THE IMPERIAL BAND
"Princess," said the Emperor, proudly, "we know everything."
And this was the man they call Willie-boy in London!
"Emperor," said I, "about the partition of China?"
"Well," said he, "what of the partition of China?"
"Is it to be partitioned?"
The Emperor's eye twinkled.
"We have not yet read the morning papers, Princess," he said. "But we judge, from what we saw in the society news of last night'sFliegende Choynal, that there will be a military ball at Peking shortly, and that the affair will end brilliantly with a—ah—a German."
"Good!" said I. "And you will really fight England?"
"Why not?" said he, with a smile at the looking-glass.
"Your grandmother?" I queried, with a slight shake of my head, in deprecation of a family row.
"She calls us Billie!" he cried, passionately. "Grandmothers can do a great many things, Princess, but no grandmother that Heaven ever sent into this world shall call us Billie with impunity."
"'WE ARE HAVING OUR PORTRAITS PAINTED'"
I was silent for a moment.
"Still, Emperor," I said, at last, "England has been very good to you. She has furnished you with all the coal your ships needed to steam into Chinese waters. Surely that was the act of a grandmother. You wouldn't fight her after that?"
"We will, if she'll lend us ammunition for our guns," said the Emperor, gloomily. "If she won't do that, then of course there will be no war. But, Princess, let us talk of other things. Have you heard our latest musical composition?"
I frankly confessed that I had not, and the imperial band was called up and ordered to play the Emperor's new march. It was very moving and made me somewhat homesick; for, after all, with all due respect to William's originality, it was nothing more than a slightly Prussianized rendering of "All Coons Look Alike to Me." However, I praised the work, and added that I had heard nothing like it in Wagner,which seemed to please the Emperor very much. I have since heard that as a composer he resents Wagner, and attributes the success of the latter merely to that accident of birth which brought the composer into the world a half-century before William had his chance.
"And now, Princess," he observed, as the music ceased, "your audience is over. We are to have our portrait painted at mid-day, and the hour hascome. Assure your people of our undying regard. You may kiss our little finger."
"And will not your Majesty honor me with his autograph?" I asked, holding out my book, after I had kissed his little finger.
"With pleasure," said he, taking the book and complying with my requestas follows:
"Faithfully your War Lord and Master,
"Me."
Wasn't it characteristic!
It was on a beautiful March afternoon that I sought out thePoet-Laureate of England in his official sanctum in London. A splendid mantle of fog hung over the street, shutting out the otherwise all too commercial aspect of that honored by-way. It was mid-day to the stroke of the hour, and a soft mellow glare suffused the perspective in either direction, proceeding from the gas-lamps upon the street corners, which, like the fires of eternal youth, are kept constantly burning in the capital city of the Guelphs.
I approached the lair of England's first poet with a beating heart, the trip-hammer-like thudding of which against myribs could be heard like the pounding of the twin screws of an Atlantic liner far down beneath the folds of my mackintosh. To stand in the presence of Tennyson's successor was an ambition to wish to gratify, but it was awesome, and not a little difficult for the nervous system. However, once committed to the enterprise, I was not to be baffled, and with shaking knees and tremulous hand I banged the brazen knocker against the door until the hall within echoed and re-echoed with its clangor.
Immediately a window on the top story was opened, and the laureate himself thrust his head out. I could dimly perceive the contour of his noble forehead through the mist.
"Who's there, who's there, I fain would know,Are you some dull and dunning dog?Are you a friend, or eke a foe?I cannot see you through the fog,"
said he.
"I am an American lady journalist," Icried up to him, making a megaphone of my two hands so that he might not miss a word, "and I have come to offer you seven dollars a word for a glimpse of you at home."
"How much is that in £s.d.?" he asked, eagerly.
"One pound eight," said I.
"I'll be down," he replied, instantly, and drawing his noble brow in out of the wet, he slammed the window to, and, if the squeaking sounds I heard within meant anything, slid down the banisters in order not to keep me waiting longer than was necessary. He opened the door, and in a moment we stood face to face.
"Mr. Alfred Austin?" said I.
