Christmas Reading.

Otago Witness, Issue 3014, 20 December 1911, Page 78

Christmas Reading.

By Gut Thorne

The Comedian's Christinas.

[All, Rights Reserved.]

fNTHONY PHIPPS came out of | St. Thomas's Hospital two days before Christfas Eve. As he turned on to West- . minster Biidge the snow wee falling slightly ? and a bitter wind'blew up the river. Big Ben had just tolled mid-day from the clock Tower of the ; Houses of Parliament. For four months Anthony Phipps, low comedian, had been lying upon a bed of pain in the great red-brick hospital on the south side of the Thames. His life had been despaired of, but skilful nursing had pulled him through, and be was once mere—a ton this bitter, inhospitable day—walking through the familiar London streets. He looked round hian with an air almtwßt of bewilderment. After the quiet of the hospital ward and the stiango, peaceful, ordered life the convalescent deads, the roar of London, the swirl of traffic, the noise and bustle of it all, made him shrink with a sort of fear. He was an odd jittle fig are as he walked up Whitehall towards the Strand. He wore the clothes' he had worn when he was admitted to the hospital. A soft felt hat, green in certain lights, was on his head. His greyieh suit—baggy at the knees of the trousers—was hidden by a frayed Inverness. His boots were by no means what he would have liked them to be. The comedian's face, worn and wrinkled by the long illness, was still a face of fun. That as to say _ that, while it wore no -conscious expression of merriment or gaiety, Nature had given him the true comedians mask. The larw, flexible mouth was comic in itself. The broad, tip-tilted nose, the slight; essential humour of the eyes, the large, protruding ears, all marked him for what he was—a mummer, a figure of fun, i man designed to make people laugh. During the wholi of the cummer Anthony Phipps's opportunity of exercising bis profession had been very limited indeed.

He had been "out of a shop" for nearly th« whole of the spring, and had exhausted all his small savings. From one dingy lodging-house in Kennington he ha-d descended to another —and to yet another, cheaper and more unsavoury still. He haunted the agents' offices in vain. Nobody seemed to want 'iim; he could not obtain a eingie engagement. He had dropped out, and he knew it. Every day he- became more seedy and woebegone in appearance. He saw men not nearly as clever as he was obtain wellpaid "engagements without any trouble. But these were men who could dress ■well, who sported large gold watch-chains, who could-stand drinks to all and sundry, whose worldly possessions were not reposing in the pawnbrokers' shops of Long-acre. In the early part of the summer he had obtained an engagement with a concert party that performed at the various seaside places in the Isle of Wight. It was precarious enough, but ho could live. Sometimes, in their little booth upon the beach, the party obtained quite a large audience, and when the bag went round during the performance it returned heavily weighted. On other occasions the members of the troop were hard put to it to pay for their modest lodgings. At the end of the summer, when the seaside season was over, Anthony had returned to London and had utterly failed in obtaining an engagement with any touring company for late autumn and winter. At the last ebb of fortune, quite destitute in fact, he had been run over by a motor-omnibus, and taken to St. Thomas's Hospital, where he had remained until this very day. As he turned into the Strand he had nothing in the world but the clothes which he was wearing and about 30 shillings in money. He had no prospect of an engagement —all. the pantomimes were upon, the point of starting - —and he was about as lonely and friendless as any man in London. Behind that comic mask of a face there was a hopeless despair, a longing to be done with it all —to be at peace. Tho windows of all the shops were full of Christinas goods, glittering and splendid. People in warm overcoats or rich furs bustled in and out of the hotels. Despite the bitter cold of the day there was a general air of happiness and festivity. Faces wore a look of anticipation, and the whole world seemed glad at the coming of Christmas. What was there to be done? That was the chill problem he had to face. Starvation or the casual ward was dogging him with imminent and stealthy footsteps. What was to be done? First of all, he decided that he must make a round of the theatrical bars at the back of the Strand. He must learn what was going on, see if he could find a pal or two a little less unfortunate than himself. Surely he would meet with someone who would pive him shelter for a few days until he could get something to do." He himself had assisted

