ween his public and his past, and
told of these early London days:

"For years I went home to my little room, if, fortunately, I had one,' he
said, 'and perhaps a tallow dip was stuck in the neck of a bottle, and I
was fortunate if I had something to cook for myself over a fire, if I had
a fire. That was my life. When night came I wandered about the streets of
London, and if I had a penny I invested it in a baked potato from the
baked-potato man on the corner. I would put these hot potatoes in my
pockets, and after I had warmed my hands, I would swallow the potato. That
is the truth.'

"At length, his wardrobe became so reduced that attendance at any but the
most informal entertainments became out of the question, and finally he
had to give up these. Soon he was inking the seams of his coat, and
wandered about shunning friends, for fear they would learn to what a
condition he was reduced.

"'Often,' he admitted, 'I stayed in bed and slept because when I was
awake I was hungry. Footsore, I would gaze into the windows of
restaurants, bakeries, and fruit shops, thinking the food displayed in
them the most tempting and beautiful sight in the world. There were times
when I literally dined on sights and smells,'

"He did every species of dramatic and musical hack work in drawing rooms,
in clubs, and in special performances in theatres. Sometimes he got into
an obscure provincial company, but he said that his very cleverness was a
kind of curse, since the harder he worked and the better the audiences
liked him, the quicker he was discharged. The established favorites of
these little companies always struck when a newcomer made a hit.

"Richard Barker was the stage manager and Mansfield could never please
him. After trying again and again, he once cried: 'Please, Barker, do let
me alone. I shall be all right. I have acted the part.' 'Not you,'
declared Barker. 'Act? You act, man? You will never act as long as you
live!'

"The recollection of the rebuffs, poverty, starvation, inability to find
sympathy, because, possibly, of the pride which repelled it, the
ill-fortune which snatched the extended opportunity just as he was about
to grasp it, the jealousy of established favorites of the encroaching
popularity of newcomers, the hardships of provincial travel and life in a
part of the country and at a time when the play-actor was still regarded
as a kind of vagabond and was paid as such, the severity of the discipline
he enc