to his bishop, it was pointed out to the worthy fellow that free scope for his undoubted talent was impossible in the Church, and so posterity was the loser of much pulpit oratory that would doubtless have thrilled the present generation.
As we entered the “Kitchen” Jack Coney—a promoted scene-shifter lately come into prominence by his marriage with Rose Burton—was retailing to the assembled revellers the spot which had been kept secret to the last moment where a big fight was to take place in the morning.
“Of course, I’ll go,” replied George Hay to someone’s inquiry.
“I’m too seedy,” continued Bobby, who had not spared the punch.
“I, too,” added Oliver.
“I should like to, but I daren’t,” chimed in Polly. And so a detachment was added to the contingent that were piloted by the irrepressible Coney.
Bobby during the past night had, alas! not followed the paths of sobriety, and so it came to pass that the blind agreed to lead the blind, and Polly Amherst and Harry Turner (a genial comedian) agreed to escort him to the Hummums.
Passing Hart’s Coffee House we, of course, “looked in,” and, sure enough, there was Hastings and a dozen boon companions; but the night air had been too much for many of us; we saw a dozen Marquises and only one boon companion, so taking the wisest resolve we had taken that night, we bade each other farewell on the steps of the Hummums, and proceeded to our virtuous couches.
Arising late on the following afternoon, a circumstance occurred that drove everything else out of my head, and to the elucidation of this inexplicable coincidence are to be attributed the monotonous details I have just described.
It was towards three on the following afternoon, when, having completed a refreshing toilette, my left arm was entering my sleeve that I became aware of a foreign substance that bulged to an abnormal extent the inner pocket of my coat; proceeding to examine the cause with that self-possession for which I was so justly conspicuous, my equanimity was considerably tried by coming into contact with a watch; extracting it carefully, I discovered that it was attached to a massive chain adorned with numerous seals and lockets. Surprised, I continued my investigations, my surprise turning to anxiety as a second watch (a repeater) made its appearance. By this time thoroughly alarmed, I dived again, and out came three or four rings and a purse stuffed full of sovereigns. Fairly staggered, my sang-froid left me, and reeling towards the bed, I endeavoured to solve the mystery.
Had I in my cups robbed a jeweller’s? Had I picked somebody’s pocket? Had I had a row, and after the fray put on my opponent’s coat? But every argument failed to elucidate the mystery, and my thoughts wandered to such an extent that in it all I saw a distinct judgment on my back-sliding.
To make matters worse, I knew not where Amherst or Harry Turner resided, and so resolved to have breakfast and await developments.
But breakfast under such circumstances was a sorry farce; every gulp of tea appeared to choke me, and in every waiter who approached I recognised a constable on the track of the burglar. Flesh and blood could not long stand this strain, and my pent-up feelings received a still greater shock by the waiter thrusting a card into my hand. “Ask him in,” I replied, and Harry Turner, with a face a yard long, hurriedly shuffled towards me.
“An awful thing has occurred,” began the unhappy mummer, “and I’ve come to you in the hope that you’ll be able to explain it. Look at this,” he continued, as he proceeded to untie a bundle. “When I was putting on my coat just now I found two watches, a cheque-book, a ring, and a packet of papers. Can you recollect what we did? By Gad, I’m half disposed to go and give myself up. One would get off lighter then, perhaps.”
Whilst we were discussing ways and means, a second card was brought to me, and again the waiter was requested to “show him in,” and then Polly Amherst came upon the scene, the ghost of his former self, pale and haggard, but otherwise externally irreproachable as regards white tie and High Church clerical attire. “Billy,” he began, “a terrible thing has occurred, and I’ve come here in the hopes that you will be able to set my mind at rest. Conceive my horror, when opening my eyes this afternoon, to see at my bedside a watch, a pile of sovereigns, and a valuable ring. What silly jokes did we indulge in last night, old man? ’Pon my word as I came here I shuddered as I passed a policeman. The matter can’t rest here. I’ve locked the accursed things in my portmanteau, and now what’s to be done?”
But the consolation he received from his dismal companions in no way tended to allay his anxiety. “We have neither of us the smallest conception of how we became possessed of these things,” replied Turner, “and it seems to me our only course is to walk round to Bow Street and voluntarily give ourselves up.”