"The same, O Lady Journalist,I'm glad to take you by the fist—Particularly since I've heardYou offer one pun eight per word."
said he, cordially grasping me by the hand.
"Come right up and make yourself perfectlyat home, and I'll give you an imitation of my daily routine, and will answer whatever questions you may see fit to ask. Of course you must be aware that I am averse to this sort of thing generally. The true poet cannot permit the searchlight of publicity to be turned upon his home without losing something of that delicate—"
"Hold on, Mr. Austin," said I. "I don't wish to be rude, but I am not authorized to pay you seven dollars apiece for such words as these you are uttering. If you have any explanations to offer the public for condescending to let me peep at you while at work, you must do it at your own expense."
A shade of disappointment passed over his delicate features.
"There's a hundred guineas gone at a stroke," he muttered, and for an instant I feared that I was to receive my congé. By a strong effort of the will, however, the laureate pulled himself together.
"If that's the case, O Yankee fair,Suppose we hasten up the stair,Where every day the Muses call,And waste no words here in the hall,"
said he. And then he added, courteously: "I am sorry the elevator isn't running. It's one of these English elevators, you know."
"Indeed?" said I. "And what is the peculiarity of an English elevator?"
"Like Britons 'neath the foeman's serried guns,The British elevator never runs,For like the brain of the Scottish Thane,The Thane, you know, of Cawdor,Our lifts are always out of order,"
he explained. "It's very annoying, too, particularly when you have to carry poems up and down stairs."
"You should let your poems do their own walking, Mr. Austin," said I.
"I beg your pardon," said he. "But how can they?"
"Those I've seen have had feet enoughfor a centipede," said I, as dryly as I could, considering that I was still dripping with fog.
The laureate scratched his head solemnly.
"Quite so," he said, at length. "But come, let us hasten."
We hastened upward, and five minutes later we were in the sanctum. It was a charming room. A complete set of the British Poets stood ranged in chronological sequence on the table. A copy ofHood's Rhymster, well thumbed, lay open on the sofa, and a volume of popular quotations lay on the floor beside the poet's easy-chair.
A full-length portrait of her Majesty the Queen, seven inches high and sixteen wide, hung over the fireplace, and beneath it stood a charming bust of the late Lord Tennyson with the face turned towards the wall.
"'A BEAUTIFUL WORKSHOP,' SAID I"
"A beautiful workshop," said I. "Surely one sees now the sources of your inspiration."
"'Tis true my dear. 'Tis very, very true.Here in my sanctum, high above the pave, ma'am,I can't help doing all the things I do,Not e'en my great immortal soul to save, ma'am.You see, a man who daily has to writeOf things of which Calliope doth side-talk,Must get above the earth and leave the wightWho dully plods along along the sidewalk,"
he answered. "That's why I live under the roof instead of hiring chambers on the ground-floor. Up here I am not bothered by what in one of my new poems I shall call 'Mundane Things.' Rather good expression that, don't you think? The first draft reads:
"'Mundane things, mundane things,Hansom cabs and finger rings,Drossy glitter and glittering dross,May I never come acrossMerely mundane, mundane things.'
"Rather clever, to be tossed off on ascratch pad while taking a shower-bath, eh?"
"Yes," said I. "What suggested it?"
"The merest accident. I got some soap in my eye and was about to give way to my temper, when I thought to myself that the true poet ought to rise above petty annoyances of that nature—in other words, above mundane things."
"Wonderfully interesting," I put in. "Was your appointment a surprise to you, Mr. Austin?"
"Surprise? Nay, nay, my lovely maid.Pray why should I surpriséd be?Despite that Fortune's but a fickle jade,I knew the thing must come to me,For in these days commercial, don't you see,From eyes like mine no thing can e'er be hid;And when they advertised for poetry,'Twas I put in the very lowest bid,"
he replied. "You see, as a newspaper man I knew what rates the other poets were getting. There was Swinburne getting seven bob a line, and Sir Edwin Arnold asking a guinea a yard, and old Kipling grinding it out for one and six per quatrain, and Watson doing sonnets on the Yellow North, and the Red, White, and Blue East, and the Pink Sow'west, at five pounds a dozen. So when Salisbury rang me up on the 'phone and said I'd better put in a bid for the verse contract, I knew just how to arrange my rates to get the work."
