A CRITICAL SITUATION.BY S. SMITH.
BY S. SMITH.
ASI was walking through one of the principal London streets the other day, on my way to fulfil a business engagement, my attention was attracted by one of those huge posters which plentifully besprinkle the walls of the city. In resounding tones of red, blue and bright vermilion, it called the attention of the public to the fact that the stirring sensational melodrama, of deep domestic interest, entitled “For Life or Death; or, the Grave’s Witness,” was then being performed to overflowing audiences at the Royal Lorne Theatre. Just above the printed announcement was a picture representing one gentleman apparently in the act of boring a hole in the floor with another gentleman’s head, and which I took to bear reference to the printed notification below.
My momentary curiosity satisfied, I turned to proceed on my way, when my eyes encountered those of a man standing by my side—a man whom I had not noticed before, and who might have been the very ghost of a sandwich man instead of a sandwich man in the flesh, so suddenly and quickly had he come upon me. Yet, there he unmistakably was, his tattered old frock-coat, once the pink of fashion, frayed at the edges, worn to shreds at the seams, and bulging at the elbows; the trousers darned and patched in a dozen different places, but now gone far beyond the last stage of repair; the patent-leather boots broken and down at heel, and almost soleless; the battered white hat, with black band round it, and the brim all but gone; the bulbous red nose, the trembling mouth and the bleary eyes that told their own tale. I stood for a moment staring at this sudden appearance without any particular reason, and he, in his turn, staring at me. The pause, awkward enough in all conscience, was of that character in which one of the parties feels impelled to make an observation of some kind in order to get decently away. Before I could open my lips, however, my companion anticipated me.
“Striking sort of picture, that,” he said, in a dry, husky voice, and with an apologetic kind of sniff.
“If coloring has anything to do with it, I should certainly say it was striking enough,” I replied.
“Ah!” he returned,“you seemed interested in it; but I’ll warrant you’re not half so interested in it as I am. There’s not a soul in all this city that understands that picture as I do. The worst of it is, when I once start looking I’m unable to leave it for thinking of what this play once did for me. Then the police have to move me on, and that gets me into trouble. Even if I would forget the past, I may not, for—look here!”—he pointed to the two boards slung over his shoulders as he spoke, and showed me the inscription, “For Life or Death,” in lightning zigzag letters.
“Many people stop to look at the posters here and elsewhere, but there is not one of them to whom it means what it does to me. To you and them it is only a picture badly designed, clumsily cut, and worse colored. To me it is the story of my life’s ruin. Perhaps you’ll wonder what I’m driving at. If you care to listen for a few moments I can tell you.” He glanced at the open doorway of one of the old city churches near at hand. “Come in here,” he said; “it’s quiet and shady, and when there’s no one about they sometimes let me go in there for a rest. You may like to hear what I have to tell, and I shall be glad to get these infernal boards off my shoulders for a few moments.”
Thoroughly interested already in spite of myself—perhaps more by the man’s manner than anything else—I followed him. Entering the porch, he took the boards off his shoulders and placed them against the wall, and taking his seat on the bench just inside the doorway, drew a pocket handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead with it.
“To begin with,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “let me tell you that my name is Edward Morton. Perhaps you will not believe me if I say that I was once upon a time—what of all things in the world do you think—a dramatic critic! Yes, it’s true. What is more, a dramatic criticism was the beginning and end of my downfall; and this is how it happened. It was about ten years ago, and soon after I started my journalistic career in the provinces, that I took a situation on one of our great daily papers—The Blunderer, to wit. This I had succeeded in obtaining through the influence of a friend at court, and, for a youngster just entering the profession, it was looked upon as an immense piece of good fortune. However that may be, up to town I came, and not being quite a fool, turned my chances to such good account that I was soon spoken of on all sides as ‘a promising young man.’ I might have gone on in this way, and ultimately attained to a bald head and a sub-editorship at fifty or so, but for doing two exceedingly foolish things. I made the acquaintance of Charlie Dashwood, and I fell desperately in love with a pretty actress, and one who was quite as clever and good as she was pretty—Lizzie Rayburn—you remember her? This Charlie Dashwood was a journalist like myself—a wild, harum-scarum fellow of the speculative sort—you’ve met his prototype, I daresay; always going off at a tangent, or breaking out in a fresh place when least expected; full of extravagant ideas about the undiscovered possibilities of the press; always vaporing about the reforms he intended to originate, if ever he should edit a paper of his own. I, at that time, admiring and looking up to Charlie, not only as the best of good fellows, which he really was, but as the very prince of journalists and an original genius, which, only too late, I have discovered he was not, firmly believed in and held to him in spite of the ridicule and chaff of older and wiser heads.
