per week would be near the mark. After that, the rest would be easy. I should go on for some months, perhaps a year, without making any marked sensation. Then my opportunity would come. A new play would be produced, in which there would be some minor part, not considered of any importance, but which in my hands (I had just read the history of “Lord Dundreary,” and believed every word of it) would become the great thing in the play, and the talk of London.
I should take the town by storm, make the fortune of my manager, and be the leading actor of the day. I used to dwell on the picture of the night when I should first startle the world. I could see the vast house before me with its waves of wild, excited faces. I could hear their hoarse roar of applause ringing in my ears. Again and again I bowed before them, and again and again the cheers burst forth, and my name was shouted with waving of hats and with bravos.
I did not write to a manager, though, after all. A friend who knew something about the subject said he wouldn’t if he were I, and I didn’t.
I asked him what course he would advise, and he said: “Go to an agent, and tell him just exactly what you want.” I went to two or three agents, and told them all just exactly what I wanted, and they were equally frank, and told me just exactly, what they wanted, which, speaking generally, was five shillings booking fee, to begin with. To do them justice, though, I must say that none of them appeared at all anxious to have me; neither did they hold out to me much hope of making my fortune. I believe my name is still down in the books of most of the agents – at least, I have never been round to take it off – and I expect that among them they will obtain for me a first-class engagement one of these days, when I am Bishop of London, or editor of a society paper, or something of that sort.
It was not for want of worrying that they did not do anything for me then. I was forever what I called “waking them up,” a process which consisted of studying the photos in the outer office for half an hour, and then being requested to call again. I had regular days for performing this duty, on the mornings of which I would say to myself: “Well, I must go round, and wake those agents up again to-day.” When I had said this, I felt quite important, and had some vague idea that I was overworking myself. If, on my way, I happened to meet a friend, I greeted him with “Haven’t got a minute, old man. I’m just going round to my agents,” and, scarcely stopping to shake hands, would rush off, leaving him with the impression that I had been telegraphed for.
But I never succeeded in rousing them to a full sense of their responsibilities, and, after a while, we began to get mutually tired of one another; especially as about this time I managed to get hold of two or three sham agents, – or rather, they managed to get hold of me, – who were much more pleased to see me. One of these, a very promising firm (though not quite so good at performing), had its offices then in Leicester Square, and consisted of two partners, one of whom, however, was always in the country on important business, and could never be seen. I remember they got four pounds out of me, for which they undertook, in writing, to obtain me a salaried London engagement before the expiration of a month. Just when the time was nearly up, however, I received a long and sympathetic letter from the mysterious traveling partner. This hitherto rusticating individual had, it appeared, returned to town the previous day, but only to discover a state of things that had shocked him beyond all expression. His partner, the one to whom I had paid the four pounds, besides defrauding nearly all the clients by taking money for engagements which he had no possible means of obtaining, had robbed him, the writer of the letter, of upward of seventy pounds, and had bolted, no one knew whither. My present correspondent expressed himself deeply grieved at my having been so villainously cheated, and hoped I would join him in taking proceedings against his absconding partner – when found. He concluded by stating that four pounds was an absurd sum to charge for obtaining such an engagement as had been held out to me, and that if I would give him (who really had the means of performing his promises) two pounds, he would get me one in a week, or ten days at the outside. Would I call and see him that evening? I did not go that evening, but I went the first thing the next morning. I then found the door locked, and a notice on it that all letters were to be left with the housekeeper. Coming downstairs, I met a man coming up, and asked him if he knew where either of the partners could be found. He said that he would give a sovereign to know, and that he was the landlord. I heard of the firm again the other day, and I believe it is still flourishing, though with the customary monthly change as to name and address. By the by, I wonder if the agent nuisance will ever be stamped out. Perhaps, now that education is compulsory, the next generation of actors and managers may be able to look after their own affairs, and so dispense with the interference of these meddlers on commission.
CHAPTER II. I Become an Actor
AMONG the sham agents must be classed the “Professors,” or “X. Y. Z.‘s,” who are always “able to place two or three” (never more than two or three: it would be no use four applying) “lady and gentlemen amateurs, of tall or medium stature, either dark or fair, but must be of good appearance, at a leading West-end theater, in good parts: Salaried engagement.” These gentlemen are appreciative, and very quick to discern real talent. They perceived mine in a moment. They were all of them sure that I should make a splendid actor, and I was just the man they wanted. But they were conscientious. They scorned to hide the truth, and told me of my faults without reserve. They said that I was full of promise, that I had the makings of a really great actor in me, but– and the remarkable part of it was that no two of them agreed as to that “but.” One said it was my voice. All that I wanted was to train my voice; then I should be perfect. Another thought my voice was a very fine one, but told me that my attitudes would not do at all. When my attitudes were a little more artistic, he could get me an engagement at once. A third, after hearing me recite a trifle or two from Macbeth, clapped me on shoulder, and insisted on shaking hands. There were tears almost in his eyes, and he appeared quite overcome. He said:
“My boy, you have got it in you. You are an actor! but – you want chic.”
I had not got the slightest notion what he meant. I said:
“You think so.”
He was sure of it. It would be impossible for me to succeed without chic: with chic, I should soon be famous. I determined, at any price, to get chic, and I deferentially put it to him, how he thought I could obtain it. He paused for a minute or so, evidently considering how it could be done, while I stood anxiously awaiting the result. Suddenly a bright idea seemed to strike him. He laid his hand confidentially on my arm, and in the impressive voice of a man who is communicating some extraordinary discovery, said: “Come to me, twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, say, from eight to nine.” Then he drew back a few paces to see what effect it had upon me.
I replied that I supposed he meant he would teach it me. He seemed struck with my intelligence, and acknowledged that that was just precisely what he did mean. He explained – always in the same strictly confidential manner, as though he would not for the world have any one else know – that he had had great experience in this particular branch of dramatic education. He had letters now in his desk from well-known actors and actresses, persons of the greatest eminence, acknowledging that they owed their present position entirely to his teaching, and thanking him for all that he had done for them. He would show me those letters, and he rose to do so. But no, on second thoughts he would not; they were written in confidence, and it would not be right for him to let others see them – not even me, whom he felt he could trust. To do him justice, he never did show those letters, either to me, or, as far as I could learn, to any one else, though I subsequently came across three or four people who expressed an earnest desire to see them.
But I was slowly and painfully gaining experience, and I went away without leaving the five-pound note which I – “as a man of business’” – ought to have seen was an absurdly small amount, his usual charge being twenty guineas; only, somehow or other, he had taken an interest in me, and felt sure I should reflect credit on his teaching, and so make it up to him in that way.
Another class that make a very good thing out of stage-struck asses, are the “managers” (?) who have vacancies for “an amateur lady and gentleman in a specially selected company.” They are men who evidently believe in the literal truth of Jaques’s opinion as to all men and women being players, for they put raw novices into the leading parts