"You had a great advantage over the others," said I.
"Which shows the value of a newspaper training. Newspaper men know everything," he said. "I had but one fear, and that was your American poets. They are hustlers, and I didn't know but that some enterprising American like Russell Sage or Barnum & Bailey would form a syndicate and corner America's poem-supply, and bowl my wickets from under me. Working together, they could have done it, but they didn't know their power, thank Heaven!—if I may borrow an Americanism."
"Well, Mr. Austin," said I, rising, "I am afraid I shall have to go. I fear your words have already exceeded the appropriation. Ah—how much do I owe you?"
The laureate took from beneath his chin a small golden object that looked like a locket. Opening it, he scanned it closely for a moment.
CONSULTING HIS CHINOMETER
"My chinometer says nine hundred and sixty-three words. Let us call it a thousand—I don't care for trifles," said he.
"Very well," I replied. "That is $7000 I owe you."
"Yes," he said. "But of course I allow you the usual discount."
"For what?" said I.
"Cash," said he. "Poole does it on clothes, and I've adopted the system. It pays in the end, for, as I say in my next ode to the Queen, to be written on the occasion of her Ruby Jubilee, 'A sovereign in hand is worth two heirs-presumptive in the bush.'"
"In other words, cash deferred maketh the heart sick."
"Precisely. I'll put that motto down in my note-book for future use."
"I thank you for the compliment," said I, as I paid him $5950. "Good-bye, Mr. Austin."
"Good-bye, Miss Witherup," said he. "Any time when you find you have ahalf hour and £1000 to spare come again.
"Say au revoir, but not good-bye,For why?There is no cause to whisper vale,When we can parleyWithout a fearThat words are cheap, my dear,"
said he, ushering me down-stairs and bowing me out into the fog, whichby this time had lightened so that I could see the end of my nose as I walked along.
Several days after the exhilarating interview with the Poet-Laureate of England, I was honored by a dinner given to me by the Honorable Companyof Lady Copy-Mongers at their guildhall in Piccadilly Circus, S.W. It was a delightful affair, and I met many ladies of prominence in literary fields. Miss Braddon and John Oliver Hobbes were there, and one rather stout old lady, of regal manner, who was introduced as Clara Guelph, but whom I strongly suspected to be none other than the authoress of that famous and justly popular work,Leaves from My Diary in the Highlands, or Sixty Years a Potentate. She was very gracious to me,and promised to send me an autograph copy of her publisher's circular.
Most interesting of all the persons encountered at the banquet, however, was Miss Philippa Phipps-Phipps, forewoman of the Andrew Lang Manuscript-Manufacturing Company, from whom I gained much startling information which I am certain will interest the public.
In the course of our conversation I observed to Miss Phipps-Phipps, of whom I had never heard before, that nothing in modern letters so amazed me as the output of Andrew Lang, for both its quality and its quantity. The lady flushed pleasurably, and said, modestly:
TRADE-MARK. NONE GENUINE WITHOUT IT
"We try to keep up to the standard, Miss Witherup. As a worker in literary fields, you perhaps realize how hard it is to do this, but of one thing I assure you—we have never in the last ten years allowed a bit of scamp work of any description to go out of our factory. Of course we have grades of work, but the lower grades do not go out with the Lang mark upon them."
I looked at Miss Phipps-Phipps in a puzzled way, for the full import of her words did not dawn upon me instantly.
"I don't quite understand," said I. "We? Who are we?"
"The Lang Manuscript-Manufacturing Company," explained the young woman. "You are aware, of course, that Andrew Lang is not an individual, but a corporation?"
"I certainly never dreamed it," said I, with a half-smile.
"How could it be otherwise?" asked Miss Phipps-Phipps. "No human being could alone turn out an average of 647,000,000 words a year, Miss Witherup, not even if he could run two type-writers at once, and write with his feet while dictating to a stenographer. It would be a physical impossibility."
