FROM THE WINGS.*
HOWEVER. many books of theatrical reminiscences may be written, there will always be a welcome for so thoroughly pleasant and unpretentious a little volume as Mrs. Fagan's From the Wings, a book whose authorship she modestly attributes to " The Stage Cat." She tells a number of
stories. She was acting in a light comedy ; the critics gave it contemptuous notices—indeed, it was a poor play—but strange to say every night the house seemed full. At last the time came when the company were to celebrate its hundredth performance. The play's chief backer invited the whole company to a magnificent supper at the Carlton. At last the backer, a Yorkshire man, rose and addressed the company in the following speech Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, I'm naw great hand at marking a speech, but I'm pleased and proud to welcome yer all here to-night. It's a foine play, and it's a foine company, and this I will say : I've troid horse-racing, I've troid card-playing, and I've troid gambling in the city, but of all pleasant ways of losing 'one's money—backing a play is a downed sight the pleasantest.'" There are delightful anecdotes of stage landladies and dressers, for Mrs. Fagan toured not only with the Bensons but with many other companies, and, being a more than ordinarily pleasant person, obviously got on well with these
ladies. The company were at Eastbourne once, doing The Merchant. of Venice, when the local dresser came into the
room where the ladies of the company were making up. She stared deliberately from one to the other :--
"'And which of you ladies may be Venus ? " Venus t ' we Baked. ` To be sure, this is " The Merchant of Venus," ain't it ' she said.. ' No, no, not Venus—Venice--a town, you know.' ' Oh, not Venus ! Now, I call that a pity ; we 'ad a Venus 'ere, a week or two ago. She sat all night in a cockle shell. It took lovely.' "
But though, as the present writer has reason to know, Mrs. Fagan is the kindest of women, her book is yet not without a touch of astringency. She gives a curious and realistic account, for instance, of Mr. George Edwardes. He was a fat, self-indulgent man to whom everything had come too easily and who lived a life of extreme upholstery. But according to his lights he often attempted to be kind to. people :—
" He was motoring in Ireland, when he saw a farm labourer• working on the road, all bent with rheumatism. Mr. Edwards. stopped his car to advise the man. You've just the same rheu- matism that I used to have, and I can tell you what to do about it. Now, you take my advice : no champagne, no port, just a little light Moselle with your meals, plenty of fruit, and a month every year at Carlsbad, and you'll be as right as a fiddle again in no time.' "
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