Our teeth had now begun to chatter, and, hoping against hope, we agreed it would be best to await George Hay’s return, and act as he should advise.
Three weary hours later, George Hay, Oliver Montagu, the irrepressible Jack Coney, and Harry Ashley (afterwards of Pink Dominoes fame), returned from the fight, and it having been arranged that the three latter should be permitted to depart before the culprits broke the news to George, a magnum was called for by way of a stirrup cup.
“By the way, Polly,” remarked Montagu, “I may as well relieve you of my gimcracks, and, by Gad, it’s as well we didn’t take them. Did you ever see a rougher lot?” he added, turning to George.
And then a cloud rose from off the countenances of Polly, Harry Turner, and myself; the magnum that had hitherto tasted like jalap appeared as nectar to our lips, and we began to recollect that prior to leaving the “Kitchen” our comrades had entrusted their valuables to us.
We never told our terrible experience.
Before the Embankment came into existence, Salisbury Street and Cecil Street—where the hotel now stands—consisted for the most part of lodging houses. Overlooking the river, stairs led to shanties to which wherries were moored, whilst a verandah, running the entire length of the house in which I once had rooms, enabled shade and muddy breezes to be indulged in during the hot summer evenings. At the side could be seen the arches known as Fox Hill, which, still visible from the (now) Tivoli Music Hall, were in those days capable of being traversed for a considerable distance.
In ancient days the haunt of smugglers and desperadoes, it had not lost its popularity with the lawless classes even in the more modern long-ago sixties, and weird stories of murders that had never been discovered, and crimes of every description, were currently reported as of almost daily occurrence in the impenetrable “dark arches of the Adelphi.” No sane person would have ventured to explore them unless accompanied by an armed escort, and even Wych Street, Newcastle Street, and Holywell Street were “out of bounds” after nightfall.
The dead body of a female having one morning been discovered, it was currently reported that the assassin was in concealment in the “dark arches;” the police—from information received—were convinced of it, and the authorities, having a mind to probe the mystery, organised search parties, which scattered amongst the labyrinths, and eventually emerged no nearer an elucidation than before.
Passages, it was asserted, led to various exits on the river bank, and extended in an easterly direction to Whitefriars, all of which in later years have been gradually filled up till now nothing more pernicious than a peaceful beer-store a few yards from the entrance and an occasional board-man who ought to be traversing the street, give signs of vitality to what was once a sink of iniquity.
It is refreshing after this weird retrospect to turn to the modern Adelphi Terrace, where years ago I participated in many enjoyable reunions. Here each Sunday night such lively company as the late Kate Vaughan and her husband, Freddy Wellesley, Billy Hill, Marius, Florence St. John, Sweet Nell Hazel, and other vestals congregated; whilst the “Savages” have made it their headquarters, and can lean over the balcony without risking typhoid, and eventually cross the Strand at no greater risk than an invitation to air their French.
And the changes in the Adelphi suggest the changes that have taken place in other historical resorts, than which nothing has been more marked than in the Burlington Arcade. Here every afternoon, between six and seven, throngs composed of all that made up the pomp and vanity of this wicked world disported themselves. Here Baby Jordan and “Shoes”—since become the mother of a present-day baronet—Nelly Fowler, and Nelly Clifton held court with their attendant squires and lords of every degree. Here at seven the entire mass surged towards the Blue Posts in Cork street and indulged in champagne and caviare toast. Here about the same time Hastings, Fred Granville, and roysterers of a more pronounced type looked in for a breakfast of “fixed bayonets” by way of appetite for the dinner at Limmer’s that most of them would barely touch. Here (in Cork Street) a little head might be seen cautiously peeping over the blinds at No. 17 in the hope that some eligible client might seek pecuniary relief before entering on the night’s enjoyment. Here in later years the same head, but transformed into the appearance of a Fitzroy storm signal, might be seen more shiny, more haughtily posed, dictating terms to Lairds of Aboyne and owners of Derby favourites. After which the rich man died, and the shekels made by usury have gone (as was only right) to bolster up impecunious subalterns and Christian hospitals.
