My poor dear mother, who has been pretty nearly crazy about the affair, in that shrinking from publicity which is natural to a lady, told the young gentleman from _The Keyhole_, who dropped in on her at her little place at Brixton, to fish and find out for himself why the marriage-engagement between her daughter and his lordship should have been broken off on the very verge of the altar.
Of course, I don’t assume his lordship’s proposal wasn’t a compliment to a young lady in the Profession; but lordly roofs and music halls may cover vice or shelter virtue, as one of the serio characters so beautifully said in the autumn show at dear old Drury Lane, the name of which has slipped me. And I don’t pretend that my deepest and holiest feelings were not wrenched a bit by me having to say in two words, after mutual vows and presents of the solemnest kind had been exchanged between me and Lord Wretchingham: “All is over between you and me for ever, Hildebrand; and if you possess the mind as well as the manners and appearance of a gentleman, you will not force me to give you the definite chuck.”
He went on awfully, grinding the heels of his boots into a brand-new Wilton carpet, and telling me over and over that I had no heart and never loved him, concerning which I prefer to keep myself to myself. There are those that make as much noise when things go wrong with ’em as a one-and-fourpenny sparking-plug, and there are others that keep theirselves to theirselves and suffer in silence, of which I hope I am one. Even supposing my ancestry did not toddle over with Edward the Conkeror, which they may, for all I know.
It was on the very first night of the production of _The Pop-in-Taw Girl_, by the Trust or Bust Theatrical Syndicate, at the Hiram P. Goff Theatre, W., that Lord Wretchingham caught my eye. Musical Comedy is my strongest weakness, for though a principal boy’s part, with heaps of changes, and electro-calcium with chromatic glasses for every song and dance touches the spot, pantomime is not so refined. Perhaps you may recall the record hits I made in “Freddy’s Flannel Waistcoat Wilted in the Wash,” and “Lay Your Head on My Shoulder, Dear.” Not that it’s my habit to refer to my successes, but the street organs alone will rub it in when you happen to be the idol of the hour.