ND THE HUMOUR OF HIM.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.

(_Photographs by Messrs. Fraddle and Young and Alfred Ellis._)

[Illustration: MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]

A little, slight man, with a thin, clever, mobile, clean-shaven face, a
sharp inquisitive nose surmounted by a perpetual pair of _pince-nez_,
and a rather sarcastic mouth, from which wit and humour as light and
airy as the cigarette smoke which accompanied each remark
continually flowed.

Mr. George Grossmith, the well-known actor and society clown.

He stands on the hearthrug of his own special sanctum in his handsome
house in Dorset Square, with his back to the fire, cigarette in his
mouth, his hands now in his pockets, now waving in the air, as he
vivaciously tells me the story of his busy, energetic and wonderfully
interesting life.

[Illustration: MRS. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]

"I was born," said he, "in 1847. I come of a family of actors and
reciters. My father, whose portrait you see there on the wall, was a
well-known lecturer and entertainer. Sixty or seventy years ago my uncle
created a great sensation as a child actor, and he was commonly known as
the 'celebrated infant Roscius.' Come out into the hall," continued the
lively little entertainer, "and I will show you some old engravings
which represent him in his favourite characters. Then my brother Weedon,
as you know, is, of course, a well-known actor, as well as a clever
artist, and part author with myself of several sketches which have
appeared in _Punch_. My eldest son now begins to display the family
tendency to a most alarming extent. For my own part, I started my career
as a reporter at Bow Street Police Court, a training which I have found
invaluable in many respects ever since. My subsequent history as actor
and society clown is so well known that I need not trouble you with it
any further."

"I suppose you find the taste of your audiences has gone up considerably
within the last twenty years, do you not?"

"Why, yes," he replied. "They wouldn't stand to-day what they used to
roar at then. My music is quite elaborate compared with the two or three
chords which easily satisfied people in the sixties and early seventies.
Listen to this," continued my host, as he sat down to the _piano_ and
struck a couple of very simple chords. Then he glided softly into what
he termed a modern accompaniment. It was all the difference between "Ten
Little Niggers" and a slumber s