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longer portion being the dining-room, and the smaller one the card-room, and on Saturday evenings, when they all sat[Pg 160] round smoking their calumets, and singing their songs, and dancing their war-dances, the room was tried to its utmost capacity, and as on the occasion to which I am referring the tribe paid me the compliment of assembling in its numbers, the whole room was required. It was late in the evening when I arrived, and I found the lanternist in a state of agitation because the partition was not down, and he was, therefore, unable to put up the screen, as the card-players vigorously protested against any disturbance.

Now it has always struck me, perhaps more forcibly on this occasion than on any other, that the most selfish men on the face of the earth are to be found in the card-rooms of clubs. The time was close at hand for me to make my maiden effort in public lecturing, and I was not going to be baffled by a handful of card-players; so, backed by the authority of the secretary, I ordered them in Cromwellian tones to "Take away that partition!" The players were all but invisible, surrounded as they were by volumes of smoke, out of which there issued incalculable quantities of great big D's intermixed with the fumes of poisonous nicotine. Down went the partition, up went the screen, on went the game. I firmly believe they would not have looked up had Cavendish come to deliver a discourse from the platform on whist. I was quite prepared to proceed without disturbing their game, but a difficulty arose—there was no platform, and I required their tables for the purpose. The grumbling gamblers had to submit at last, and cards in hand they betook themselves to another room, so I was able to mount my first platform—a collection of tables. Now I don't know how it is, but it is a fact that there is nothing more unnerving than to stand on a table. The infantile prodigy who is put up on a table for the first time so as to be better admired by fair visitors, and who has previously struggled manfully from one end of the room to the other on the floor, totters and falls at the first step when raised to this higher elevation. Anyone can with ease stand on a chair and hang up a picture or anything of the sort, but standing on a table has the effect of making you grow weak in the knees and light in the head. This is not the effect of the[Pg 161] extra height, but the knowledge that the table was constructed so that you could put your feet under it, and, therefore, they have no right on top of it.

Have you ever been in a court of justice in Ireland and seen a witness perched upon a table? In that enlightened country a table takes the place of the witness-box. The result is delightful. Standing in a witness-box and leaning comfortably over the bar, you can be comparatively at your ease, your legs can tremble unobserved, and you seem to be in a measure protected from the searching gaze of the public. Not so in the Emerald Isle. The chair is placed in the centre of the table in the well of the court between the judges and the counsel, and the unfortunate witness, finding himself in this elevated and awkward position, becomes nervous in the extreme. His feet are a great source of discomfort to him. He doesn't seem to know what to do with them. First he tucks them under the chair, then he crosses them, then he turns his toes out, then he turns them in, and just when he is beginning to get accustomed to his embarrassing situation, the cross-examination begins, and he is at the counsel's mercy:

"Now thin, don't be gaping at the jury, sir; why arrn't you respectful and keep your eye on his lordship?"

"Now, sir, attind to me whin I'm speaking, look me straight in the face, and answer me!"

"D'ye see this gintleman on me right? Now, now, don't hisitate, keep cool!"

It is more than the poor witness can do to keep on the chair. The judge is on his right, the counsel on the left, and the jury in front of him, and after vainly trying to keep his eye on them all at the same time, in obedience to his counsel's injunctions, he is requested by the opposing counsel to observe some witness in the court behind him. In my opinion the witness ought to be provided with a swivel chair, or else the clerks who sit round ought to be adepts in the art of table-turning.

Some years later I had another experience of speaking from an impromptu platform; perhaps the most unique audience I ever addressed. It was at Merchant Taylors' Hall, when a reception[Pg 162] was given to hospital nurses from all over the kingdom. My pencil perhaps can give a better idea of the sundry and various varieties of the "nursus hospitalicus" from the different nurseries of the country. There was no proper platform or stage, so the attendants had the task of moving all the heavy tables in the splendid hall together, so as to form a substitute. This I thought very efficient, but when I mounted it I found that I could much better have given an exhibition of fancy sliding or skating than illustrations of the pedestrian peculiarities of Members of Parliament. I was inwardly pleased to think that my audience was entirely composed of skilled nurses, who were close at hand should anything happen, for I had serious misgivings about the slippery surface of my improvised stage. Visions of myself with a broken arm or leg floated before me,[Pg 163] and, indeed, I don't think I should have been so very sorry had an accident occurred, so enraptured was I by the sight of so much feminine beauty.

GIVING MY "HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENT" TO THE NURSES.