In the palmy days of Paddy Green, Evans’s provided perhaps the only tavern where a weary sojourner might sit in peace and realise that he was surrounded by comfort and tone. Hovering near the door was the genial old proprietor, with white hair and rubicund face, a smile for every one, and capable of passing anywhere for a chairman of directors at least. Around the walls were the priceless oil paintings belonging to the Garrick, deposited temporarily after the fire that made havoc with that historical building; whilst covering the entire floor were tables where the best (and the best only) of chops, steaks, mealy potatoes, and welsh rabbits, with wines of heaven knows what age, beer, and spirits were procurable.
Nor must the old establishment be confounded with the modern fungus that continued its name under the pilotage of an enterprising Jew, and eventually got closed by the police for developing into an ordinary night house.
To see a genuine old English waiter crumble a huge potato with a spotless napkin creates a pang when one thinks of his German and Italian prototype asking “’Ow many breads you have?” and on being told “one,” looking as if he could swear you had had two.
And no accounts were discharged at the time—sit, as one might, from 10 to 2 a.m., and eat and drink variously, and as often as one pleased—all the reckoning was one’s own as one imparted it on leaving to the most courteous of butlers at the door.
And then the stage, what comparison is possible between the healthy singing of glees and solos one then heard and the elephantine wit of the modern serio-comic? And poor old Van Joel, who, as the programme explained, was retained on account of past services, retailing cigars in the hall and obtaining fancy prices for “Auld Lang Syne”—how a lump comes even now into one’s knotty, hoary old throat at the recollections of these long-agos!
Monotonous as all this may sound to the modern up-to-date sightseer, there was a homeliness and an indescribable delight associated with Evans’s that surely the recording angel will not fail to remember when he sums up the sins of the sixties.
Across the market, again, was a hostelry, long since disappeared except in name, “The Hummums,” and who shall find to-day such rare old English fare, served on silver by the most typical of English waiters?
The rooms may have been dingy, the smoking-room a little stuffy, but the spirit of Bob Garnham must surely hover over the modern imitation that has arisen on its ashes and assumed everything but its indescribable comfort.
The approaches to Evans’s after dark were by no means free of danger in the long-ago sixties. The market porters, who for the most part were cut-purses and pugilists, were apt to waylay solitary foot passengers whilst awaiting the arrival of the vegetable vans, and I recollect an Uxbridge farmer named Hillyard entering the hotel one night with a broken wrist after being waylaid and robbed in Russell Street.
The old Olympic, hard by, was another nasty place to leave after the performance, except in a cab. Within fifty yards the alleys bristled with footpads, and any foolhardy pedestrian traversing the dimly-lighted Drury Lane or Newcastle Street was pretty sure not to reach civilisation without a very rough experience from the denizens of Vinegar Yard and Betterton Street.
The Forty Thieves were an organised bevy of sirens, whose headquarters were the Seven Dials, and whose mission it was to entice, decoy, and cajole any fool who had the temerity to listen to their cooing.
The Clock House on the Dials, now an apparently well-conducted pot-house, was in those days a hotbed of villainy. The king of pickpockets there held his nightly levée, and the half-dozen constables within view would no more have thought of entering it than they would the cage of a cobra.
If a man lost a dog the reward was offered there; if one’s watch disappeared it was there that immediate application was desirable; and if the emissary was not “saucy” he might with luck save it from the melting-pot that simmered all day and all night within fifty feet of Aldridge’s horse repository.
The walk through the Dials after dark was an act none but a lunatic would have attempted, and the betting that he ever emerged with his shirt was 1,000 to 60. A swaggering ass named Corrigan, whose personal bravery was not assessed as highly by the public, once undertook for a wager to walk the entire length of Great Andrew Street at midnight, and if molested to annihilate his assailants.
The half-dozen doubters who awaited his advent in the Broadway were surprised about 1 a.m. to see him running as fast as he could put legs to the ground, with only the remnant of a shirt on him; after recovering his breath and his courage he proceeded to describe the terrific slaughter he had inflicted on an innumerable number of assailants. A scurrilous print that flourished about this time in its next issue narrated the incident in verse by: “Oh, pray for the souls that Corrigan kilt,” etc. Corrigan, it may be added, was an Irishman, and not a particularly veracious one.
