All the other members of the company had more or less miraculous escapes. Leicester Tunks, Frederick Hobbs, Leo Sheffield, and several others lost all their luggage, but fortunately none sustained any more serious mishap. From the good people of Dublin we received every possible kindness, but as you will imagine, we were thankful when we heard that there were berths on a boat to take us back to Holyhead.
I have not, of course, told all my experiences of that awful week, though in memory these still linger vividly. But one of the things I remember best of all was a quaint remark of Billington's. Outside there was still the noise of the fighting, and most persistent of all was the crack! crack! crack! of a sniper somewhere near our own building. "Oh! Harry," said poor Fred, in utter weariness, "I do wish that bally wood-pecker would chuck it!"
_Luckless ventures in Theatrical Management--Farces that failed--New outlets for Enthusiasm--Baldness in the poultry run--Captain Corcoran and the crooks--Floricultural topsy-turvydom--The flowers that did not bloom in the Spring--Recreations that remain--Prize Costumes at fancy-dress balls--The big-game shot and the tiger._
Like "Mr. Punch" in another connection, I have a sound piece of advice for those who may ever think of embarking on theatrical management. "Don't!" I say this after bitter experience. It was not only that my gallanty show as a boy ended disastrously. This, of course, was itself a bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and that the gamble of theatrical management is surrounded by all kinds of perils. A West-end audience may be just as capricious and as hard to please as my audience of village lads in the garden.
My first real venture, a London one, was at the Criterion Theatre, which with a few others I took on lease from Sir Charles Wyndham, in order to produce "The Wild Rabbit." It was by Mr. George Arliss, who has since given up writing plays in order to act them, and he is now a "star" in America. It was one of those rollicking farces which, one would have thought, would have filled the house every night. I was playing elsewhere at the time, but we got together a really excellent company, amongst whom were the Broughs. But fate was against us from the very beginning. The production coincided with a heat wave, which is bound to be disastrous to all but the best of shows, and one of the facetious complaints of the newspaper critics was that they had to come to the theatre when the temperature was eighty in the shade.