“At last, one day Charlie came to me at the office in a perfect frenzy of excitement with the news that he had just taken the management of a new weekly paper calledThe Bullseye, which would make its appearance the following week, and which had, as usual, been started to fill the not particularly noticed void. ‘We’re all full up with the exception of the dramatics, and Teddy my boy, you’re the very man! I know you have ideas of your own about the way that sort of thing should be done, and here’s the opportunity. Between us, we’ll make the paper the biggest “go” in London.’
“What Dashwood said was true. I had long possessed secret yearnings that way, which I had at times confided to Charlie. For a moment considerations of prudence came to my aid, and I ventured the mild suggestion of a doubt as to whether I was quite fitted for that line of work.
“‘Nonsense, my boy!’ said Charlie; ‘I know your proper capacity. You’re sure to make a hit.’ It was a curious fact that Charlie possessed the most remarkable intuitive faculty for discovering everybody’s proper capabilities except his own.
“‘Besides,’ he added, ‘think of Lizzie!’
“That settled it. Without further ado I closed with the offer, and a fortnight later saw me installed as dramatic critic ofThe Bullseye, with the title of that publication inscribed on my cards underneath that ofThe Blunderer. The plan of operation I proceeded to act upon was this: I hadlong had a wholesome contempt for that class of dramatic critics forever hanging round stage doors and hotel bars, and drinking with managers and actors, so I resolved to set an example in the opposite direction by keeping religiously aloof from all association with the profession—with one exception. This was Lizzie, who insisted on receiving her little paragraph of two or three lines regularly every week, and with whom I spent each Sunday afternoon and evening at her father’s place in Twickenham, whither he had retired to spend the rest of his days, free from the smoke of Aldgate and the cares of the grocery business. There had once been some talk of a Mr. Loydall, a huge, beetle-browed, hoarse-voiced tragedian, who played heavy lead to Lizzie’s juveniles at the Olympian, but he soon found out that he had no chance with me, and after one or two tussles retired from the battle, leaving me to walk over the course at my leisure.
“As you will guess, matters were pretty well settled between Lizzie and me, and we obtained old Rayburn’s consent to our marriage whenever theBlunderer’smanagement should recognize my merits sufficiently to advance my salary, and enable me to take Lizzie away from the stage.The Bullseye, contrary to everybody’s expectations—everybody, that is, outside the office—showed signs of becoming a pronounced success. My dramatic criticisms was soon one of the leading features of the journal. I had always had a notion that the withering, sarcastic style of writing was best suited to me, and this was the line I took, with such effect, that at times it became difficult to find out whether I had been praising or ‘slating’ a piece or an actor. Some people were unkind enough to say that they would prefer the latter process to the former. Needless to say that, as the power and influence of the paper increased, I soon became an object of hatred and dread to the whole profession. This only tickled my vanity the more, and I would strut along Fleet Street and the Strand of a morning meeting the scowls of passing ‘pros.’ with a stare of supercilious indifference.
“One night, entering my club at the usual hour, just before starting for the Lorne Theatre, where a new piece, entitled ‘For Life or Death,’ was to be produced that evening, I found a telegram lying for me in the rack. It was from Lizzie’s mother, telling me that Lizzie had been seized with a dangerous illness that very morning, and begging that I would proceed to the house at once. For a moment I was in a serious dilemma. At all hazards I must see Lizzie that night, yet it was imperative that I should attend the first night show at the Lorne, having for that special occasion undertakenThe Blunderer’snotice in place of the regular man, who was absent through indisposition.
“Then an idea struck me as I caught sight of Scrubby, the dramatic critic ofThe Scorcher, at the other end of the room, already preparing to leave. Scrubby was a reliable man, I knew, and the best available for the purpose I had in my mind. Crossing over to where he was, I showed him the telegram, and explained my difficulty.
“‘Nothing easier, my boy,’ he exclaimed, clapping me on the back. ‘Trust to me. I’m going down to the show, and will leave you a program here, marked with my notes, on my way to the office. If you’re back here by half-past ten, you’ll find it waiting. Then you can scribble your notices for the two papers from my notes, and send them in in the usual way.’
