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Thirty Years at the Play and Dramatic Table Talk
Thirty Years at the Play and Dramatic Table Talk Author:Clement Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: lent their enthusiasm to the good cause. Gilbert, Prowse, Leigh, Millward, Archer —all of us, in fact, who knew Eobertson, and appreciated his talent—were the fi... more »rst to step forward and back up our friend's success in every way that was possible. "What evenings they were at Tom Hood's in South Street on Fridays, particularly when Eobertson, and Gilbert, and Harry Leigh, and Arthur Sketchley, were in good conversational trim. What delightful music we listened to when Jimmy Molloy or Paul Gray sat down to the piano and recalled their native Irish melodies. Has Jimmy Molloy forgotten that his first published song taken to Kans- ford's—the never-to-be-forgotten " "White Daisy "—was by the introduction of Tom Hood, and that he became a song-writer merely from the applause of his friends at Tom Hood's " Friday nights ? " And there were many there as well—kindly Tom Archer, as grave as a churchwarden; Jack chapter{Section 4Brough, grinning through his spectacles; little Quin, talking science; M'Connell, telling us stories of the Bar ; all literary, or musical, or journalistic men round the table, and very few actors at all; and so we kept it up until the market-carts crept up the hill in Piccadilly, and we all went homewards as the day was breaking. To this day, whenever on Friday nights I see the market-carts creeping along Piccadilly, I am reminded of Tom Hood's delightful evenings, and then it is I think of the dear old friends—not lost, thank God, but gone before. Dear me ! all these old recollections have sprung up from the mention of the first appearance of John Hare yesterday, and young Gilbert Hare to-day. I must be more varied in my further memories; but, honestly, I never know what I am going to write about when, I put pen to paper. I recently read with great interes...« less