We knew the manager well, and upon sending in our cards to
him, we could figure as guests at a ball, or as two of the crowd on a
racecourse. I liked seeing the blurred outlines of the vast audience
over the dazzling glare of the footlights, and the details of the
production of these complicated spectacular pieces amused me when seen
from the stage. In one of these melodramas, I think the _Derby
Winner_, there was a spirited auction scene on the stage, when
Mrs. John Wood bid 30,000 pounds for a horse. I had an almost
irresistible impulse to over-bid her and to shout "forty thousand
pounds." Mrs. John Wood would have proved, I am sure, equal to the
emergency, and would have got the better of me. Between us, we should
probably have run the horse up to a quarter of a million, and the
consternation of the rest of the company would have been very amusing
to witness, but it would not have been quite fair on our friend the
manager, so I refrained.
A great-nephew of mine, then an Eton boy of fifteen, had heard of
these experiences and longed to share them; so, with the manager's
consent, I took him "on" the first day of his holidays. He was one of
the crowd at an imaginary Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, cheering for
all he was worth, when he suddenly saw four of his Eton friends
sitting together in the front row of the stalls, and nodded to them.
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