one face
that is the same, one voice in which there is still the old familiar
ring, and to many such a wanderer old "Johnny Toole" becomes the one
connecting line between the dear old past and the cold new present. And
who does not know the aspect of the man himself--the short, sturdy
figure, the slight limp in his walk, the kind, pleasant face with the
mobile mouth and the eyeglass screwed in the smiling eye, and the hair,
now sprinkled with grey, brushed back from the broad open forehead? The
genial, pleasant manner, the entire ease of the man, and the utter
absence of all that detestable putting on of "side" which is too often
characteristic of the young actor of the present day, how all these
things go towards the explanation of his universal popularity! A great
sorrow has overshadowed the latter years of his life, a sorrow from
which he will never shake himself free, but which has only deepened the
tenderness of the nature which is so characteristic of the man. I spent
a morning with him very recently in his house at Maida Vale. As he
entered the room and I asked him how he was, he replied, "Oh, well, I am
pretty middling, thanks; an actor's is such a hard life, you know," he
went on, confidentially, as he pushed me into a chair and took one
himself upon the opposite side of the hearthrug. "I have just been
reading a whole bundle of manuscript plays, and you never saw such
rubbish in your life. And then"--he went on, plaintively enough--"I lose
the things, you know; put 'em into a drawer, or with a lot of other
manuscripts and papers, and I can't lay my hands on 'em when they are
sent for, and then, oh, goodness! there's the deuce and all to pay; for
I can assure you that no mother thinks more of her first-born baby than
a young author thinks of his first play, and if you are not of the same
opinion he regards you as the biggest idiot in the world." "Well, but,"
I ventured to remark--"why on earth do you bother about the things?"
"Oh, well," said he--"you know I can't help myself; you never can get
away from them. For instance, I go out to a harmless evening party, and
a country parson comes up to me, the most unlikely man in all the world,
you'd think, and he'll say to me, 'My brother has just written a play,
Mr. Toole; I wish you'd just cast your eye over it.' And I can't say No,
Mr. Blathwayt, I can't say No. Well, now you're here," he went on after
a moment, "you'll like to have a look round, won't you? I've got