Any list of queer fish would be incomplete without introducing the name of Bill Holland, who, although he struggled on till the eighties, was in his zenith in the sixties. Rosherville being too far, and Vauxhall having disappeared, the North Woolwich Gardens came into favour with those who sought recreation of a less boisterous kind than that at Cremorne.
Bill Holland had all his life been a showman; amusing and full of exaggerated anecdote, he had catered for the public from time immemorial; every monstrosity had at some period passed through his hands; every woman over seven feet, and every man under four, had appeared under his auspices: the tattooed nobleman, the dog-faced man, the whiskered lady—all recognised him as master at one period or another. He had “directed” the Alhambra, the Surrey, the Blackpool Gardens, and, in later years, the Battersea Palace, and signally failed with each; but, sphinx-like, he invariably reappeared irreproachably groomed and waxed, with some confiding creature ready to finance him. His constant companion was Joe Pope, an abnormally fat little man, and a brother of the Q.C. who not long ago died. It was the brains of this obese little man, in conjunction with Bill Holland’s assurance, that kept the wheels going for over thirty years.
Across the river at Greenwich were the historical Trafalgar and Ship Taverns, where the famous fish dinners, served in the very best style, were procurable. Only fish, but prepared and served in irreproachable form; beginning with boiled flounder, one progressed by seven stages of salmon in various forms, filleted sole, fried eel, each with its special sauce, till whitebait plain and whitebait devilled found the wayfarer well-nigh exhausted.
It was only then that the folly of ordering dinner on a hungry stomach became manifest, and when the duckling that the smiling waiter had suggested made its appearance it was almost with tears that one turned away from its pleading savour and reluctantly confessed one’s inability to do it justice. And then the coffee on the lawn, and the scrambling for coppers amongst the water arabs in the surging mud below, were adjuncts that never failed in the completing of enjoyable evenings now for ever gone.
Why the resort went out of fashion seems an enigma. Forty, thirty, aye, twenty years ago both taverns were the almost daily resorts, during the summer and autumn, of the highest in the land. In one private room would be heard Her Majesty’s judges, cracking jokes as if they were incapable of judicial sternness; in another legislators by the score, who had travelled down by special steamer to eat and drink as if no such things as fiscal questions existed; whilst in the public room cosy couples dined, and roysterers smoked and joked, and yet all has passed like a pleasant dream. The Trafalgar has long since been pulled down, the Ship, if not closed, is very much changed for the worse, and Londoners swelter annually with the patience of Job, and are apparently indifferent to the delightful resorts they have lost.
It was during a May meeting, when rural deans and other provincial Church luminaries were staying at Haxell’s and the Golden Cross Hotels, that Satan prompted certain roysterers to raid these establishments when the reverend lodgers might be supposed to have retired to their respective closets. It was Nassau Clarke—a subaltern in the Life Guards—who conceived the brilliant idea, and collecting Jacob Burt, Charlie Buller, Lennon, and a few other well-known roysterers, we proceeded towards the Strand. The joke, if such it may be called, was to change every pair of boots reposing peacefully outside the various doors, and the development—which none of us was likely to witness—was the scare that would ensue at 8 a.m., when sober ecclesiastics might be expected to swear at the prospect of being late for their platform prayer at 9. Charlie Buller in those days was reputedly the handsomest man in the Household Brigade; an excellent bruiser, and not slow of wrath, he was, moreover, a desirable companion when altercations were likely to occur.
Lennon, on the other hand, was not a cockney, and only up on leave, but willing to assist in anything original or exciting. Not many months previously he had been awarded a brevet-majority and the Victoria Cross for a conspicuous act of bravery at the Taku Forts. I lost sight of him for years, and when I again met him he had left the Army and fallen apparently on bad times. In consideration of his past services, he was nominated years later for a Knight of Windsor; but the poor old fellow was “not himself” when he went down to be installed, and the appointment was cancelled. He was an excellent actor in comic parts, and has a son, I believe, on the London stage.
The winter of ’61 was an unusually severe one, and the river that washed the walls of the grim old Tower was covered with a thick coating of ice, which in its turn afforded a convenient asylum for the dead cats and other refuse that drifted upon it from the neighbourhood of the adjoining wharves. Locomotion in those pre-Embankment and underground railway days was not so convenient as now, and as cabs had practically ceased running by reason of the mountains of snow intervening between the Tower and the Monument, I had, together with a few boon companions, decided that the time had come for a migration, and went in for “first leave.”
