"THE ROMANCE OF FERGUS HUME."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12076, 20 September 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

"THE ROMANCE OF FERGUS HUME."

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London-, August 8, Mr. T. P. O'Connor relates this week what he terms " The Romance of Fergus Hume"— ! the author of " The Mystery of a Hansom I Cab." Assuming that " the highly-dramatic incidents of the following story, never before published, concerning the personal side of a memorable period of Fergus Hume's career, will be read with some degree of interest," Mr. O'Connor says:-— '■ In a poor room iu Melbourne, alone, and without a shilling in the world, lay Fergus Hume, journalist- for the time being and author to be, fighting a raging fever, and getting considerably the worst of the encounter. For manv months previous to this the young fellow "had been working night and day at a melodramatic story of multitudinous chapters, so that when illness overtook him delirium very soon followed, and became an unpleasant competitor to reckon with. And thus he lay, unconscious at one moment and conscious at another, but never, when conscious, less troubled of mind, because in this state he could realise the weight of the debt which his illness was packing on his shoulders, and knew the anxiety of owing a none-too-lenient landlord three or four weeks' rent. *' It was during one of these painful intervals of consciousness that a friend called to see him—an actor from the Bohemia, in which the voting writer had spent many nights, much money, and, perhaps, not- a little health, Seeing how badly it went with him, and hearing how badly it went with Ills pocket, the actor generously (as it seemed at the time) offered to see Fergus Hume through his trouble so far as were concerned the settlement of immediate debts and the supply of so much a week until the sufferer should feel strong enough to resume work. A delirium of incoherent but unmistakable gratitude broke from Fergus Hume's lips—a delirium checked on the part, of his companion by a cold recital of ' conditions.' Refute this "dramatic meeting of the two men the actor had been taken sufficiently far into the confidence of the other to know that the unfinished novel was loaded with the possibility of fortunes. The conditions were these: That if the writer should ever rise from bed again, and in sound enough health to work he was to complete the novel, and to share with the actor— good Samaritan!—the profits of its publication. Further, that the actor was to go half-shares —in profits, not in work— all books and plays written subsequently to the novel in question was, in fact, to be half-owner, until desth on either side should cancel the business of the author's brains. Further still, that if the, author should succumb to the illness he was then stricken with the actor should come into sole possession of the unfinished novel, and deal with it as he liked. To this contract the half-unconscious writer pub his signature, and so the bargain was made. After some weeks Fergus Hume—thanks, it will be admitted, to the careful attention of the. actor — round; and iu course of timeand not a very long time, eitherthe novel was finished, published, and circulated. It was circulated pretty widely, too, for it was ' The Mystery of a Hansom Cab!' " Such was the story as related to me, in the rough, and the first person, by Fergus Hume, over coffee one night at the house of an artist-journalist. . . . Fergus Hume finished up the narrative of his painful experiences of the actor's philanthropy by declaring that he was getting tired of the obligations involved in the contract signed by him at. a period of extreme physical and mental weakness, and that he really thought of consulting some legal authority with the view of breaking away from the bond. Later, in such a mood as this, he wrote to the .actor that he intended testing the strength of the agreement in the Law . Courts, and the actor, by way of reply, took r ship for England with the object, of fighting the matter out. The final chapter of the story was thrust upon me in Regent-street by a newsboy, aproned with a bill bearing the words ' Suicide of an actor.' I bought a copy of the paper and read that Mr. ——, an Australian actor, well known in the country, had taken his life while on a voyage to England. It transpired that the actor, who had for some time been gambling as well as drinking heavily, lost his reason suddenly, after turning in for the night, and .shot himself in his cabin. "All of which makes a gruesome enough story, but I have told it, partly because it has never been told in print before, and partly because I think it is interesting as pointing to the singularity of an author so intensely dramatic' in his writings as Fergus Hume being destined himself to be the hero of a plot, or a portion of a plot, which bears by no means a slight resemblance to the creations, generally speaking, of his own sensational fancy. ' Well might one observe, after hearing it, ' So like Fergus Hume!' "