"Dear me!" I cried in amazement. "I know that there were thousands of articles from Lang every year, but 647,000,000 words! Why, it is incredible!"
"That is only the average, you know,"said Miss Phipps-Phipps, proudly. "In good years we have run as high as 716,000,346 words; and this year, if all goes well and our operatives do not strike, we expect to turn out over 800,000,000. We have signed contracts to deliver 111,383,000 words in the month of June alone—mostly Christmas stuff, you know, to be published next November. Last month we turned out 39,000 lines of poetry a day for twenty-five working-days, and our essay-mill has been running over-time for sixteen weeks."
"Well, I am surprised!" said I. "Yet, when I come to think of it, there is no reason why I should be. This is an age of corporations."
"Precisely," said Miss Phipps-Phipps. "Furthermore, ours had a philanthropic motive at the bottom of it all. Here was Mr. Lang simply killing himself with work, and some 700 young men and women of an aspiring turn of mind absolutely out of employment. The burdens of the one, we believed, could be made torelieve the necessities of the other, and we made the proposition to Mr. Lang to make himself over to us, promising to fill his contracts and relieve him of the necessity of doing any further literary work for the rest of his life. We incorporated him on a basis of £2,000,000, giving him £1,000,000 in shares. The rest was advertised as for sale, and was oversubscribed ten to one. Workshops were built at Woking, and as a starter 600 operatives were employed. Working night and day, at the end of the first year we were just three months behind our orders. We immediately doubled our force to 1200, and so it has gone until to-day, and the business is constantly increasing. Our stock is at a premium of 117%, and we keep 3750 people, with a capacity of 10,000 words a day each, constantly employed."
"I am astonished!" I cried. "The magnitude of the work is appalling. Are your shops open to visitors?"
"Certainly. I shall be pleased if youwill come out to Woking to-morrow, and I will show you over the establishment," replied Miss Phipps-Phipps, courteously. And then for the moment the conversation stopped.
The next day I was at Woking, where Miss Phipps-Phipps met me at the station. A ten-minutes' drive brought us to the factory, a detailed description of which would be impossible in the limits at my disposal. Suffice it to say that after an hour's walk through the various departments I was still not half acquainted with the marvels of the establishment. In the Essay and Letters to Dead Authors Department sixty-eight girls were driving their pens at a rate that made my head whirl. A whole floor was given over to the Fairy-Tale Department, and I saw fairy-books of all the colors in the rainbow being turned out at a rapid rate.
IN THE MEREDITH SHOP
"Here," said the forelady, as we reached a large, capacious, and well-lighted writing-room, "is our latest venture. There are 700 employees in here, and they workfrom 9a.m. to 12, have a half hour for luncheon, and resume. At five they go home. They have in hand the Lang Meredith. We have purchased from Mr. Meredith all right and title to his complete works, which we are having rewritten. These will appear at the proper time as 'The Lucid Meredith, by Andrew Lang.' The old gentleman at the desk over there," she added, pointing to a keen-eyed, sharp-visaged fellow, with a long nose and nervous manner, "is Mr. Fergus Holmes, who began life as a detective, and became a critic. He is here on a large salary, and has nothing to do but use his critical insight and detective instinct to find the thought in some of Mr. Meredith's most complicated periods. After all, Miss Witherup, our operators are only human, and some of them cannot understand Meredith as well as they might."
"I am glad to know," said I, with a laugh, "that you pay Mr. Fergus Holmes a large salary. A man employed to detectthe thought of some of Mr. Meredith's paragraphs—"
"Oh, we understand all about that," Miss Phipps-Phipps smiled, in return. "We know his value, which is very great in this particular matter."
"And does he never fail?" I asked.
"I presume he does, but he never gives up. Once he asked to be allowed to consult with Mr. Meredith before giving an opinion, and we consented. He wrote to the author, and it turned out that Mr. Meredith had forgotten the paragraph entirely, and couldn't tell himself what he meant. But he was very nice about it. He gave us carte blanche to make it mean anything that would fit into the rest of the story."
We passed on into another room.
