Chapter II (3)

"Sure thing," said Stone, "I won't tell him. But look here, kid; if I can work a pull for you,--an' I'll do the best I can,--will the lady have you, after all?"

"I think I can work it. I believe she's got a fondness for me, but she's that proud she wouldn't never marry nothin' but a sergeant; her father was chief trumpeter, yer know. Say, do please give me a recommend ter Shorty, an' I'll try mer very best ter do the work well an' be a good soldier."

"Glad to hear you say that; 'cause, I warn you, if you don't make a good non-com, you get busted. We can't run this troop on sentiment. Yes, I'll tell the captain I think you'll do for a corporal, if that'll ease your mind any; as for your getting a sergeancy, that's your own lookout later. It all depends on what sort you prove yourself to be. If it isn't the right sort, back you go."

"'I was a corporal wanst; I was rejuiced aftherwards,'" murmured Whitney. "Yes, Ted, I'll tell Shorty, too, that you'd make a good non-com. Will yo' leave yo' vuhses? I want to read 'em again. Goodnight. Next time I see Miss Cora, I'll make yo' ears bu'n." And, as Ryan departed with abject thanks, visibly cheered, Whitney stretched out his hand. "Speakin' of Kiplin', hand over that Lady-Friend yonder--want to learn her; she's a gem. Say, do yo' think Hansen's in earnest over that?"

"Ask me an' I say no. I know that Knudt down to the ground. He isn't the marryin' kind."

"Soldier of fortune, pyo' an' simple, he is," said Whitney; "always on the go; an' do yo' think he's goin' to pin himself down anywhere? Not he. He's only in this for the fun of the thing, an' it's a heap better fo' the little Cora girl if he stays out."

"I'm with you. He couldn't tie up to one girl, never in his bloomin' life. Between you an' me an' the lamp-post, he's goin' to the bad in more ways than one. 'Wine, women, an' song,' an' consequent mix-ups in his accounts. He's gettin' too crooked to stay quartermaster. Shorty's about decided to put him back in the line. Why, only yesterday he came over to me an' said, 'Say, make me out a afferdavid, will you? I lost my carbine.' I knew blame well he hadn't lost it, so I said right quick, 'That so? How much you get for it?'

"'Why,' he says, 'the man only gave me three-fif--Say, Stone, you're darn smart! But help a feller out a bit, won't you? I had to have the money.'

"'No,' I said, 'I won't. You get out of here. I'm not goin' to perjure my soul so's you can have any three-fifteen, or three-fifty, or whatever it was.' The big yap! An', you can bet your life, if it had come down to his carbine, he's been doin' some tall monkeyin' with the accounts an' the troop fund. An' yet, with it all, I can't help liking him; there's so many good things about him. If he's your friend once, he's your friend for always--never knew such a man to stick. He's been awfully good to me when there's no call to be, an' helped me in lots of little ways."

"Yes," said Whitney; "an' the things he's seen, an' the places he's been, an' the messes he's been mixed up in--an' he knows how to tell it, too. That takes with the little Cora girl, of co'se. Better fo' her, though, if he'd keep away. I like him all right fo' myself, but he's liable to be crooked anywheres. Little Teddy Ryan's clean strain, but he wouldn't show up to much advantage beside Knudt. Dixon goes out to-mo'w; I s'pose that's what yo're thinkin' of fo' the kid. Who gets the sergeancy? Decided?"

"Yep. Melody's jumped, an' Sullivan gets it, but I don't think Shorty's thought of who'd be corporal. I'll try an' fix it in the mornin'."

Accordingly, next morning Stone nominated the poet to be Corporal Ryan.

"What the----!" said Shorty. "I've no use for a poet, I was thinkin' of Terry--what?"

"Well, only that Terry drinks an' Ryan never does. I don't think his verse-makin' will interfere with his duties; it hasn't hitherto, an' if he doesn't make good, we can try some one else."

