Lemon, Webster, and Shirley Brooks.

Manawatu Herald, 2 July 1892, Page 2

Lemon, Webster, and Shirley Brooks.

Talking of the accidental kind of way in which men enter upon careers, I, Hatton, iv the People often | supped years ago with Shirley Brooks, Mark Lemon and Benjamin iWebsfcer. We were talking about beginnings in life ; at least they were; I was a good listener then, and, am; now ; the listener is a useful man at any board. " I began life as a lawyer," said Brooks, " passed, my examination* before the Incorporated^ Law Society, with hopes of becoming Lord Chief Justice, drifted in literature, and am ending, it seems by writing immoral , novels." He was smarting under an- unjust criticism of " Sooner or Later," which w goody-goody and .raligi-, iously orthodox compared with even Thomas Hardy's latest contributionto famous fiction. " I began life in a corn-mill," said Lemon, " and however I came to be a dramatist and editor of Punch is a mystery I .will not try to solve." "Well," said Webster, "I always meant to be an actor ; the part of Kolla fired 'my young ambition. I bought a sword for it, and ran away from home to go on the stage. For weeks I was nearly starved, sold everything I possessed except -that sword. It 'cost • me my life to save that useless weapon. I played in a booth at Kidderminster , divided the duties of fiddler in front and anything else behind. The show was seized for debt; we hid part of it in the churchyard; kept enough to jog on somehow to the next town. If. it had not been for the interest which the daughter of the grocer took in me— l remember the dainties she sent to my wretched lodging to this day -I should have died for want of

food. Since then I have been my own master in my own theatre for many years, and have played many parts, but &olla never. Odd, is it not?"