"WRITING HERRICK"
"This room," said Miss Phipps-Phipps, "is at present devoted to the British poets. There have been a great many bad poets in Britain who have become immortal, and we are trying to make them good. That young man over therewith red hair is rewriting Burns—the introduction we are doing in our essay-room. The young lady in blue glasses is doing Gay over again; and we have intrusted our Lang edition of Herrick to the retired clergyman whom you see sitting on that settee by the window with a slate on his lap. To show you how completely we do our work, let me tell you that in this case of Herrick all his poems were first copied off on slates by our ordinary copyists, so that the clergyman who is doing them over again has only to wet his finger to rub out what might strike some people as an immortal line."
"It's a splendid idea!" I cried. "But wouldn't a blackboard prove less expensive?"
"We never consider expense," said Miss Phipps-Phipps. "We really do not have to. You see, with a capacity of 800,000,000 words a year at the rates for Lang, for which we pay at rates for the unknown, we are left with a margin of profit which pleases our stockholders anddoes not arouse the cupidity of other authors."
"What a wonderful system!" said I.
"We think it so," said Miss Phipps-Phipps, placidly.
"And do you never have any troubles?" I asked.
"Oh yes," replied my hostess. "Only last week the Grass of Parnassus and Blue Ballade employees rose up and struck for sixpence more per quatrain. We locked them out, and to-day have filled their places with equally competent employees. You can always find plenty of unemployed and unpublished poets ready to step in. Our prose hands do not give us much trouble, and our revisers never say a word."
"Have you any novelties in hand?" I asked.
"Oh yes," said Miss Phipps-Phipps. "We are going to supersede Boswell withLang's Johnson. We are preparing aLang Shakespeare; and when the copyrights on Thackeray and Dickens have expired, we'll do them all over again. Then we are experimenting in colors for a new fairy-book; and our chromatic Bibles will be a great thing. We are also contemplating an offer to the French Academy to permit all the works of its members to be issued as ours. I really think thatDaudetby Andrew Lang would pay.Hugoby Lang might prove too much for the British public, but we shall do it, because we have confidence in ourselves. We shall issue thePhilosophy of Schopenhauerby Andrew Lang next week."
"How about our American authors?" I queried. "Are you going to rewrite any of them?"
"Who are they?" asked Miss Phipps-Phipps, with an admirable expression of ingenuousness.
"Well," said I, "myself, and—ah—Edgar Poe."
"Any poets?" said Miss Phipps-Phipps.
"Some," I answered. "Myself and—ah—Longfellow."
"I don't know," said Miss Phipps-Phipps, becoming somewhat reserved. "Send me your manuscripts. I have heard of you, of course—but—ah—who is Miss Longfellow?"
I contented myself with a reference to the scenery, and then I said: "Miss Double Phipps, I wish you would conduct me into the presence ofMr. Lang. I like him as a manly man, and I love him for the books he has put forth, which not only show his manliness, but his appreciation of everything in letters that is good."
"Well, really, Miss Witherup," said Miss Phipps-Phipps, "we don't know where he is, but we think—it is not my thought, but that of thecorporation—we think you will find him playing golf at St. Andrews."
"Thank you," said I. "But, after all," I added, "it is not what the corporation thinks so much as what you as an individual think. Where do you believe I may find Mr. Lang?"
"Among the Immortals," was the answer, spoken with enthusiasm.
And believing that the lady was right, I ceased to look for Mr. Lang,for in the presence of immortals I always feel myself to be foolish.
Nevertheless, I am very glad to have seen the Lang Company at Woking, and I now understand many things that I never understood before.
To visit a series of foreign celebrities at home without including ÉmileZola in the list would be very like refusing to listen to the lines of Hamlet in Bacon's immortal tragedy of that name. Furthermore, to call upon the justly famous novelist presupposes a visit to Paris, which is a delightful thing, even for a lady journalist. Hence it was that on leaving Woking, after my charming little glimpse into the home life of the Lang Manuscript-Manufacturing Company, I decided to take a run across the Channel and look up the Frenchman of the hour. The diversion had about it an air of adventure which made it pleasantly exciting. Forten hours after my arrival at Paris I did not dare ask where the novelist lived, for fear that I might be arrested and sent to Devil's Island with Captain Dreyfus, or forced to languish for a year or two at the Château d'If, near Marseilles, until the government could get a chance formally to inquire why I wished to know the abiding-place of M. Zola. There was added to this also some apprehension that even if I escaped the gendarmes the people themselves might rise up and string me to a lamp-post as a suitable answer to so treasonable a question.