others in the past. who had come down to the straits he was in now. He quickened his footsteps a little, and turned into the Bodega in Bedford street In this place, almost entirely given up to the votaries of Thespis—a sort of informal club, as it were, of the lesser lights of the stage—he found no one he knew at all. He inquired -from one of the barmen, mentioning one or two names, and learnt that they were all away in _ the provinces rehearsing for the pantomimes . which were to open on Boxing Day. The unaccustomed glass of whisky and water tasted sweet and sickly, and as he mechanically made his lunch from the great cheese and basket of biscuits which stand I for everyone to help themselves —and hundreds of poor comedians during the : year have no better meal each day—his j spirits sank lower and lower. He' shambled out and tried an agent's office, j The big waiting room, hung with photo- j graphs of minor celebrities, was abso- ! lutely deserted, save for a boy clerk seated at a table, who told him that Mr Harriss was away in the provinces and that there was nothing going He spent the rest of the afternoon in going in and out of the other theatrical haunts —in that curi- j ous stageJand in the heart of London which is so little known to the ordinary passer-by. He met hardly anyone at all. . One friend, indeed, seemed in even lower , water than he was, r-.d tried to borrow j half a crown.. The waiter at Rule's nodded familiarly to him, as if he had been into the well-known placo only the day before. Nobody had-'missed him — nobody wanted him —nobody cared about him.

At 9 o'clock, after a meal in a low teahouse, he walked to the Tottenham Court road, and there, for one shilling and threepence, engaged a cubicle in a lodging-house which existed to shelter such waifs and strays of London as he had become.

He slept long that night—for the sum he had paid he need not vacate his cubicle until 11 the next morning,—and with the cold grey light he lay in bed desperately trying to find some solution of his predicament.

His mind went back to other and more fortunate days —days when he- had a real provincial celebrity s earned good money, and spent it lavishly. Even further back than this his troubled thoughts travelled. He remembered the days when his father, Howard Phipps. had been the proprietor of the good old County Theatre at the cathedral city of Morchester —as his grandfather had been also. He came of a family of well-known actors in the past, was cradled in the theatre, as it were. But misfortune had overtaken his relatives. The dear old theatre had passed into alien hands, and now. . . . He rose with a groan and began to dress himself in the cold, bare little room.

He counted his money. Twenty-two shillings was all that remained to him, and then he went -downstairs to a room in the basement, where for eightpence he made a meagre breakfast. As he was eating and looking at a coffee-stained copy of that morning's Daily Mail, a sudden idea came to him. London was obviously impossible. There was no one there he knew at the moment, no one who would help him. He had not the money to stay on and trust to a change of fortune. His name, however, must still be known in Morchester. If he were to get down there —and it was not more than 50 miles from London —surely, for the sake of old times they would give him something to do at the theatre. The rehearsals for the pantomime would just be finished; but even a super's job would be better than nothing, arid surely his name would have weight? It was a desperate resolve enough, but nothing else remained for him to do, and before midday he had started to walk to Morchester on foot.

It was only 50 miles. The snow had ceased, and a sharp frost set in. He gathered together what little courage and hope remained to him, and briskly shambled away out'of London, a shabby, pathetic, comic little figure, with a sob in its throat and a heart of lead.

It was Christmas Eve, and 9 o'clock at night. Weary, half-starved, frozen to the marrow, Anthony Phipps walked along the High street of Morchester. He had arrived there in the early dawn in a pitiable state of misery and mental depression, his boots almost worn through, and his face and hands livid with cold.

During the whole day he had wandered about the old familiar town, trying in vain to meet someone who remembered him. To this house and that he had trudged, only to find their old tenants departed and a race of people who knew him not.

At the theatre he had obtained an interview with the stage manager —failing to see the lessee himself. This man was a young, smart, vulgar fellow, who received the poor little comedian with cold rudeness. He would listen to nothing of his

stoTy, and informed him that not even a super's job was open.

"Sorry," he had said, "we don't want any out-of-work actors here. Everything is full up. You may, of course,- as you say, have been connected with the theatre in times gone by, but that isn't now. This is an up-to-date theatre, and we don't want any early Victorians hanging rcoind. Good-morning."

Everything had failed—failed utterly and Anthony was at the end of his resources.

He had nowhere to go, no friend to speak to, and only a few coppers left. All hope was dead within him as he slowly walked down the brilliantly-lit High street, unconsciously- directing his footsteps towards the County Theatre once more.

The electric trams —an innovation since his time—clanged up and down, full of happy people taking home their Christmas purchases. The light gleamed upon rows of fat turkeys in the poulterers' shops; pyramids of bon-bons made the big grocer's at the corner a blaze of vivid colour; the great oriel windows in the cathedral nave were brilliant with orange light as the Christmas Eve service was being held. Everyone was happy. Everyone had friends, shelter, food—only poor Anthony Phipps, comedian, stood "alone in the world.