"Have it your own way, then. The way you run this troop is scandalous. There's not another T. C. in the army who gets bossed by his Top the way I do." And off went Shorty chuckling, having decided two days before that Ryan was to be corporal, and well knowing that Stone would defy even the colonel before he would run counter to an order given by his adored captain.

* * * * *

Two nights later Stone and Whitney were again together.

"Well," said Whitney, "I've just seen the new co'poral goin', in all his glory, to the little Cora girl's. He didn't take long to get his stripes an' chevrons."

"To _get_! What you talkin' about? He had 'em all ready. Stevens saw him take 'em out of his locker already fixed on a new suit."

"That's what I call befo'handed. But the little cuss is so blame happy over it all."

"Yes," said Stone; "happy, an' wooin' the Muse again, too. Hope he don't mix her up with his Cora. Will you look at this? And the length of it? It's an ode to the troop, an' he hasn't left out anybody. Wonder where he got the time to do it all! Read the first three verses an' then the last; they're all you need to waste your time on."

So Whitney read:

OAD TO J TROOP

Come comrads come your carbeans load
While neer and far I sing my oad.
There never was a troop like owers
It does deserve all bueateous flowers.

Ower Captain in the army is the best
But he doesent give you any rest
And sergeants Stone and Whitny is very fine to,
The best sergeants who breth ever drew.

And now I come with unwiling pennence,
To tell you about ower 2 lootennence.
Lootenent Burns a Prints could be,
But Spurs isent neerly as educated as me.

* * * * *

So galopp on my gallent troop,
Let no one to a bob-tale stoop,
Its prayses sound from East to West
For all agree J troop is best.

Signed,
Corporal T. Ryan
Poet Lariat of J troop
18th U. S. Cav.

"Lariat! Gee! Wonder he didn't put 'an' picket-pin.' The second line of that last verse is mighty ambiguous. Do you s'pose he means a hawse or a dishono'able discharge?"

"Don't know," said Stone. "An' look at the last two lines:

Its prayses sound from East to West
For all agree J troop is best.

Sounds like a soap advertisement to me. An' up there about the lieutenants. Wonder if an' 'unwiling pennence' meant a reluctant pen 'cause he didn't care to mention Spurs an' had to have a rhyme?"

"It's likely. But look yere, Jerry. Yo' an' I don't breathe. Our breath draws _us_."

"Pretty strong breath it must be, then."

"Hush, man! Yo' goin' to show these to Shorty?"

"I was thinkin' maybe he wouldn't like to think Ryan was still writin', now that he's a corporal."

"Ah, go on; show it. Shorty won't care."

And Shorty didn't. Only, after a delighted snort over the ode, he sent forth the order: "You tell him I say this has got to be the last. If I catch him writin' any more monkey-doodle verses, I'll bust him quick as a minute. If he wants to be a non-com in my troop, he's got to put his whole mind to it."

Ryan obeyed, and, unsaddling his Pegasus, set himself to work with such a will that as time went on he came to be one of the best non-coms in the troop, particularly where the instruction of recruits was concerned; for he seemed to have a special sympathy with them, and a knack of imparting the correct way to do things; His suit with Cora prospered, too, for she paid more attention to the corporal than she had to the private; but, being past grand mistress of the art of flirtation, she always contrived some little act or remark to chasten her lover's spirit and keep him sufficiently humble, as an offset to any particular favoritism that might have uplifted his spirits; which manoeuver always successfully puzzled Teddy. "First she's all sweet as candy; next minute I get the throw-down." But he never despaired, and came back strongly on the rebound, inquiring periodically, "Say, Cora, you're goin' ter marry me when I get mer sergeancy, ain't yer?" And she would reply, laughing: "Yes, when you get to be a sergeant I'll marry yer; an' that'll be when the river catches fire."

Time wore on, and the summer drew to a close. Hansen was no longer the quartermaster-sergeant, so he was not such an impressive figure as he had been. One payday Captain Campbell instructed Stone to read the men a lecture on the sin of drunkenness. "Not that I mind a man's gettin' drunk so much, but when the whole troop goes on a booze, it's a blame sight too much of a good thing. We're not to have any such time in J barracks as we did last month. You tell 'em that, an' make it red-hot."

