“Glory be to Thee, O God, for all the manifold goods
which day after day Thou bestowest upon me! Would you believe it? I have had a
benefit—such a benefit—a kind of Irish one, by which I have lost upwards of six
pounds—at least I remain that much indebted to our managers. How strange, how
despicable are the dispositions of tyrants! The morning after my night, this
Davies came to me to do something
for him in a pantomime which is performed to-night for his benefit. I readily
consented. Things have turned out that I am not of much consequence to him
to-night, and this morning, instead of the smiling, smirking face of yesterday,
he addressed me with a stiff Hibernian frown—‘Mr Cooper, I want some money—I must have
money. I’ll not pay the salaries, sir, till you have paid me. Blood,
sir, why am I to pay money out of my own pocket?’ The absent
politician, too, has attempted to speak to me. ‘Mr
Tyler, have you heard any news to-day? Oh, Mr
Cooper, about your night (a pause). I have not seen the
Star
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“The usual method of payment in cases of deficiency of the changes is by stopping 3s. or 4s. per week out of the salary; but on account of my great deficiency, he says he will stop the whole week’s salary until it is paid. In case he attempts it, it is my present intention to leave him immediately, not secretly. No; what I dare do, I dare do openly. If he pursues other steps, I have arrived at such a happy disregard of my personal affairs, that it will scarcely give me a moment’s concern.
“You will wonder, perhaps, how I came to fail so much. There are three or four sufficient reasons. The first is, that the interest of a man of long standing and unusual acquaintance carries everything before it; next, that though the other weak interests are supremely blessed with the happy gifts of fawning servility, yet I have not so much of the spaniel about me; I cannot take my hat off to the great man’s servant. If I were to lose £50 and fifty benefits, I cannot bow to flatter the man I despise. The third was that I was between two fires—one manager’s daughter before, the other manager’s wife after me.
“I now want you or Mrs Holcroft to inform me whether Mr H. himself spoke to Mrs Wood relative to an engagement for me with her husband; or if not, who was it.
