He wrote to me regularly and kept me posted about Mother, but I seldom answered his letters; for one reason, I could not spell very well. One letter touched me deeply and drew me very close to him; he reproached me for not answering his letters and recalled the misery we had endured together which should unite us even closer. ‘Since Mother’s illness,’ wrote Sydney, ‘all we have in the world is each other. So you must write regularly and let me know that I have a brother.’ His letter was so moving that I replied immediately. Now I saw Sydney in another light. His letter cemented a brotherly love that has lasted throughout my life.
I got accustomed to living alone. But I got so much out of the habit of talking that when I suddenly met a member of the company I suffered intense embarrassment. I could not collect myself quickly enough to answer questions intelligently and they would leave me, I am sure, with alarm and concern for my reason. Miss Greta Hahn, for instance, our leading lady, was beautiful, charming and most kindly; yet when I saw her crossing the road to-towards me, I would quickly turn and look into a shop window or go down another street in order to avoid her.
I began to neglect myself and became desultory in my habits. When travelling with the company, I was always late at the railway station, arriving at the last moment, dishevelled and without a collar, and was continually reprimanded for it.
For company, I bought a rabbit and wherever I stayed I would smuggle it into my room unknown to the landlady. It was an endearing little thing, though not house-broken. Its fur looked so white and clean that it belied its pungent odour. I kept it in a wooden cage hidden under the bed. The landlady would cheerfully enter the room with my breakfast, until she contacted the odour, then she would leave, looking worried and confused. The moment she was gone I would release the rabbit and it would lope about the room.
Before long I had it trained to run to its box every time there was a knock at the door. If the landlady discovered my secret I would have the rabbit perform this trick, which usually won her heart, and she would put up with us for the week.
But in Tonypandy, Wales, after I showed my trick, the landlady smiled cryptically and made no comment; but when I returned from the theatre that night my pet had gone. When I inquired about it, the landlady merely shook her head. ‘It must have run away or someone must have stolen it.’ She had in her own way handled the problem efficaciously.
From Tonypandy we went to the mining town of Ebbw Vale, a three-night stand, and I was thankful it was not longer, for Ebbw Vale was a dank, ugly town in those days, with row upon row of hideous, uniform houses, each house consisting of four small rooms lit by oil-lamps. Most of the company put up at a small hotel. Fortunately I found a front room in a miner’s house, and, though small, it was comfortable and clean. At night after the play my supper was left in front of the fire to keep warm.
The landlady, a tall, handsome, middle-aged woman, had an aura of tragedy about her. She came in, in the morning, with my breakfast and hardly spoke a word. I noticed that the kitchen door was always shut; whenever I wanted anything I had to knock, and the door opened only a few inches.
The second night, while I was having my supper, her husband came in, a man about the same age as his wife. He had been to the theatre that evening and had enjoyed the play. He stood a while conversing, holding a lighted candle, ready for bed. He came to a pause and seemed to think of what he wanted to say. ‘Listen, I’ve got something that might fit your kind of business. Ever seen a human frog? Here, hold the candle and I’ll take the lamp.’
He led the way into the kitchen and rested the lamp on the dresser, which had a curtain strung across the bottom of it in place of cupboard doors. ‘Hey, Gilbert, come on out of there!’ he said, parting the curtains.
A half a man with no legs, an oversized, blond, flat-shaped head, a sickening white face, a sunken nose, a large mouth and powerful muscular shoulders and arms, crawled from underneath the dresser. He wore flannel underwear with the legs of the garment cut off to the thighs, from which ten thick, stubby toes stuck out. The grisly creature could have been twenty or forty. He looked up and grinned, showing a set of yellow, widely spaced teeth.
‘Hey, Gilbert, jump!’ said the father and the wretched man lowered himself slowly, then shot up by his arms almost to the height of my head.
‘How do you think he’d fit in with a circus? The human frog!’
I was so horrified I could hardly answer. However, I suggested the names of several circuses that he might write to.
He insisted on the wretched creature going through further tricks, hopping, climbing and standing on his hands on the arms of a rocking chair. When at last he had finished I pretended to be most enthusiastic and complimented him on his tricks.
‘Good night, Gilbert,’ I said before leaving, and in a hollow voice, and tongue-tied, the poor fellow answered: ‘Good night.’
Several times during the night I woke up and tried my locked door. The next morning the landlady seemed pleasant and communicative. ‘I understand you saw