Mechanically—by now having quite given up all plans and hopes—moving as if in a cold and cheerier dreari, Phipps came to the County Theatre. The front was covered with huge posters and innumerable photographs of the popular favourites who were to open there in ' Cinderella" on Boxing Night. Larger than life, in dove-coloured tights and a doublet studded with diamonds as big as ducks' eggs, stood Miss Kissis'Mee, who was to play the principal boy. Her gaudy poster was flanked by that of Miss Friskie Philpotte, the Cinderella of the pantomime. And in the centre was an enormous photograph of the rather wellknown comedian on whose shoulders most of the comic business depended —Mr Watty Plum himself, the darling of the gallery and of the pit, and almost monthly in the receipt of a great advertisement in the aaily papers from his little habit of appearing in the police courts on a charge of playfully bilking a cabman. This person, in the photograph, was wearing the costume of the Baron—Cinderella's father,and as Anthony Phipps gazed at it his eyes gleamed suddenly with reminiscences. In his happier days "he himself had worn the parti-coloured tights, the absurd overcoat with the cheese-plate buttons, the large false ears, and the little opera hat as big as a tea-cup on the top of a shiny expanse of bald head. Then, his head falling again, despair and listlessness showing in every movement, he passed the front of the theatre and turned down the dark alley which led to the stage door.

Just opposite the small door with the red lamp over it was a small, old-fashioned public-house known as the Theatre Arms. Most provincial theatres have some house of call close to the actors' entrance, more or less exclusively theatrical in its clientele, and the County Theatre was no exception. Anthony Phillips, in days gone by, had spent many of joyful hour of his youth in this snug hostelry. The saloon bar. even now, was hung with portraits of his father as Claude in "The Lady of Lyons" and his grandfather clasping the dagger of Macbeth. He had been to the public-house during the day, but found it—like all the other places he had known —had passed into alien hands. He had tried to enter into conversation with the landlord—a pursy man with a face like a raw beefsteak and dewlaps like a mastiff, —but his pitiful efforts hed met with but scant response. He was far too shabby and woebegone an individual to interest the landlord. Actors down on their luck were not wanted in Morchester —only actors in regular engagements and with plenty of money to spend. Now, however, Anthonv Phipps pushed open the swing doors which led into the four-ale bar and entered. No more for him the private bar, certainly not the inner sanctum of all, where the landlord and his special patrons sat in comfortable chairs before a roaring fire, admiring how the world was made. Now he must drink his cheap beer in the place with the sanded floor, where the cab touts and the junior scene-shifters refreshed themselves. The landlord was not in the bar, but a smart young lady in a tartan blouse, wilh hair like a bath' sponge, and a beautifulcoloured face, swung his glpss over the counter towards him and then turned away. Almost opposite to where he was standing a window opesed into the snuggery, and the girl stood by it listening to the conversation within with a smile. Phipps could see the people beyond. One was a tall man with a heavy moustache, a fur coat, and a shiny silk hat—from the photograph he had seen outside the theatre, and also from tie conversation he overheard now. Anthony knew at once that this was Mr Prince himself, the lessee of the theatre.

Standing right in front of the fire waa a short, fat man with cod-like eyes, a

broken nose, and a mouth like a slit cut in an orange. He was loudly-dressed in checks, and Anthony recognised him immediately as none other than the redoubtable Mr Watty Plum. Standing a little to the right was a man in a blue reefer coat, holding his cap in his hand. "Well, Simpson," said the comedian, addressing himself to this person, "here's luck to you, and a merry Christmas. May yciu continue to keep the stage-door of the County Theatre, Morchester, for the rest of your natural." "Same to you," said the rough-looking man, who was obviously the stage-door keeper, "and many of 'em!" Then he turned to the manager. "You'll not be coming back, sir?" he asked. "Not to-night, Simpson," Mr Prince replied. "I've done everything I want to. You can lock up the theatre and go home. But you must have another drink with me before you do, as it is Christmas Eve." "Thank you kindly, sir," said the stagedcor keeper, and the barmaid received another order from the inside room.

Anthony Phipps had heard all this quite distinctly. He had just finished his beer when, suddenly, an idea flashed into his numbed brain.