“Warmly shaking him by the hand, I accepted his offer, and hastened away to Twickenham. When I reached the house I found my darling already delirious in the first stages of a high fever, and calling for me. I remained by her side, holding her hand in mine and soothing her as best I could until she had fallen off into a fitful doze. Then I stole quietly away, whispering to Mrs. Rayburn that I would return as soon as my business in town was concluded.
“When I got back to the club I found, as I expected, the program lying in the rack, inside an envelope addressed to me. Scrubby’s analysis of the production, play and acting, was distinctly unfavorable, his marginal notes having such a bitterly acrid flavor that I concluded it must all have been very bad indeed; and so I followed suit with good interest, cutting up everything and everybody concerned in the most unmerciful manner. The notices written, I put them into separate envelopes, the one addressed toThe Blunderer, the other toThe Bullseye, and sent them to the offices by the club messenger. This done, I went back to Twickenham.
“Returning to town the following morning, almost the first person I met was Charlie Dashwood. I made to speak to him, when, to my utter bewilderment, he stopped me short with a motion of his hand,looked me full in the face, and slowly drew a copy of that morning’sBullseyefrom his pocket. Opening it, he pointed to my criticism of the production of ‘For Life or Death,’ at the Lorne Theatre, and held it up close to my eyes, then, deliberately turning his back upon me, passed on without uttering a syllable. I stared after him in a kind of daze as he rapidly disappeared. What on earth could he mean? What could he be driving at? In all my experience of him I had never known him to act so strangely. Could he be going off his head, or was I going off mine, or what?
“If I wanted an explanation I had not long to wait for one. As I entered the office, the hall-keeper handed me a letter, the superscription of which I recognized as that of the editor. I opened the letter with an unaccountable trembling at the fingertips. What I found inside was a check for three months’ salary, with a notification to the effect that in consequence of my great success in having that morning madeThe Blundererthe laughing stock of all London, the proprietors considered it due recognition of my talents that I should not enter the office again. For explanation I was referred to the enclosed cuttings from that day’s daily newspapers. I lifted one of the slips from out of the envelope, and what then met my eyes caused me to stagger back speechless and breathless against the wall, for there in that brief announcement of the postponement at the last moment of ‘For Life or Death,’ I saw the evidence of the horrible treachery of which I had been a victim. The evidence of my own ruin, utter and irremediable, stared me in the face. I had actually written a detailed report and criticism of an audience which had never assembled, of actors who had never appeared, of a piece which had never been produced!”
******
“What need is there for me to tell you more, when you can guess the rest for yourself? You don’t want to hear that I and the papers with which I had been connected became the by-word and scoff of England, and thatThe Bullseyein particular never survived the shock. Nor do you need to be told that the few hundred enemies whom I had contrived to raise around me by my exceeding smartness turned the story in all ways so as to tell to my disadvantage, or that my journalistic career, which meant my livelihood, was practically at an end, if you can understand the charitable eyes with which an editor would be apt to look upon that kind of mistake. Whatever I tried, wherever I went, London or the provinces, it was always the same—the black shadow pursued me and closed every door in my face. Lizzie, of all the world, was the only one who clung to me in my trouble, and insisted on carrying out her promise and marrying me in the teeth of her parents, who threw her off when they found her bent on allying herself to a pauper. She struggled on by my side for two years, comforting and sustaining me in our bitterest adversity with her love and faith, until one day she died in my arms, and the light of my life went out. Then, having nothing else in the world to cling to, I clung to the drink the while it dragged me down, down, down to what I am.
“One thing more I have to mention,” said the sandwich man, as he rose from his seat and proceeded to hang the boards over his shoulders again; “it was one day some months after the events described that I met Scrubby. ‘I can’t for the life of me understand how you came to fall into that terrible blunder,’ he said, ‘especially after the note I left for you, telling how we had all gone down to the theatre on a wild-goose chase, only to find that the piece was postponed until the following week.’
“‘Note! Left for me by you!’ I ejaculated.
“‘Yes!—No! now I come to think of it, I didn’t leave the note. I wanted to go down to the Parthenon to see the new burlesque, but I gave it to a man who said he would be passing the club and would hand it in. Let me see. Ah! I have it now—you know him—Loydall, the Olympian heavy lead.’”
End of Article