Edward Terry and the Drunkard

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9, 4 March 1905, Page 5

Edward Terry and the Drunkard

Here is a story which was not included among the many told of Mr. Edward lerry at that popular comedian's farewell dinner at the Savoy, just before the ’Frisco mail left. Mr. Terry, as is well known, is connected very closely with what are generally called* “local affairs” in the picturesque borough of Barnes.

Indeed, so great a man is he in the place, that some of the residents In* has left behind him for the time that he will be in America have christened him temporarily “Mr. Baines of New York.” Mr. Terry’s municipal duties naturally include the moral, but not compulsory.

one of putting down drink not as it was pul down at his farewell dinner, but in the less comfortable sense of reformation; and one of the actor’s “bad boys" of Barms is an old gentleman who has contracted the bad habit of

drink, and the worse uue uf promising not to get drunk and uevei being sober. One day the highly respectable head of ’the House of Burnside’’ met the “bad boy," who had just been breaking hi- promise rather freely at an adjacent mu, and rated him severely lor his weak ness. Ihc old fellow look tht lapel oi aii. lerry s municipal truck coat be I ween his linger and thumb, and answered reproachfully: “Now, look ’e here, my dear feller. l'\e been makiu' 'quirics bout you, an' 1 find you’re as bad a- me. I'a I o' mine says he saw you in the St ran' blind as a' owl, sayin' to a young man who'd been trying to do you a bit o' good, ‘Las' time, Cluimy, my boy, the las' time!’ An' w hen he'd gone you went an' touk a lot more!” Mr. Terry explained to the old toper that his friend had seen him playing the part of Dick Phenyl in “Sweet Lavender,” and that the tipsiness was all assumed, but he shook his head knowingly, and staggered away repeating half to himself the words, or part of words, “Oh, no, no! You don't tell me! I nwentin' artful storks is part o' the d'sease. Play indeed! an' th h-heatr’! \\ ha’ uev'? 'E's a nice one to tell the I eelolal tal<‘! Bad as 1 am, ev'ry bit!”