PHIL MAY STORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 14 October 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

PHIL MAY STORIES.

Phil May was nob one"of those men who shrink from /reviving memories of their early struggles. On. the contrary, in his references to them there was always something that recalled the exclamation of the great Dumas—at least, I think it was the great Dumas—" 0 les beaux jours, les beaux jours de ma jeunesse, quand j'et&is si miserable.'' Long after success had dawned for

him he used to pay sentimental visits to a certain a la mode beef shop, because it reminded him of th»» days when a dinner there, costing, I think, sevenpence, represented for him the height of luxury, attainable only unce a week. He told me about it one evening at Romano's, after a. dinner of quite a different sort—the sort of dinner that one looks forward to in the days of the early struggles, not exactly as the goal of ambition, but as agreeable outward evidence that ambition has been achieved. Probably some, at least, of the stories I heard from him then will be new.

There was the story, for instance, of the I bivouac in the cart. " Phil had no money, and, therefore, nowhere to sleep. The cart was drawn up under shelter in some passage leading out of Oxford-street, near the corner of Tottenham Court. Road. Phil scrambled in. lay down, and slept. Presently a gruff voice'woke him with the demand to know what the something or other he was doing there. It- was not, a policeman, but the owner of the cart. Phil told his story, quite expecting to be given in charge. Instead of that he found a friend. " That's it, is it, youngster - ' Very well. You can sleep in that cart as often as you want to. And now come along and have some breakfast." So that morning Phil got coffee and bacon and eggs for breakfast, and that night he slept in the cart again. Then there was the story of the coffee stall. The scene, this- time, was Chelsea Embankment, and Phil was wandering there, supper less, in the small hours of the morning. He saw the coffee stall and was drawn to it, as any hungry man would be. He hung round, in the hope that someone would take pity on him and stand treat, but too shy or too proud to ask. • But no one offered hospitality. Probably no one guessed that he needed it; for the poor, who know what hunger is, are always the most ready to relieve it. So, in due course, the knot of customers broke, up. The light was extinguished, the stall was closed, the stallkeeper went away. It was like the closing of the door of hope, and Phil was very hungry. He looked about him, and temptation was there in the shape of an iron bar mixed up with the railings of the public gardens. .He picked it up and forced his way into the stall. And then he found it was,empty. Eemorse seized him, and he patched up the damage he had clone; and then he saw a policeman coming, and he ran. If policeman and stallkeeper should read this story and recognise it they will surely be glad to remember that the fugitive got away.