SEEKING ZOLA
To tell the truth, I did not go about my business with my usual nerve and aplomb. Had I represented only myself, I should not have hesitated to expose myself to any or to all danger. Intrusted as I was, however, with a commission of great importance to those whom I serve at home, it was my duty to proceed cautiously and save my life. I therefore went at the matter diplomatically. For fifty centimes I induced a small flower-girl, whom I encounteredin front of the Café de la Paix, to inquire of the head waiter of that establishment where M. Zola could be met. The tragedy that ensued was terrible. What became of the child I do not know, but when, three hours later, the troops cleared the square in front of the café, the dead and wounded amounted to between two hundred and fifty and three hundred, and the china, tables, and interior decorations of the café were strewn down the Avenue de l'Opéra as far as the Rue de l'Echelle, and along the boulevard to the Madeleine. The opera-house itself was not appreciably damaged, although I am told that pieces of steak and chops and canned pease have since been found clinging to the third-story windows of its splendid façade.
CONSULTING "LA PATRIE"
My next effort was even more cautious. I bought a plain sheet of note-paper, and addressed it anonymously to the editor ofLa Patrie, asking for the desired information. The next morningLa Patrieannounced that if I would send my nameand address to its office the communication would be answered suitably. My caution was still great, however, and the name and address I gave were those of a blanchisseuse who ran a pretty little shop on Rue Rivoli. That night the poor woman was exiled from France, and the block in which she transacted business demolished by a mob of ten thousand.
I was about to give up, when chance favored me. The next evening, while seated in my box at the opera, the door was suddenly opened, and a heavy but rather handsome-eyed brunette of I should say fifty years of age burst in upon me.
"Mon Dieu!" she cried, as I turned. "Save me! Tell them I am your chaperon, your mother, your sister—anything—only save me! You will never regret it."
She had hardly uttered these words when a sharp rap came upon the door. "Entrez," I cried. "Que voulez-vous, messieurs?" I added, with some asperity, as five hussars entered, their swords clanking ominously.
"Your name?" said one, who appeared to be their leader.
"'SAVE ME!' SHE CRIED"
"Anne Warrington Witherup, if you refer to me," said I, drawing myself up proudly. "If you refer to this lady," I added, "she is Mrs. Watkins Wilbur Witherup, my—ah—my step-mother. We are Americans, and I am a lady journalist."
Fortunately my remarks were made in French, and my French was of a kind which was convincing proof that I came from Westchester County.
A great change came over the intruders.
"Pardon, mademoiselle," said the leader, with an apologetic bow to myself. "We have made the grandfaux pas. We have entered the wrong box."
"And may I know the cause of your unwarranted intrusion," I demanded, "without referring the question to the State Department at home?"
"We sought—we sought an enemy toFrance, mademoiselle," said they. "We thought he entered here."
"I harbor only the friends of France," said I.
"Vive la Witherup!" cried the hussars, taking the observation as a compliment, and then chucking me under the chin and again apologizing, with a sweeping bow to my newly acquired step-mother, they withdrew.
"Well, mamma," said I, turning to the lady at my side, "perhaps you can shed some light on this mystery. Who are you?"
"Softly, if you value your life," came the answer. "Zola, c'est moi!"
"Mon Doo!" said I. "Vous? Bien, bien, bien!"
"Speak in English," he whispered. "Then I can understand."
"Oh, I only said well, well, well," I explained. "And you have adopted this disguise?"
"Because I have resolved to live long enough to get into the Academy," he explained."I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your timely aid. If they had caught me they would have thrown me down into the midst of the claque."
"Come," said I, rising and taking him by the hand. "I have come to Paris to see you at home. It was my only purpose. I will escort you thither."