Those in front were all seated on the floor, while the rest were standing in the huge hall, there being no seats. I noticed that the prettiest dress was that worn by the nurses from the lunatic asylums. I felt that I would eventually come under the supervision of these ladies, for a military band, regardless of my performance, was playing a selection from the "Gondoliers" just outside in the corridor, and if I had not had it stopped, I would certainly have gone out of my mind. I particularly noticed on this evening that various points were passed over in silence by my audience which are invariably taken by others. In the second part of my entertainment I make a speech in the character of the "Member for Boredom," anent the use of black sticking-plaster in public hospitals. This is intended by me to be more of a satire than a humorous incident, and I am supposed to bore my audience as the honourable gentleman is supposed to bore the House; but on this occasion the nurses, who understood very little about politics, simply roared with laughter at the mention of a subject with which they were so familiar. Truth to tell, I was rather doubtful whether I had succeeded in entertaining the charming ladies, and was therefore particularly gratified to receive the following note from Sir Henry Burdett:


"Dear Mr. Furniss,—I hope you were satisfied with your audience after all. They were quite delighted with your 'Humours of Parliament,' and the fame of your handiwork will be carried all over the United Kingdom and to the Colonies, for there were over 1,100 nurses present, and some from the Colonies. This is the greatest gathering of nurses which has ever been held, and I was much struck with the discipline they displayed in responding cheerfully to the request that they would keep quiet and settle down.

"If you were as pleased with the audience as they were with you, the meeting ought indeed to be a happy one....

"With many thanks for your most excellent and successful performance, which gave just éclat to the gathering to-night,

"Believe me, faithfully yours,

"Henry C. Burdett."

[Pg 164]

The most difficult audience of all to address is a small audience. I feel far more at home before an audience of three or four thousand than I do before three or four hundred. But the most critical audience, I think, is a boys' school. Not that they criticise you so much at the moment, particularly if you appear as an antidote to Dryasdust. But experience has shown me that something one may have said has opened a fresh idea in the youthful mind, and the criticism, though frequently belated, is more genuine than that of the matured members of the public who simply wish to be amused for the passing hour.

SPEAKER BRAND,
AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT HAMPDEN.

OMETIMES I have discovered in my audience public men I am "taking off" in my entertainment. This more frequently happened in the "Humours of Parliament," where the M.P. of the place in which I appeared came if I was not too unkind to him. But it more often happened he sent a member of the family in advance, to find out whether the great man was lampooned or not.

A friend of mine on a visit to a country house informed me that his hostess, seeing I was "billed" for two nights in the neighbourhood, previous to arranging a house party to hear me, took the precaution to send the Curate the first night to report. He came back and condemned me and my show unmercifully; my manner, matter, and voice were all bad, and I was certainly not worth hearing. So the party did not go. It so happened that in the particular entertainment I was giving—"America in a Hurry"—I imitate a lisping country parson struggling through a wretched entertainment with a lantern!

The most trying, at the same time most interesting, experience I had was in my first tour with my "Humours of Parliament," when I appeared at Lewes. The ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, Viscount Hampden, was in my audience, and it was interesting to watch him as I gave my imitations of him, calling an unruly Member to order.

It was all but arranged for me to give my "Humours of[Pg 165] Parliament" before her late Majesty at Balmoral. I got as far as Aberdeen, but a death in the Royal Family put a stop to all entertainments.

SOME UNREHEARSED EFFECTS.

The dress suit and the regulation white tie are essential to those who appear in public upon the platform. Mr. Frederick Villiers, the popular war correspondent, is an exception to this rule. He appears in his campaigning attire, with his white helmet on and a water-bottle slung round him; but of course it would be somewhat incongruous for a man in evening dress, that emblem of civilisation and peace, more suggestive of the drawing-room than the battle-field, to dilate upon the platform on the horrors of campaigning, and to take you through the stirring scenes of "War on a White Sheet." It would be equally absurd for a lecturer on, say, "The Life and Habits of a Microbe," to be dressed in the garb of a backwoodsman; but I was once obliged to deliver a lecture on "Art" in a rough tweed suit.

It so happened that I was giving a series of lectures in the vicinity of Birmingham, and I was stopping with a friend of mine, the Director of the Art Gallery and Museum there. He suggested my leaving my Gladstone bag, containing my change of clothes, in his office, while I spent my day rummaging about old book shops for first editions and making calls on various friends. My host having had to go to London that day, I was left to my own devices, and it was about five o'clock in the evening when I went to the Museum for my belongings. To my horror I saw a notice up: "Museum closed at three o'clock on Wednesdays," and this was Wednesday! I rang and knocked, and knocked and rang, but all in vain. I crossed over to some other municipal buildings to see if there was anyone there who could help me out of my dilemma, but my spirits went down to zero when I was there informed that the custodian of the keys lived miles out of the town. Back I went to the Museum, fiercely plotting an ascent up the water-spout or a burglarious entrance through a back window, when, to my delight, I saw an[Pg

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