I don’t know myself exactly why, but I took it into my head to call upon Mrs. Langtry last Thursday afternoon. Of course I had already followed the example of all the other managers in this city, and had offered “my little theatre” to Abbey, if it would be of any use to him (though, by the by, I haven’t received any reply to my letter makin’ the offer from Abbey yet, because, I suppose, he has been so busy). But I really didn’t have the faintest notion of callin’ on the Jersey Lily till I happened to find myself passing the Albemarle Hotel and saw the crowd of reporters and swells, all mixed up together, and almost blockadin’ the entrance to the hotel. Then I suddenly took it into my head to try my luck, and makin’ my way with difficulty through the throng, I reached the office and had my card sent up.
While waitin, I got talkin’ to the gentlemanly hotel clerk, and he told me that since the lady’s arrival the hotel people have had to keep four high-priced detectives constantly at work penetratin’ the designs and disguises of men about town and club men, who have been gettin’ ‘emselves up as waiters, or messengers, or tradesmen, or English lords and dukes–or anythin’–so as to get a chance to get into the Langtry parlor. Just then the hotel annunciator was struck and a number displayed. “That is from the Langtry’s apartments,” said the clerk to me, and immediately seven different men, who had been sittin’ on a bench, dressed as waiters, started to answer the summons–only one of whose services were accepted. “The other six are Union Club men in disguise,” remarked the clerk.
I now began to think a little about myself, and wondered what on earth I should talk to the Langtry about in case she was kind enough to grant me an interview. I didn’t want to ask her any impertinent questions; besides, almost every possible impertinent question had already been asked her by the reporters. Yet I must say something. Finally I determined to be guided by circumstances, and just as I had arrived at this resolve, a waiter approached me and told me that Mrs. Langtry would be happy to have me walk upstairs. My card had been graciously received, I suppose, because I hadn’t made any fuss over it and took my chances like a man, or because I was originally from h’old h’England, or because she may have heard of me as one of the “institutions.” At any rate I was to be “received,” and as I followed the waiter upstairs a swell rushed up to me and offered me a hundred dollar bill to let him go up in my place. But “money was no object now,” and I walked right on and up, and a little quickly, too, as I saw Buffalo Bill, with his long hair and his fur-lined coat, walkin’ up ahead of me. But before I could reach up to Billy he had gone into a room–into the very room into which I was shown by the waiter, too–into the Langtry parlor. This surprised me a good deal, but I was surprised still more when goin’ up to Billy, as I thought him, and offering him my hand, I found he was not my friend Buffalo Bill at all, but only Oscar Wilde.
I made the best of the mistake, though, as I always do, and said somethin’ about it’s “bein’ a fine day.” “Don’t say fine,” said Oscar, “say beautiful. Let us have more of the beautiful, Mr. Hill, if only in our speech. The day is beautiful, just as I am the beautiful apostle of the beautiful.” I bowed to the rebuke, and then asked Oscar how he found the “aesthetic racket” work, but before he could reply in fittin’ terms I heard a gentle rustle of silks. I saw a pretty, graceful woman with a pleasant smile,,and I heard a musical voice utterin’ the words, “Is this Mr. Harry Hill?” I told her I was, and I found she was Mrs. Langtry. After a little preliminary “taffy” I said to Mrs. Langtry, who put me at my ease at once, as every true lady does a visitor:
“How’s Wales?”
“There must be some error, Mr. Hill,” replied the lady. “I have not come from Wales. Or perhaps you were thinking of Madame Patti. She has a place, I believe, in Wales.”
I answered Mrs. L. that I was not alludin’ to the country Wales, but to the individual Wales–to the Prince of Wales–to Albert Edward, in short.
“Oh, that Wales is quite well,” replied the lady. “I haven’t had my usual cablegram from him yet to-day, but I suppose Mr. Abbey has received it for me. He generally sees to these things, you know,” with a wink.
“Then there was no truth,” I ventured to remark, “in that ice business?”
“What ice business, Mr. Hill?”
“Oh, that story of your dropping that piece of ice down Wales’s back once at supper or dinner.”
“There was never was a word of truth in that story, Mr. Hill,” said the lady, slightly frownin’. At least not as far as I am concerned. There was a piece of ice dropped down his Royal Highness’s Imperial back, but it was not dropped by me, but by that–that other–that other person–that Mrs. Cornwallis West.” And the Lily’s eyes snapped fire as they uttered those three words.
I pressed this point no further, but havin’ asked after the Prince thought it my duty now to ask after the husband.
“How’s hubby Langtry,” I inquired.
