EXTRACTS FROM TOOLE'S REMINISCENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9232, 8 December 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXTRACTS FROM TOOLE'S REMINISCENCES.

> MR. TOOLK MEETS MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD , J TENNYSON. Mr. Toole has never induced Lord Tenny- ; son to write him a play yet, but who knows ! what may happen ? He has meet the Laurei ate at one of Mr. Gladstone's breakfast I parties. Among his thousand and one ac--1 complishments, Mr. Gladstone has a know--1 ledge of the .stage. "In regard to the influence of audiences upon actors, he related 1 to me a story of Young in Edinburgh. Young was playing lago. In the first act 1 he was not at all up to the mark. At the ' end of the second act an intimate friend j went round and said, ' Why, Young, you j played this second act far better than the ■ j first —a different thing altogether !' ' Yes,' j Young replied, 4 Scott came into a box at the beginning of the second act.'" On an- , other occasion Mr. Toole remarks that the ! conversation rose to such a high and elevated ! platform that, when he left and found himi self in the street, "I talked to a policeman ! to try and bring myself down to the level ; of ordinary life. I THE "DODGER'S " TROUSEKS. I "I sat to Halswelle for the 'Dodger,' in 'Oliver Twist,' in the trousers I still use in , the part; they are a first-rate property, 1 really old from age, no patches, no artificial j rags, the dilapidation the real work of time ; j they were given to me by Robert Wyndham, I of the Edinburg Theatre, when first I . played the ' Dodger ' there. They had belonged to Murray. He wore those trousers for a small part which he played in a version of ' The Heart of Midlothian.' The trousers were old when Murray wore them in that very part. Charles Dickens saw me play the ' Dodger ' in them, and I told him their pedigree, and how Sir Walter Scott had once seen them. The trousers are eighty years old if they are a day." " THE MAN WHO COULDN'T UELP CRYING." Mr. Toole tells an amusing story of a man at the wings of an American theatre who " couldn't help crying" at Mr. Toole's performance of the "Artful Dodger" in "Oliver Twist." Mr. Toole's curiosity led him to ask for an explanation. "Oh ! Mr. Toole, you must excuse me. I can't help it. You must remember mo years ago ; it turned mo right over to see those trousers again. I was the wardrobe keeper at tho Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, thirty years ago, when first you played the ' Dodger' there ; my name is Weens ; when I saw those trousers I was reminded of my dear old home in Scotland, and I couldn't have helped crying had it been to save my life." TUCK STORY OK TINY TIM. "In the 'Christmas Carol,'" says Mr. Toole, " Mr. Webster provided a real goose and a real plum-pudding, which were served smoking hot for Mrs. Cratchit and the seven little Cratchifcs, of course including Tiny Tim. The children always had enormous portions give them, and all ate heartily every night ; but what really troubled me was tho conduct of the little girl who played Tiny Tim. That child's appetite appalled me. I could not help noticing the extraordinary rapidity with which she consumed what I gave her, and she looked so wan, and thin, and so pitiful, that her face used positively to haunt me. We watched as well a≤ we could, and the moment Tiny Tim was seated and began to eat, we observed a curious shuffling movement at the stage fireplace, und everything that I had given her—crooso and potatoes and apple sauce—disappeared behind the sham stove, the ehilil pretending to cat as hearty as ever from the empty plate. When the performance was over, Mrs. Mellon and myself asked the little girl what became of the food siie did not eat, and, after .1 little hesitation, frightened lest she should get into trouble, which wo assured her could not happen, she confessed that her little sister (I should mention that they were the children of one of the scene-shifters) waited on tho other side of the stage fireplace for tho supplies, and that the whole family enjoyed a hearty supper every night out of the plentiful portions to which 1, as Bob, had assisted Tiny Tim."