The Secrets of a Savoyard

Student Days with W. H. Trood-An Artist of Parts-A Fateful Night at the Theatre-The Schoolboy and the Actress-A Firm Hand With a Rival-Three Months'

irty years o

r reminiscences, Lytton?" The late Lord Fisher strongly urged me to write them when I paid my last visit to his home a few months before he passed to the Great Beyond. So great was my respect for Lord Fisher, one of the noblest Englishmen of our age, that I felt bound to adopt his suggestion, and it is thus partly in homage to his sterling qualities and gifts that I begin now to reveal these "Secrets of a Savoyard." This much let me say a

show at the bottom of the garden, and to invite the public's patronage. This ranks as my first venture in managerial responsibility. I rigged up a tent-a small and jerry-built contrivance it was-and an announcement of the forthcoming entertainment in my bold schoolboy's hand was pasted on to the outer wall of the garden. The charges for admission were original. Stalls were to be purchased with an apple, lesser seats with a handful of chocolates or nuts, while a few sweets would secure admission to the pit. The boys of the village, having read the notice, turned up and paid their nuts and sweets in accordance with the advertised tariff, but the sad fact has to be re

a. Of St Mark's I shall have much to say. I played the title r?le in "Boots at the Swan." Except that I enjoyed being the cheeky little hotel "Boots" and fancied myself not a little in my

against when they met Lytton. In most cases this was said with such vivid embellishments that the youngsters got a heart-sinking feeling. But there was one lad who was more adroit. He argued that it was all very well for the school champion to fight surrounded by and cheered on by his friends, but that this must put the challenger at a distinct disadvantage. He also considered that no harm would be done if he measured up this much-boomed light-weight before the time came for him to stand up publicly as his antagonist. Luring m

a number of rolls at ?d. each and a pot of jam for 4?d. With these I retailed slices of most appetising bread and jam at a penny a time and made an excellent profit. If the truth must be told the smaller

Sinc

y A

siasm for golf. For tuition I went to W. H. Trood at his studio in Chelsea. Trood in his time was an artist of parts. He had a fine sense of composition and painted many beautiful pictures. If he had not been deaf and dumb he would have ma

tudents were a merry band, and though we had little money, we made the most of what we had to spend. Our studio was only a garret, and it was a common thing for each of us to buy a tough steak for

was destined to be most fateful for me in my future career. We had gone together into the gallery at the Avenue Theatre (now the Playhouse). The attraction was a French opera-bouffe called "Olivette." And I must confess that my susceptible heart was at once smitten with the charms of a young lady who was playing one of the subs

cquaintance. So to Miss Louie Henri I addressed a most courteous note, paying her some exquisite compliments, and inviting her to meet her unknown admirer at the stage door after the

on a fine box of chocolates. Nothing I could do was to be left undone to make the conquest complete. But first there came a s

tone of my voice must have been for

he lad. Seemingly he thou

his kind have to be met wi

ot the school's champion light-weight for nothing. The rival almost threw the chocolates into my hands and vani

handed. Only once did the rival attempt to steal a march on me again. I discovered him loitering round the stage door, but when he saw my fists in a business-like att

ad to play her part in "Olivette." So it occurred to me that the only thing was to give up school. I accordingly wrote a letter, in my guardian's name, saying that I was being taken away from St. Mark's for a three-months' holiday, and poste

ry day of the marriage. I remember that, after the fees at church had been paid, the cash at our disposal amounted to eighteen-pence. The question then was how far this would take us in the matter of a honeymoon. Strolling into Kensington Gardens we decided that we would spend it on the thrills of a r

was possible. During my absence, of course, it had become known that my guardian's letter was a deception and that my three months care-free existence was truancy. Where I had been the headmaster did not know. What I had done

public exhibition of one can have a very acute s

me like this. Do you know what you are

it had been, was redoubled in intensity. The master

man," I yelled. "I w

re lurid light. It was bad enough to tell a lie, but a good deal worse to get married, and

" I'm afraid at the moment that, smarting under the rod, the joys of married life seemed to me to be, as Mark Twain would say, "greatly exaggerated." And worse was to come. Next day the master, consideri

provincial tour, commencing at Glasgow. My wife contrived to see Mr. Carte, and she faithfully followed the strategy that had been decided upon. Seeing that theatrical managers were understood to dislike married couples in companies on tour, she was to ask him whether he would engage her brother for the tour, pointing out tha

Philip's, Kensington. "Never mind," replied Mr. Carte; "he will do as understudy for David Fisher as King Gama." And as chorister and understudy I was engaged.

e very high in the profession-it would hardly be fair to give his identity away!-and one night he gave me a broad hint that my dutiful watchfulness was carried too far. "Leave her to me," he whispered, affably. When I told him I had promised mother I would not leave her, or some such story, a compromise was arranged whereby after the show, when we were

everything seemed to be going splendidly. It happened when one of the assistant mana

mented, taking them in at a

en shi

ngs? Three rooms for

he fatal slip! Trut

we should not have got the engagement, and we were in too much of a dilemma t

t, was true. Our marriage, he went on to tell us, would not have been a handicap in the D'Oyly Carte Company. Most man

he had a grievance. He was the usurper who had insisted that I should allow him to escort my alleged sister from the theatre to our lod

"And how's your sister, Lytton?" Similarly, whenever he spoke to my wife, there was invariab

TON AT THE A