"Non, non!" he cried. "Never again. I am much more at home here, my dear lady, much more. Pray sit down. Why, when I left home by a subterranean passage, perhaps you are not aware, over a thousand members of the National Guard were singing the 'Marseillaise' on the front piazza. Three thousand were dancing that shocking dance, the cancan, in my back yard, and four regiments of volunteers were looking for something to eat in the kitchen, assisted by one hundred and fifty pétroleuses to do their cooking. All my bedroom furniture was thrown out of the second-story windows, and the manuscripts of my new novel were being cut up into souvenirs."
"Poor old mamma!" said I, taking him by the hand. "You can always find comfort in the thought that you have done a noble action."
"It was a pretty good scheme," replied Zola. "A million pounds sterling paid to your best advertising mediums couldn't have brought in a quarter the same amount of fame or notoriety; and then, you see, it places me on a par with Hugo, who was exiled. That's really what I wanted, Miss Witherup. Hugo was a poseur, however, and if he hadn't had the kick to be born before me—"
"Ah," said I, interrupting, for I have rather liked Hugo. "And where do you wish to go?"
"To America," he replied, dramatically. "To America. It is the only country in the world where realism is not artificial. You are a simple, unaffected, outspoken people, who can hate without hating, can love without marrying, can fight without fighting. I love you."
"Sir—or rather mamma!" said I, somewhatindignantly, for as a married man Zola had no right to make a declaration like that, even if he is a Frenchman.
"Not you as you," he hastened to say, "but you as an American I love. Ah, who is your best publisher, Miss Witherup?"
I shall not tell you what I told Zola, but they may get his next book.
"M. Zola," said I, placing great emphasis on the M, "tell me, what interested you in Dreyfus—humanity—or literature?"
"Both," he replied; "they are the same. Literature that is not humanity is not literature. Humanity that does not provide literary people with opportunity is not broad humanity, but special and selfish, and therefore is not humanity at all."
"Did Dreyfus write to you?" I asked.
"No," said he. "Nor I to him. I have no time to write letters."
"Then how did it all come about?" I demanded.
"He was attracting too much attention!" cried the novelist, passionately. "He was living tragedy while I was only writing it. People said his story was greater than any I, Émile—"
"Witherup!" said I, anxiously, for it seemed to me that the people in the next box were listening.
"Merci!" said he. "Yes, I, Mrs. Watkins Wilbur Witherup, of Westchester City, U. S. A., was told that this man's story was greater and deeper in its tragic significance than any I could conceive. Wherefore I wrote to the War Department and accused it of concealing the truth from France in the mere interests of policy, of diplomacy.Imade them tremble.Imade the army shiver.Ihave struck a blow at the republic from which it will not soon recover. And to-day Dreyfus pales beside the significance of Zola. I believe in free institutions, but Heaven help a free institution when it clashes with a paying corporation like Émile—"
"Witherup! Do be cautious," I put in again. "Yet, sir," I added, "they have quashed your sentence, and you need not go to jail."
"No," said he, gloomily. "I need not. Why? Because jail is safer than home. That is why they did it. They dare not exile me. They hope by quashing me to be rid of me. But they will see. I will force them to imprison me yet."
"If you are so anxious to visit America, why don't you?" I suggested. "There is no duty on the kind of thing we do not wish to manufacture ourselves."
"Ah," said he; "if I was exiled, they would send me. If I go as a private citizen, well, I pay my own way."
"Oh," said I. "I see."
And then, as the opera was over, we departed. Zola saw me to my carriage, and just as I entered it he said: "Excuse me, Miss Witherup, but what paper do you write for?"
I told him.
"It is a splendid journal!" he cried."I take it every day, and especially enjoy its Sunday edition. In fact, it is the only American newspaper I read. Tell your editor this, and here is my photograph and my autograph, and a page of my manuscript for reproduction."
He took all these things out of his basque as he spoke.
"I will send you to-morrow," he added, "an original sketch in black and white of my house, with the receipt of my favorite dish, together with a recommendation of a nerve tonic that I use. With this will go a completeset of my works with a few press notices of the same, and the prices they bring on all book-stands. Good-bye. God bless you!" he concluded, huskily. "I shall miss my step-daughter as I would an only son. Adieu!"