And the choice we had made was by no means an unhappy one, for the weather that had made existence in London well nigh intolerable had driven the woodcocks into the coverts, and we all declared that a week of such surroundings would compensate for all the vicissitudes we had undergone from Kangaroos, Tower, and five o’clock bacon and eggs in London. The “route,” too, had come, and we reasoned, not unwisely, that the journey to Ireland was at best an unpleasant one, and that if we delayed, 1000 to 60 were by no means extravagant odds that we might get no leave at all.
It was about a fortnight after this that, having returned to grimy old Lane’s, I received a characteristic letter from my old chum, George Hay. “Most of my time” (he wrote) “is spent in accompanying the old squire on his various peregrinations over the estate, and by pointing out various agricultural developments that were absolutely necessary, or structural alterations that would improve the holdings. He leads me to understand that my place was on the spot I would one day inherit, and the fitting moment would arrive after I got my company. ‘D— it, sir,’ he would continue, ‘in my time no eldest son remained longer than a year in the army unless he was prepared to pay £10,000 over regulation for the regiment as Cardigan did.’
“‘But in the infantry, sir,’ I suggested, ‘things are different. Promotion is slower, and I can’t help thinking that the bonds that unite officers to the regiment are stronger than is usually the case in the cavalry. But I see no prospect of my company till we are under orders for foreign service, and we shan’t be at the top of the roster for another two years at least.’
“‘I have nothing to say against the line, sir,’ he would reply, ‘except that your officers can rarely ride to hounds.’
“‘But surely, sir,’ I answered, ‘there are other virtues you will not deny to the linesman; in garrison towns they at all events appreciate hospitality, and don’t insult worthy folks by accepting their invitations only to turn them into ridicule. You may remember the story of a young puppy who replied to a kindly hostess by “The King’s never dance, and the King’s never sing,” and this in a regiment, forsooth, where every man-jack of them was a shopkeeper’s son, and which was known as the “Trades Union.”’”
Great excitement meanwhile prevailed at the Tower; the route had come, the mess was closed, and everybody was packing in preparation for an early departure for Ireland. Transports in those long-ago days were not the floating palaces inaugurated years later by the Indian troopers. Cranky steamers—whose principal industry was the transporting of pigs and cattle—were hurriedly chartered by the War Office, and with the men packed like herrings, and the junior officers billeted amongst the band instruments, regiments proceeded at five knots an hour from London to the Irish ports.
The Colonel, during these preparations, lost no opportunity of describing his experiences when last stationed in Dublin; how he and certain boon companions were within an ace of being tried for their lives for throwing into the Liffey an old watchman deposited in a sentry-box; how they started the “Pig and Whistle” in Sackville Street, run on lines that would shock you, virtuous reader; their nightly visits to the “Quane’s” Theatre, where Mikey Duff performed Hamlet, and declined to accede to the demands of the gallery for “Pat Molloy and the roising step” with the indignant retort: “D— yer oise, what do you expect for toppence;” the orgies of “Red bank” oysters at Burten Binden’s, and the dinners at the Bank of Ireland, when the regiment furnished the guard; how old Bill, after a drinking bout, would stamp through every corner of the guard-rooms, cursing at everything, and winding up by the consumption of half-a-dozen brandies and sodas, and “very different to what it was in the Peninsula!”
“Payther” Madden, too, was holding forth on what he would show them in Cark, if “plase the Lard the rigimint was quarthered in the ould station,” and went on to describe how Barny Magee “wad come on and sing at the Hole in the Wall with a gaythaar in his fist, looking for all the world like a hamstrung moke,” and how the gallery would shout, “For the love of dacency, Barny, dhrop yer concertina and pull up yer stockin’,” and how Mrs. Rooney, bless her soul, would pass yer the toime of day with that grace—so genteel loike, so obsarvent—as ye paid toll to go in, with: “God bless you, Carporal, it’s you that has the lip,” or ilse: “Go an wid ye, Carporal, for a flirrt that ye are.”
