Part 10

"Couldn't--I only found him on our last night in London."

Mr. Daly's face was alight in a moment. He caught up a scrap of paper and a pencil, and, after the manner of the inexperienced interviewer, began: "What's he like?"

"Tall, flat-backed, square-shouldered, free-moving, and wears a long dress-coat--that shibboleth of a gentleman--as if that had been his custom since ever he left his mother's knee."

Mr. Daly ejaculated "good!" at each clause, and scribbled his impish small scribble on the bit of paper which rested on his palm.

"What did he do?" he asked eagerly.

"He didn't do," I answered lucidly.

"What do you mean, Miss Morris?"

"What I say, Mr. Daly."

"But if the man doesn't do anything, what is there remarkable about him?"

"Why, just that. It was what he didn't do that produced the effect."

"A-a-ah," said Mr. Daly, with long-drawn satisfaction, scribbling rapidly. "I understand, and you thought, miss, that you could not judge an actor for me! What was the play?"

"Bulwer's 'Money,' and Marie Wilton was superb as--"

"Never mind Marie Wilton," he interrupted impatiently, writing, "but Alfred Evelyn is such an awful prig."

"Isn't he?" I acquiesced, "but this actor made him human. You see, Mr. Daly, most Evelyns are like a bottle of gas-charged water: forcibly restrained for a time, then there's a pop and a bang, and in wild freedom the water is foaming thinly over everything in sight. This man didn't kowtow in the early acts, but was curt, cold, showing signs of rebellion more than once, and in the big scene, well--!"

"Yes?" asked Mr. Daly eagerly.

"Well, that was where he didn't do. He didn't bang nor rave nor work himself up to a wild burst of tears!" ("Thank God!" murmured Mr. Daly and scribbled fast.) "He told the story of his past sometimes rapidly, sometimes making a short, absolute pause. When he reached the part referring to his dead mother, his voice fell two tones, his words grew slower, more difficult, and finally stopped. He left some of his lines out entirely--actually forcing the people to do his work in picturing for themselves his sorrow and his loss--while he sat staring helplessly at the floor, his closed fingers slowly tightening, trying vainly to moisten his dry lips. And when the unconsciously sniffling audience broke suddenly into applause, he swiftly turned his head aside, and with the knuckle of his forefinger brushed away two tears. Ah, but that knuckle was clever! His fingertips would have been girly-girly or actory, but the knuckle was the movement of a man, who still retained something of his boyhood about him."

Mr. Daly's gray, dark-lashed eyes were almost black with pleased excitement as he asked: "What's his name?"

"Coghlan--Charles Coghlan."

"Why, he's Irish?"

"So are you--Irish-American," I answered defensively, pretending to misunderstand him.

"Well, you ought to be Irish yourself!" he said sternly.

"I did my best," I answered modestly. "I was born on St. Patrick's Day!"

"In the mornin'?" he asked.

"The very top of it, sor!"

"More power to you then!" at which we both laughed, and I rose to go.

As I picked up my sunshade, I remarked casually: "Ah, but I was glad to have seen, for once at least, England's great actor."

"This Coghlan?"

"Good gracious, no!"