So Stone, translating liberally, read them a severe lecture, ending up with: "An' if any of you big yaps comes home drunk, don't care who he is, he gets put under arrest. Savvy? That's straight."

The troop paid honors to an ultimatum when it was paraded before them, and it was a straight-walking, sober crowd that rounded up at J barracks that night. But, shortly before reveille, sounds of song and hilarity disturbed the sleepers, and Stone was obliged to rise and place Sergeant Knudt Hansen under arrest. He had returned from town in an exceedingly talkative frame of mind, and was now tipsily enlightening his squad-room on the disgracefully small quantity of drinks that could be bought on a sergeant's pay.

"I hate to do it, old man," said Stone, "but I'll have to put you under arrest. You know what I said, and now you've gone an' done this deliberately."

"Aw right. 'Sh mer own fault--only 'sh bad exshample to 'resht shergeant before shquad-room o' privatshes; mosht demoralizin'."

"I'm sorry, Hansen, but I must do it. You are confined to quarters for two days." And Stone retired, grieved that Hansen, of all men, should have been the one to suffer for the sake of an example.

"Gee!" said Brown, "I never thought Stone'd do that!"

"Wouldn't he, though?" rejoined Ryan. "You bet your boots, a sergeant looks all-same buck to the Top."

"Hansen'll lay it up to him, you see," said Hickey, looking at the big man now sprawled out on his bunk in noisy slumber.

"Not on yer life, Dope," said Brown. "Hansen's too much sense fer that. He'll see the Top's side of it." And so it proved, for, after a few half-laughs, half-apologetic words from his first sergeant, Hansen agreed that there had been no other course to pursue.

"And, anyway," he said, with a grin, "I'll get a goot rest, yess. It iss about time I loafed some. I shall sleep."

Now, sleep was all very well for that day and part of the next, but by the afternoon of the second day Sergeant Knudt Hansen's active mind and body became saturated with rest and extremely bored. He had read everything he could lay his hands on, even including a vagrant copy of "Edgeworth's Moral Tales" that had wandered, Heaven knows how, into the troop library. While affording him food for sarcastically profane comment in the slimy sediment of at least six different languages, this estimable work had, if anything, increased his ennui. His body began actually to ache for action of some sort; almost anything would do at a pinch.

Strolling disconsolately through the hall, whom should he chance to see but Corporal Ryan, who was in charge of quarters for that day, busily cleaning his saber (for the next day was Saturday), and singing cheerfully, "'You're in the army now.'"

"Let up on that musical, you gamin; it iss not to the ear pleasant," growled Hansen. Besides his other grievance that Ryan's cheerfulness flicked on the raw, the little corporal had cut out the big sergeant several times lately with Cora.

"Ah, g'wan an' soak yer swelled head!" retorted Ryan respectfully, and, bending to his work, began to carol forth the delectable ballad of the "Rubber Dolly." Hansen advanced into the room.

"See here, Meester Freshie, that iss no way to speak to your sergeant! Oh, yess; I am knowing what you mean. You t'ank, because Cora go with you a leetle, you can come it ofer me here, too--not?"

"You leave her name out o' that," said Teddy, straightening up and reddening. "She's got nothin' ter do with it, an' you leave her be."

"Oho! The leetle man tank she iss so sweet and innocent a leetle girl, I am not fit to speak of her--yess? Why, she--" And Hansen started in to enumerate in no very choice language certain fabricated insinuations against the character of the popular Miss Cora Sheean. But they were barely out of his mouth before Teddy Ryan's fist was in it. Blindly the big Swede struck back, catching Ryan on the nose and drawing the blood; and then they started in in earnest.

"Hello, hello! What's all this?" demanded Captain Campbell, popping in on the scene like a vibrant little jack-in-the-box. Hansen drew off. "He used language to me, sir, and I am hiss sergeant; it iss him that I am teaching hiss place," he explained sullenly.

"But, Cap'en," cried Ryan, "he said--he said--I can't tell yer what he said," he finished slowly.