The stage door must bo open. It was but three yards across the street. He knew the theatre—every inch of it—as well as he knew anything in this world. Here was his chance of a lodging for the night. He could slip in in a second, make his way into the interior of the theatre, and would at anyrate be certain of a shelter and sleep. The idea had no sooner come to him than all his forces became suddenly quickened and alert. He slipped out of the door, across the alley, in three steps, and pressed against the swing door under the lamp. It was open, as he thought. He entered, passed the little glass-fronted room where the stage-door keeper stood, and where a single electric light was burning, crept noiselessly up the stone stairs, and waited by the door which led directly on to the stage, crouching there in the darkness with a beating heart. He had not been there more than a minute when he heard heavy footsteps below in the passage. The stage-door keeper had returned from, the public-house. There was a jangling of keys, the snap of an electric switch being turned off, and then the heavy clang as the street dcor was closed- and locked.

Anthony Phipps was left alone. Weak and faint as he was, nevertheless a sense of immense relief flooded over him. For this night at least he had found a home. The stage-door keeper tramped towards the High street. He was a heavy man, and walked slowly. He had turned into the big, brightly-lighted thoroughfare, and, turning to the right towards the cathedral, had gone two or three hundred yards down it when he heard a sudden noise of shouting from behind his back. He turned and looked in perplexity along the way he had come. He saw a crowd of people running into the centre of the street, where one of the electric trams had stopped. Moved by the irresistible impulse to join a crowd, which is latent in almost everyone, he also began to run towards the centre of the disturbance.

What had happened.was this. Mr Prince, the manager, and Mr Watty Plum, the comedian, having finished their potations in the Theatre Arms, had left the place almost immediately after the stage-door keeper had locked up the theatre. They were only two or three hundred yards behind him.

The High Gtreet was very crowded. Mr Prince was his usual saturnine, mock-jovial self. Mr Watty Plum, however, a, gentleman who never left even a regret in the bottom of his glass, had been imbibing somewhat freely at intervals during the day. Coming out into the keen night air, the actor's potations had got hold of him, and a sudden wave of alcohol muddled his brain. In attempting to cross the High street he had ventured too near to an oncoming electric tram. His -foot had caught in the rails, and he had fallen, and before he had time to roll or scramble out of the way the front wheels of the heavy, clanging vehicle had passed over his legs. The "train had been stopped immediately, but the damage had been done,_ and the unfortunate comedian, unconscious and horribly mangled, lay in a death-like swoon in the road.

A large crowd had collected,, but the arrival of the police with an ambulance was only delayed for a minute or two, and within less than a quarter of an hour after the accident the comedian was being rapidly wheeled towards the local hospital, while Mr Prince, his face white with anxiety and horror, hurried along with the policeman. It was now about halfpast 9 or 20 minutes to 10 o'clock.

Anthony Phipps knew his way about the old theatre blindfold. He stood in the dark upon the middle of the stage considering the best place in which to spend the night. 'The dressing rooms first crossed his mind, but he remembered that the accommodation for sleep would be poor unless he was content to pass the night in an ordinary cane chair or upon the bare boards. A better idea than that came to him.

Just through the "pass door" leading from the stage to th, e auditorium, and on a level with the stalls, -was th.e_ manager's private room—if, indeed, it still existed,— in which both his father and grandfather had once held sway. He had some matches in his pocket, and lit one. The pass-door was immediately to his left. He pulled the heavy sheet of iron towards him, went through, and descended some carpeted steps. Passing through the swing door which led to the little entresol at the bottom of the steps leading down to the stalls, he saw the words, "Manager—Private," upon yet another portal. With trembling fingers he tried the handle of the door. It was unlocked, and he entered.

He felt for the electric switch, found it without difficulty, and flooded the room with light, carefully closing the door behind him.

It was a comfortable place enough. There was a thick carpet upon the floor, the walls were covered with photographs of theatrical celebrities, the remains of a fire still glowed red in the grate, and a comfortable, padded armchair stood by the writing-table, which was littered with papers. And more than this. Upon the writingtable itself stood a tray upon which was a bottle of whisky two-thirds full, some glasses, a syphon of soda-water, and a plate, with four or five sandwiches still remaining upon it. Finally, a little -distance away upon the. table was a box of cigars. For the* next twenty minutes poor, starved, light-headed Anthony Phipps was very busy. He piled coals upon the fire, and poked it into a cheerful blaze. With a sense of comfort arid opulence to which he had long been a stranger he poured whisky and splashed soda-water into one of the tumblers. The sandwiches —they were rather dry and stale, but they tasted like the food of the gods to him—disappeared as if by magic; and whew he finally lit an excellent Corona and settled down by the fire, with the whisky bottle at his elbow, the poor outcast was as happy as any man in Morchester that night. His long privations, his weak state of health, the despair which had weighed so heavily upon him during the last few days, had induced a sort of Coma. —an insensibility to anything but the physical sensations of the moment. Unlike most minor members of his class, Phipps was not in any way addicted to alcohol, though, perforce, much of his spare time was spent hi theatrical bars and hotels with hi® confreres.

