The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (9.1896)

By Max Beerbohm 175

“ Ah,” he said, “ they’re forgetting him now, but he was a fine
figure, a fine sort of figure.”

“ You saw him ? ”

cc No, no. I’m only seventy. But I’ve known those who saw
him. My father had a pile of such prints.”

“ Did your father see him ? ” I asked, as the old man furled my
treasure and tied it with a piece of tape.

cc My father, sir, was a friend of Mr. Coates,” he said. “ He
entertained him in Gay Street. Mr. Coates was my father’s lodger
all the months he was in Bath. A good tenant, too. Never
eccentric under my father’s roof—never eccentric.”

I begged the old bookseller to tell me more of Mr. Coates. It
seemed that his father had been a citizen of some consequence and
had owned a house in modish Gay Street, where he let lodgings.
Thither, by the advice of a friend, Mr. Coates had gone so soon as
he arrived in the town, and had stayed there down to the day after
his debut, when he left for London.

“ My father often told me that Mr. Coates was crying bitterly
when he settled the bill and got into his travelling-chaise. He’d
come back from the playhouse the night before as cheerful as
could be. He’d said he didn’t mind what the public thought of
his acting. But in the morning a letter was brought for him,
and when he read it he seemed to go quite mad.”

“I wonder what was in the letter!” I asked. “Did your
father never know who sent it ? ”

“Ah,” my greybeard rejoined, “that’s the most curious thing.
And it’s a secret. I can’t tell you.”

He was not as good as his word. I bribed him delicately with
the purchase of more than one old book. Also, I think he was
flattered by my eager curiosity to learn his long-pent secret. He
told me that the letter was brought to the house by one of the

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