"Well, I can tell what _I'll_ say, an' pretty blame quick! Hansen, you're a bully, that's what. Next time tackle some one nearer your size; an' you get three days' confinement. Ryan (for heaven's sake get a handkerchief an' wipe your nose), I'll give you a day, too; for fightin' your sergeant an' for gettin' into a fight when you're left in charge of quarters." Thus it was that the Captain ended the fight, but the consequences stretched far beyond him and were in the hands of Cora.

"You oughter been ter J Troop yesterday," quoth Corporal Brown the next evening, while sitting on Miss Cora Sheean's front step. "Hansen an' Ryan had a fight. Hansen said somepin', an' Ryan went fer him, an' they had it hot. Nobody was by, an' Ryan won't tell, so we don't know what Hansen said."

Cora was staring at him with eyes wide with concern. "My Lord!" she gasped, "is he hurt?"

"Naw, Hansen ain't hurt none. He's a fighter, an' Ryan ain't big enough ter----"

"_Stupid!_ I mean Teddy Ryan. Is he hurt?"

"Naw; only a black eye an' a nose-bleed. Cap'en stopped 'em before Hansen had a chance ter do much."

"Thank Gawd!" sighed Cora, sinking back in relief. "Look here, Mr. Brown, will you do me a favor? Will you tell Mr. Ryan that if he can run over here early to-morrow mornin', I got somethin' I want ter give him?"

When the bearer of tidings had departed, Cora sat up very straight, with tightly clasped hands, repeating vacantly, with an ambiguous mixture of pronouns, "He might er killed him--he might er killed him!" For to her the fight between these men had only one meaning; intuitively she knew herself to be the cause. "He fought for me," she said, "I know he did. An' I want Teddy Ryan. _I want him!_"

Next morning she peeped out of the window and watched the approach of the sturdy, honest-faced little corporal before she went to open the door for him herself.

"You wanted ter see me?" he said, fingering his hat shyly.

"Yes; I--I heard you'd been in a fight. I--I wanted to read you a lecture. That's an awful eye you got, Mr. Ryan!"

"I'm sorry you don't like it, Miss Cora, but I had to; you'd have wanted me to if you'd known."

"Oh!" cried Cora, and her heart whispered: "Then it _was_ about me, just as I thought, and the dear won't tell me." But aloud she said, "It ain't ever right to fight, an' I didn't think it of you, Mr. Ryan."

"I had to," he repeated awkwardly, and turned away. "Is that all you had ter say ter me? I must go back; but I thought Brown said that you had somethin' ter give me."

"Yes," said Cora in a very scared, small voice. "I have--_me_!"

"Cora! Do you mean it, girlie? Do you really mean it?" And two short but strong arms went round her. "But I ain't a sergeant yet, nor won't be for ever so long."

"Oh, Teddy!" said Cora, and hid her face right over his second button, "I ain't lovin' yer chevrons; I'm lovin' _you_."

* * * * *

Shorty received the joyous news in ominous silence. "When's the weddin'?" he demanded abruptly.

"Oh, sometime next month, I guess," said the proud husband-to-be.

"Nothin' of the sort. You get married next week; do you hear? No mañana about this business; get it over as quick as possible. You'll be worthless to me for long enough, as it is. A great poet _you_ are! The whole thing was nothin' but the girl, just as I told Sergeant Stone."

So J Troop had a wedding, and the whole troop turned out in force, brave in full dress, from Shorty down to the latest junior rook--the only member not present being Sergeant Hansen, who had no interest in the proceedings. And the punch flowed so freely and so strongly that every man who tried to enlighten the absent one told a totally different story.

* * * * *

Spring had come again at Fort Hotchkiss, and one soft evening, as Stone and Whitney were sitting on the porch, Sergeant Theodore Ryan, now proudly sporting his three chevrons, came up to them, smiling a wide-mouthed, foolish smile.

"Well, what's up, hombre?"

"Recruits fer J Troop--over to my quarters."

"_Recruits!_ You don't mean to say there's _two_ of 'em?"