Now, however, lie began to drink copiously of the whisky—hardly knowing what he did. —and as the spirit warmed him and the fumes mounted to his brain, a curious exultation —a fantastic and unnatural glow—flooded 'his mind, and ran like fire in his brain.

He rc©3 to his feet and began to pace up and dowri the icom. The alcohol he had taken had no effect upon his walk or speech. He moved alertly, brightly. He talked to himself without fumbling over his words, and his voice rang out strong, clear, and racy in his ears.

"Love a duck," he said to himself, "I shall get an engagement soon sure enough, Then I'll show them something. The public may have forgotten me at present, but I shall remind them soon! No one knows what I can do but myself. My chance will come! Then all the world shall know." Still in his wild fantastic dream he opened the door of the manager's room, and with light, sure footsteps ascended to the stage. The curtain was up, and his feet rang hollow upon the boards of the vast, dark place, while he could see the shrouded and ghost-like auditorium before him from a feeble glimmer of light, wliich filtered through the sky-light in the roof. He wa» on the prompt side of the stage, where he knew the big electric switchboard, which controls all the footlights, headlights, and battens, was fixed.

He had been a stage-manager too often not to understand the wording of the taps and switches, and almost mechanically his hand went out, caught hold of a vulcanite handle, and turned it.

There was a snap, and then the first row of light leaped into radiance. Anthony gave a chuckle of glee. His dexterous fingers moved over the great board, and soon the whole stage glowed with brilliant white light—as bright and searching as in the big scene of a play. Phipps walked into the centre of the stage and made a bow to the vast, dark caverns of the auditorium. In his excited brain he heard the fierce thunder of applause, and he turned, with another bow., and walked to the O.P. side of the boards. A iiccrie was set—complete in every detail. . It was the Baron's Banqueting Mall—always the great comi« scene in the pantomime of "Cinderella." This act had been carefully rehearsed during the afternoon, .and Mr Watty Plum had finally gone'tinough and touched up all his comic business with the other comedians who were to support him. - Upon the big table, laid with a mock banquet—immense chickens, "property" sausages, and a bottle of whisky nearly three feet high—lay the script of Watty Plum's part, bound in brown paper. Mechanically—still in his wild, exhilarated dream— Anthony took it up and

glanced through it -with a rapid profes- ] jional eye. f|He saw the same old jokes ; the timejibnoured chestnuts of pantomime, which jjever fail to get a laugh, and which "were m familiar to him. ■As-he read the words the brilliantlyjfighted stage seemed to his excited vision iguddenly to be thronged with all the jcither characters, of the scene. ■ The two ugly sisters —one tall, thin, fed nosed, the other inordinately fat and agile, both with the hoarse voices of low comedians—were having a comic quarrel £ver the whisky bottle. I By the fire, in her dress of faded russet Ereen, her fair hair rippling down her ack, gating earnestly into the coals, sat Cinderella upon her little stool. The comic servant, in his top boot 3 and plumpoloured livery, was performing acrobatic feats with plates and dishes in the background. j The door opened suddenly, and in came PDandini, bearing the invitation to the Prince's ball—a slim girl in purple tights, smoking a cigarette. lie was followed »by a crowd cf pretty girls, who burst I upon the comic scene with, a chorus of £ tinkling laughter. How real it ali was: To him these pwere no phantoms of an overstrained and i excited brain. Once more he stood before a crowded, laughing audience, clad lin his motley, swaying them, playing f-upon them, forcing them to mirth by the I power of his comic art. With light feet ■that pattered upon the boards like muffled ' eastonets, he "danced down to the footI lights, looking out over them at the Bstippled pink of hundreds of faces which Ihe saw there in his vision. He Jeered at I his audience of ghosts. and their laughter I thundered within his brain. He made a motion of his hand to a specI tral conductor of the orchestra whom |; he saw beneath him. ■ There was an answering wave of the I baton, he heard the swing of the violins, | the preliminary rattle of the kettledrum, | and then the band swung into the music 1 of an old, forgotten song. I With an inimitable gesture of his thumb | over his shoulder to an imaginary group lof girls who were crowded round the S table, he started. "Hullo! Some girls! I wonder, who I are these?" He heard an answer which had been 1 made to him many years ago as the tallest I of the girls, holding up a bottle of chamI pagne in her hand, replied: §Wo are the sisters Bonne Bouche, if you ! please. We dispense champagne to all with cash. Anthony broke in: As I am a Baron, I must cut a dash, But just before I drink I'll sing a song-, I To cheer your spirits— Now we shan't be long, I Said the girls in chorus. The opening bars, of the quick-time I melody ceased, the accompaniment beI gan. With a face twisted into indeI scribable mirth, a face which, even then. ■in that dim and empty theatre, was the t.very quintessence of comedy and fun, I Phipps spoke rather than sang the wellI remembertd song: I A barmaid was Maudie, much to her regret I (I never was that, were you?), I Left an orphan, the poor little pet I Thought in this way a nice little fortune she'd get.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! •So to the Frivolity Bar she went, And asked for Mr Brown; Said he, " Pretty 'dear, I engage you right here. You're the neatest girl in town!" The chorus was sung by all of them: Ah! ah! the naughty "'rivolity Bar, For champagne and jollity, And ladies decollete, You must eeek the Frivolity Bar!