“A sort of bloomin’ sing-song,” suggested a cockney comrade, “but give me London, with ’er bloomin’ orange peel and hashfelt, with ’er boats down to North Woolwich, with yer gal on yer knee and a new clay in yer face; a pint of shrimps maybe, and a pint of ale down yer neck, and no bloomin’ guards.”
Amid these conflicting sentiments the regiment quitted the Tower.
And what a delightful station the Dublin of the sixties was; here Lord Carlisle as Lord-Lieutenant reigned supreme, and though compelled by usage to keep up the mock court, with its mock “Master of the Horse” and “Gentlemen at Large,” diffused hospitality like the fine old English gentleman he was.
Nightly the captain and subaltern of the Castle Guard were invited to the Viceregal table, during which the kind old man clinked glasses and invited his every guest to take wine with him. How His Excellency could retain his head after all these courtesies was once a marvel till it transpired that the huge decanter before him was the weakest brandy and water diluted to the exact colour of Amontillado. And then the whist that followed at sixpenny points, when His Excellency rigorously prevented his partner—and his partner only—from seeing every card in his hand. How refreshing it all was!
No contortions short of dislocating their necks could prevent his adversaries from taking advantage of the dishonest opportunity, for the old gentleman cracked jokes throughout the entire rubber, and claimed and paid his sixpences with the scrupulousness of a confirmed gambler.
Among the Viceregal staff were some inflated specimens of vice-flunkeydom. Foster, Master of Horse, whose death occurred lately, was reputed as not knowing one end of a horse from another, and never ventured on a purchase for the Viceregal stables, at Farrell’s or Sewell’s, unless fortified by the close proximity of Andy Ryan or some other horse-coper. Burke, a Gentleman at Large and an ex-colonel of militia, was another warrior of the offensive type, and I shall never forget the scene when a youngster of the 16th Lancers at one of the levées gave him a peremptory order when he was officially glued to the staircase, under pretence that he mistook him for a flunkey. But the matter was not to end there, and before the réveille had ceased blowing at Island Bridge he was waited upon by a fiery buckeen to demand satisfaction on behalf of Kornel Burke.
Captain Stackpool (everybody had a military title) was another Dublin curiosity. Member of Parliament for Ennis, he affected Dublin and the delights of the Unoited Service from one year’s end to the other. Dublin, he assured me, was the most “car-driving, tea-drinking, money-spending city in the world,” and he was not far wrong.
Lord Louth, who weighed eighteen stone, and stood five foot seven in his stockings, had served some years in a kilted regiment; but he, too, has long since been gathered to his fathers.
About this time an amusing incident occurred to Lord Louth. The very best of fellows, his vanity was insatiable, and only London-built clothes were good enough to set off his graceful figure.
In the 14th Hussars was a diminutive cornet who also patronised the same tailor as Louth, and both these dandies—as appeared later—had telegraphed on the same day for a pair of the most bewitching trousers in preparation for some social event to which they had both been invited. Conceive the consternation of the two recipients when at the last moment a pair of diminutive pants revealed themselves to the enraged peer, and a garment sufficiently voluminous to engulf three Deal boatmen reached the expectant cornet. This latter was known as the “Shunter” from the extraordinary talents he developed later as a gentleman rider, and still later as a hanger-on of Abingdon Baird.
One of the most brilliant surgeons that Ireland or any other country has ever produced was just coming into prominence in those long-ago days. Dr. Butcher, who in appearance resembled the portraits of Disraeli in his younger days, was known professionally to nearly every man in the garrison; of the most enthusiastic type, he thought nothing of producing two or three stones from his waistcoat pocket and exultantly explaining that he had that morning taken them from certain patients’ interiors, and nothing gave him greater offence than refusing to attend one of his private séances. But the most marvellous operation he ever performed was on Billy Deane, of the 4th Dragoon Guards, who, having consulted every specialist in Europe, appealed to Butcher to save his arm and enable him to remain in the service.
A fall whilst hunting had resulted in the disease of the elbow-bone of the left arm.
“Nothing but taking your arm off will save your life,” was the universal fiat.
“D— nonsense!” was Butcher’s retort, and he cut a square clean out of the elbow.
Within six months Billy’s bridle arm was stronger than the other.