“Well, really, Mr. Hill, I don’t exactly know,” replied the lady, with a charmin’ smile. “I don’t hear from him, you know, as regularly as I do from Wales. But when last heard from he was doin’ well, keepin’ an inn, or shop, or something of the sort, over in Holland, I believe.”
“Do you expect him over shortly?” I inquired.
“Him? Who? Wales or Langtry? Which?” said the lady.
“Your husband.”
“Oh, no,” replied the Lily. “My manager will not allow him to come over to America. Cruel, isn’t it, to part husband and wife this way? But it is business, you know, Mr. Hill. And, after all, he will get his share of the money I make in America after I’ve made it.”
Then I asked after Mrs. Labouchere. “Oh, she’s well,” said the Lily, cheerfully, “and as lively as a kitten. She looks upon this whole American scheme as a lark, and is havin’ no end of a good time. She is lyin’ down just now; overworked herself at rehearsal to-day. She makes ‘em all stand round at the theatre, you know. She told Arthur Wallack to-day that she was the real stage manager, and so she is.”
Then we got talkin’ about matters and things, and among the things discussed was Patti.
I found that Mrs. Langtry had a very high regard for Patti; first because she could draw more money than she could, and next because she had struck upon a new line of advertisin’, promisin’ to wear in her operas this winter in New York dresses that are to be worn as the fashion in Paris next spring.
“Why, this sort of thing will bring all the women in New York to the opera. Not to hear the music of the present, but to see the demi-toilettes of the future,” remarked the Lily.
“Why, it beats the Park Theatre fire as an advertisin’ scheme, “ I agreed.
The fact is, Mr. Hill,” she added, “New York beats even London in free advertising,” said Mrs. Langtry. “One woman makes herself a strong attraction by a libel suit. Another woman takes advantage in advance of my arrival here and announces herself as the handsomest woman on the stage. Think of that! And really I receive about a letter a minute, take the twenty-four hours through, offering me any amount of commissions, or goods, or even money direct, if I will endorse or recommend some line of goods–some hair wash, or tooth wash, or face powder, or glove, or corset. Why I get even more letters from tradesman than I do from spoons or cranks. One horrid man yesterday gave me all these horrid pills,” pointing to a bottle on the shelf, “if I would only swallow one and say it did me good; ugh! and he offered to call it ‘The Langtry Pill.’ Just fancy!,” and the Lily shuddered.
Your correspondence must be very extensive,” I remarked, lookin’ at the pile of letters lyin’ on the table, most of ‘em unopened.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Langtry, “it is; but then it is all on one side–the other side. Yesterday I got a letter from one woman, a perfect stranger, asking me to advance her a thousand dollars to go on the stage with, and kindly promisin’ never to play any of my special roles, so as not to interfere with me. Another party wants me to subscribe to some worthy charity, whose very name I never heard of before; a third writes to know whether I am a Christian; another sends me a tract, while one of my friends recently received a long letter from a woman residin’ on one of your streets–Madison avenue, I think it is called, askin’ the question, ‘ought we,’ by we meaning New York Society, ‘to visit her?’ by her meanin’ me, just as if I had any time or inclination to visit them,” said the Jersey Lily, sniffin’ the air scornfully.
The bare idea of a woman who “refers, by special permission, to H. R. H. the P.W. bein’ debated about as to whether or not she is good enough to be visited by the wife of some wealthy butcher or baker or the daughter of some retired candlestick maker.
It made the lady indignant–almost as angry as when Nilsson the other day called her dear friend and chum, Oscar Wilde, a fool.
Well, I passed a very agreeable ten minutes or so with the beauty, who, by the by, is as beautiful as–and not a whit more beautiful than–a thousand other women in New York, and then took my leave. I did not want to become, like Emily Faithful, or the strong-minded women, a bore, so I just put two leadin’ questions, and received two direct answers:
“What do you like most in America, Mrs. Langtry?”
“The American dollar, Mr. Hill.”
“What do you depend on chiefly to keep up the Langtry boom?”
“The Langtry luck.”
“Your head’s level, ma’am,” said I to the Jersey Lily; and then shakin’ hands with Oscar, givin’ him the address of a friend of mine where he can get his “lillies fried” and his “sunflowers on toast” at a reasonable rate, and promisin’ to get him up a private prize fight at my little theater anytime he gave me notice, thus affordin’ a free view of whatever is “beautiful” in the way of muscle, and givin’ him the aesthetics of athletics, I pledged myself to attend the Lily’s debut at Wallack’s to-morrow night in full evening dress. I then bowed myself downstairs just as right Sanford was coming up.