Ryan nodded. "Twins," he assented beamingly.

"'Heaven meant things to go in twos, Cora,'" quoted Whitney.

BY

ELLEN TERRY

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PAINTINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS]

_Copyright, 1908, by Ellen Terry (Mrs. Carew)_

One of the best "audiences" that actor or actress could wish for was Mr. Gladstone. He used often to come and see the play at the Lyceum from a little seat in the O. P. entrance, and he nearly always arrived five minutes before the curtain went up. One night I thought he would catch cold--it was a bitter night--and I lent him my white scarf.

He could always give his whole great mind to the matter in hand. This made him one of the most comfortable people to talk to that I have ever met.

I contrasted his punctuality, when he came to see "King Lear," with the unpunctuality of Lord Randolph Churchill, who came to see the play the very next night with a party of men friends and arrived when the first act was over. Lord Randolph was, all the same, a great admirer of Henry Irving. He confessed to him once that he had never read a play of Shakespeare's in his life, but that after seeing Henry act he thought it was time to begin. A very few days later he astonished us with his complete and masterly knowledge of at least half a dozen of the plays. He was a perfect person to meet at a dinner or supper--brilliantly entertaining, and queerly simple. He struck one as being able to master any subject that interested him, and, once a Shakespeare performance at the Lyceum had fired his interest, there was nothing about that play, or about past performances of it, which he did not know. His beautiful wife, now Mrs. George Cornwallis West, wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles' wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she designed my Lady Macbeth dress.

The present Princess of Wales, when she was Princess May of Teck, used often to come to the Lyceum with her mother, Princess Mary, and to supper in the Beefsteak Room. In 1891 she chose to come as her birthday treat, which was very flattering to us.

A record of those Beefsteak Room suppers would be a pleasant thing to possess. I have such a bad memory. I see faces round the table--the face of Liszt among them--but when I try to think when it was, or how it was, the faces vanish. Singers were often among Henry Irving's guests in the Beefsteak Room--Patti, Melba, Calvé, Albani, and many others.

I once watched Patti sing from behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. My impression from that point of view was that she was actually a _bird_. She could not help singing. Her head, flattened on top, her nose, tilted downwards like a lovely little beak, her throat, swelling and swelling as it poured out that extraordinary volume of sound, all made me think that she must have been a nightingale before she was transmigrated into a human being. I imagine that Tetrazzini, whom I have not yet heard, must have this bird-like quality.

The dear, kind-hearted Melba has always been a good friend of mine. The first time I met her was in New York at a supper party, and she had a bad cold, and therefore a frightful speaking voice for the moment. I shall never forget the shock it gave me. Thank goodness, I very soon afterwards heard her again when she hadn't a cold, and she spoke as exquisitely as she sang. She was one of the first to offer her services for my Jubilee performance at Drury Lane, but unfortunately she was ill when the day came and could not sing. She had her dresses in "Faust" copied from mine by Mrs. Nettleship, and I came across a note from her the other day, thanking me for having introduced her to "an angel." Another note sent round to me during a performance of "King Arthur" in Boston I shall always prize:

"You are sublime, adorable, ce soir.... I wish I were a
millionaire--I would throw _all_ my millions at your feet. If
there is another procession, tell the stage-manager to see those
imps of Satan _don't chew gum_. It looks awful.

Love. Melba."

I think at that time it was the solemn procession of mourners following the dead body of Elaine who were chewing gum, but we always had to be prepared for it among our American "supers," whether they were angels or devils or courtiers.

In "Faust" we "carried" about six leading devils for the Brocken scene and recruited the forty others from local talent in the different towns that we visited. Their general instructions were to throw up their arms and look fierce at certain music cues. One night I noticed a girl going through the most terrible contortions with her jaw, and thought I must say something. "That's right, dear. Very good, but don't exaggerate."

"How?" was all the answer that I got; and the girl continued to make faces as before. I was contemplating a second attempt, when Templeton, the limelight man, who had heard me speak to her, touched me gently on the shoulder. "Beg pardon, miss, she don't mean it. She's only _chewing gum_."