We parted, and I returned, much affected, to my rooms, while he went back, I presume, to his mob-ridden home.
The impression left upon my mind by my curious and intensely dramaticencounter with Zola was of so theatric a nature that I resolved to get back to conventional ground once more through the medium of the stage. I was keyed up to a high pitch of nervous excitement by my unexpected meeting with an unsuspected step-mother, and the easiest return to my norm of equanimity, it seemed to me, lay through the doors of the greenroom. Hence I sought out London's only actor, Sir Henry Irving.
I found him a most agreeable gentleman. He received me cordially on the stage of his famous theatre. There was no settingof any kind. All about us were the bare cold walls of the empty stage and it was difficult to believe that this very same spot, the night before, had been the scene of brilliant revels.
"How do you do, Miss Witherup?" said Sir Henry, as I arrived, advancing with his peculiar stride, which reminds me of dear old Dobbin on my father's farm. "It is a great pleasure to welcome to England so fair a representative of so fine a press."
"I wished to see you, 'at home,' Sir Henry," I replied, not desiring to let him see how completely his cordiality had won me, and so affecting a coldness I was far from feeling.
"That is why I have youhere, madam," he replied. "The stage is my home. The boards for me; the flare of the lime-lights; the pit; the sweet family circle; the auditorium in the dim distance; the foot-lights—ah, these are the inspiring influences ofmylife! The old song 'Home Is Where the Heart Is' must, in my case, berevised to favor the box-office, and instead of the 'Old Oaken Bucket,' the song I sing is the song of the 'Old Trap Door.' Did you ever hear that beautiful poem, 'The Song of the Old Trap Door'?"
"No, Sir Henry, I never did," said I. "I hope to, however."
"I will do it now for you," he said; and assisting me over the foot-lights into a box, he took the centre of the stage, ordered the calcium turned upon him, and began:
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my triumphs,In Hamlet, Othello, and Shylock as well!Completely confounding the critics who cry 'Humphs!'And casting o'er others a magical spell!How dear to my soul are the fond recollectionsOf thunderous clappings and stampings and roarsAs, bowing and scraping in many directions,I sink out of sight through the old trap doors!The old trap doors, the bold trap doors,That creaking and squeaking sink down thro' the floors!"
I could not restrain my enthusiasm when he had finished.
"Bravo!" I cried, clapping my hands together until my palms ached. "More!"
"There is no more," said Sir Henry, with a gratified smile. "You see, recited before ten or twenty thousand people with the same verve that I put into 'Eugene Aram,' or 'Ten Little Nigger Boys,' so much enthusiasm is aroused that I cannot go on. The applause never stops, so of course a second verse would be a mere waste of material."
"Quite so," I observed. Then a thought came to me which I resolved to turn to my profit. "Sir Henry," I said, "I'll bet a box of cigars against a box for your performance to-night that I can guess who wrote that poem for you in one guess."
"Done!" he replied, eagerly.
"Austin," said I.
"Make Miss Witherup out a ticket for Box A for the 'Merchant of Venice' to-night," cried the famous actor to his secretary. "How the deuce did you know?"
"Oh, that was easy," I replied, much gratified at having won my wager. "I don't believe any one else could have thought of a rhyme to triumphs like 'cry Humphs'!"
"You have wonderful insight," remarked Sir Henry. "But come, Miss Witherup, I did not mean to receive you in a box, or on a bare stage. What is your favorite style of interior decoration?"
His question puzzled me. I did not know but that possibly Sir Henry's words were a delicate method of suggesting luncheon, and then it occurred to me that this could not possibly be so at that hour, one o'clock. Actors never eat at hours which seem regular to others. I hazarded an answer, however, and all was made clear at once.
"I have a leaning towards the Empire style," said I.
Sir Henry turned immediately and roared upward into the drops: "Hi, Billie, set the third act of 'Sans Gene,' and tell my valet to get out my Bonapartes.The lady has a leaning towards the Empire. Excuse me for one moment, Miss Witherup," he added, turning to me. "If you will remain where you are until I have the room ready for you, I will join you there in five minutes."