It was over. He stopped and bowed to the huge bursts of applause he seemed to bear.

The- inane nonsense he had been singing, his ordinary clothes, the lack x>f paint, were absolutely unable to rob his face and gestures of their own infinite fun. Indf.ed, had there been an audience there the applause, which seemed so real to the poor, maddened brain, would have been actual enough. With a few steps of a dance, a witticism or two Avhich cracked sharply like whips in the empty theatre, Phipps danced to the table, and began extraordinary and novel comic "business," with the viands upon it. He had always been funny in this scene in the past, but to-night, all alone, Avith no one to assist but the phantoms of his mind, he surpassed himself.

For nearly a quarter of an hour with unflagging energy, unfailing merriment, he Continued. His voire rang and echoed out into the theatre—it was a performane unequalled in brilliancy and completeness of its own kind —a performance which would have lifted him to the very front rank of comic actors had the shrouded seats been really filled with laughing people. Then came the end. Exhausted nature reasserted herself. The temporary stimulus of the whisky died away. • There was a sudden collapse. The little man's eyes lost all their fire. They became glazed and dull, as if. a. lamp behind them hud been suddenly extinguished. He sank into his chair- and looked moodily at the ground in silence. Then, suddenly, and in an entirely different tone of voice—thin, chill," and weary —he spoke; "I can act!" he murmured. "I could act Watty Plum's head off if I had the chance!"

Then Anthony Phipps started from his chair as if he had been shot. A voice, loud, human, real—no faint spectra! voice of the past--rang cut into the theatre.

"And so you shall, by Jove! whoever you are! My boy, I have never seen etich good business in my life before! Who are you? How the deuce did you get in here?'

With a bound Mr Prince, the lessee of the theatre, jumped on to the chair of the first vioilin and sprang from the orchestra on to the stage. "There's been an accident," he said in a hurried, astonished voice. "Watty Plum can't play on Boxing Night. He's broken his legs. I came here to write some letters and think over -what I should do, and I found you here! Who are you? What are you doing here?'

There was no answer. Anthony Phipps stared at the big, burly man for a moment, and sank back- into his chair —a pathetic, huddled little figure—in a d-eep swoon.

He was taken to the manager's house, clothed, warmed, fed. The manager's wife looked after him as if he was a C'nllinan diamond. The manager's daughters— two of whom were playing in the pantomime—treated him with the reverence of a curate towards an archbishop. On the morning of Boxing Day the Manchester Daily Times had a long column of eulogy of the famous actor who had been engaged at such short notice — entirely owing to the acumen of the respected Mr Piince, nd at vast expense—to take the part so unfortunatelj' vacated by Mr Watty Plum. The article concluded (in Mr Prince's most florid style) with an account of Anthony Phipps's early life in Morchester, and his old associations with the historic Countv Theatre.

At 12 o'clock on Boxing Night Mr Phipps sat drinking champagne in the manager's room. Various otheT members of the company were there, profuse : in congratulations to the rising star who had made such an enormous success, and who, as they knew, -was now destined to rise to the very top of the profession. All the principal people of the theatre were there, save only the stage manager, who had thought it wiser to go home directly the curtain fell.

The most eventful Christmas in Anthony Phipps's life was over, and even "when some three years afterwards, upon another Boxing Night, he played the part of the Baron upon- the boards of Drury Lane, his triumphfe did not seem to him as great as on that night at Moi Chester, when he danced and played with the ghosts of the past. [The End]