I was held as in a vice, and could hardly move, by what—a huge dog—a wolf? No, something heavier; something more hideous; something clothed! As I dragged it under a lamp I saw revealed a huge head, covered by a black skull cap—a man's head—a dwarf, muttering in Irish something I could not understand—except one word, "Judy! Judy! Judy!" It was a woman of extraordinary strength thus clasped on to me. I dragged her to the hotel door, where I engaged an interpreter in the shape of the "boots," and made a bargain with "Judy" to release me on my giving her one shilling, and to sit to me for this sketch for half-a-crown. I have still a lively recollection of the vice-like grip.
"JUDY," THE GALWAY DWARF.
My friend who had introduced me to the editor of Punch was a prominent city official, and entertainer in chief of all men of talent from London, and was also, like Tom Taylor, an author and dramatist; and when I was a boy I illustrated one of his first stories. He also introduced me behind the scenes at the old Theatre Royal. I recollect my boyish delight when one day I was on the stage during the rehearsal of the Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill, and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame Titiens was—well—the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw rehearsed: the little fat father lay on the dusty stage, with one eye on the O.P. side. As soon as the massive form of Titiens bore down upon him he rolled over and over out of the way. This pantomime highly amused all of us, the ever-jovial Titiens in particular, and she again and again rushed laughingly in, but with the same result.
The first actor I ever saw perform was Phelps, in "The Man of the World." If anything could disillusionise a youth regarding the romance of the theatre, that play surely would. Be it to my credit that my first impression was admiration for a fine—if dull—performance. From that day I have been a constant theatre-goer. If I am to believe the following anecdote, published in a Dublin paper a few years ago, I "did the theatre in style," and had an early taste which I did not possess for making jokes.
"The jarvey drove Harry Furniss, when a boy, down to the old Theatre Royal, Dublin. On the way there Jehu enquired of the budding artist whether it was true that the roof was provided with a tank whence every part of the building could be deluged, shower-bath fashion, if necessary. 'Yes,' replied Raphael junior; 'and, you see, I always bring an umbrella in case of fire.'"
PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW.
I may confess that I have only once appeared in theatricals, and that was in high comedy as a member of the Dublin Amateur Theatrical Society. The play was "She Stoops to Conquer," and I took the part of—think!—Mrs. Hardcastle. I was only seventeen, and very small for my age, so I owe any success I may have made to the costumier and wig-maker. The Tony Lumpkin was so excellent that he adopted the stage as his profession, and became a very popular comedian; and our Diggory is now a judge—"and a good judge too"—in the High Court.
It was on a bright, breezy morning late in July, 1873, I shook the dust of "dear dirty Dublin" off my feet. With the exception of the Welsh railways, the Irish are notoriously the slowest in the world, and on that particular morning the mail train seemed to my impatient mind to progress pig-ways. The engine was attached to the rear of the train and faced the station, so that when it began to pull it was only the "parvarsity in the baste" caused it to go in the opposite direction, towards Kingstown, in an erratic, spasmodic, and uncertain fashion, so that the eight miles journey seemed to me eighty. It was quite a tedious journey to Salthill and Blackrock. At the latter station I saw for the last time the porter famous for being the slave of habit. For years it had been his duty to call out the name of the station, "Blackrock! Blackrock! Blackrock!" In due course he was removed to Salthill station, on the same line, and well do I remember how he puzzled many a Saxon tourist by his calling out continually, "Blackrock—Salthill-I-mane! Blackrock—Salthill-I-mane!" No doubt the traveller put this chronic absent-mindedness down to "Irish humour." I must confess that I agree in a great measure with the opinion of the late T. W. Robertson (author of "Caste," "School," &c.), that the witticisms of Irish carmen and others are the ingenious inventions of Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, William Carleton, and other educated men.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS,
FROM AN EARLY SKETCH.
Dickens failed to see Irish humour, or in fact to understand what was meant by it. So when he was on tour with his readings a friend of mine, who was his host, in the North, undertook to initiate him into the mysteries of Irish wit. As a sample he gave Dickens the following: A definition of nothing—a footless stocking without a leg. This conveyed nothing whatever to the mind of the greatest of English humourists; but when my friend took him to a certain spot and showed him a wall built round a vacant space, and explained to him that the native masons were instructed to build a wall round an old ruined church to protect it, and pulled down the church for the material to build the wall, he laughed heartily, and acknowledged the Irish had a sense of humour after all—if not, a quaint absence of it.
To me so-called Irish wit is a curious combination not wholly dependent on humour, and frequently unconscious. There is a story that when Mr. Beerbohm Tree arrived in Dublin he was received by a crowd of his admirers, and jumping on to a car said to his jarvey, "Splendid reception that, driver!"
The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye think so, but begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" Was that meant?
The poor Saxon "towrist"—what he may suffer in the Emerald Isle! There is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from the race meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and the three men scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as they had regained their breath, one said:
"Pat, have you got th' tickets?"
"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost that gettin' in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?"
"Oi, begorrah, I haven't."
"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight from the other soide of Oireland."
The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said:
"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station."
They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a directhor—we're done for now entoirely."
But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye how I did it. I wint along the thrain—'Tickets plaze, tickets plaze,' I called, and these belong to three Saxon towrists in another carriage."
On the morning I left Ireland to seek my fortune in London I had a youthful notion that, once on the mainland of my parents' country, St. Paul's and the smoke of London would be visible; but we had passed through the Menai tunnel, grazed Conway Castle walls, and skirted miles of the Welsh rock-bound coast, and yet no St. Paul's was visible to my naked eye which was plastered against the window-pane of the carriage. The other eye, clothed and in its right mind, inspected the carriage