_An "Alice in Wonderland" Letter_

One of my earliest friends among literary folk was Mr. Charles Dodgson--or Lewis Carroll--or "Alice in Wonderland." Ah, now you know what I am talking about. I can't remember when I didn't know him. I think he must have seen Kate act as a child, and having given her "Alice"--he always gave his young friends "Alice" at once by way of establishing pleasant relations--he made progress as the years went on through the whole family. Finally he gave "Alice" to my children.

He was a splendid theatre-goer, and took the keenest interest in all the Lyceum productions, frequently writing to me to point out slips in the dramatist's logic which only he would ever have noticed. He did not even spare Shakespeare. I think he wrote these letters for fun, as some people make puzzles, anagrams, or limericks.

Mr. Dodgson's kindness to children was wonderful. He really loved them and put himself out for them. The children he knew who wanted to go on the stage were those who came under my observation, and nothing could have been more touching than his ceaseless industry on their behalf. This letter to my sister Floss is characteristic of his "Wonderland" style when writing to children:

"My dear Florence:

"Ever since that heartless piece of conduct of yours (I allude to the affair of the Moon and the blue silk gown), I have regarded you with a gloomy interest, rather than with any of the affection of former years--so that the above epithet 'dear' must be taken as conventional only, or perhaps may be more fitly taken in the sense in which we talk of a 'dear' bargain, meaning to imply how much it has cost us; and who shall say how many sleepless nights it has cost me to endeavour to unravel (a most appropriate verb) that 'blue silk gown'?

"Will you please explain to Tom about that photograph of the family group which I promised him? Its history is an instructive one, as illustrating my habits of care and deliberation. In 1867 the picture was promised him, and an entry made in my book. In 1869, or thereabouts, I mounted the picture on a large card, and packed it in brown paper. In 1870, or 1871, or thereabouts, I took it with me to Guildford, that it might be handy to take with me when I went up to town. Since then I have taken it two or three times to London, and on each occasion (having forgotten to deliver it to him) I brought it back again.

"This was because I had no convenient place in London to leave it in. But now I have found such a place. Mr. Dubourg has kindly taken charge of it--so that it is now much nearer to its future owner than it has been for seven years. I quite hope, in the course of another year or two, to be able to remember to bring it to your house; or perhaps Mr. Dubourg may be calling even sooner than that and take it with him. You will wonder why I ask you to tell him instead of writing myself. The obvious reason is that you will be able, from sympathy, to put my delay in the most favourable light; to make him see that, as hasty puddings are not the best of puddings, so hasty judgments are not the best of judgments, and that he ought to be content to wait even another seven years for his picture, and to sit 'like patience on a monument, smiling at grief.'

FROM THE PAINTING BY J. MCCLURE HAMILTON, DONE AT HAWARDEN CASTLE IN 1890]

"This quotation, by the way, is altogether a misprint. Let me explain it to you. The passage originally stood, '_They_ sit, like patients on the Monument, smiling at Greenwich.' In the next edition 'Greenwich' was printed short, 'Green_h_,' and so got gradually altered into 'Grief.' The allusion, of course, is to the celebrated Dr. Jenner, who used to send all his patients to sit on the top of the Monument (near London Bridge) to inhale fresh air, promising them that, when they were well enough, they should go to 'Greenwich Fair.' So, of course, they always looked out towards Greenwich, and sat smiling to think of the treat in store for them. A play was written on the subject of their inhaling the fresh air, and was for some time attributed to him (Shakespeare), but it is certainly not in his style. It was called 'The Wandering Air,' and was lately revived at the Queen's Theatre. The custom of sitting on the Monument was given up when Dr. Jenner went mad, and insisted on it that the air was worse up there, and that the _lower_ you went the _more airy_ it became. Hence he always called those little yards, below the pavement, outside the kitchen windows, '_the kitchen airier_,' a name that is still in use.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL]

THE PRINCESS OF WALES

TO WHOM HENRY IRVING GAVE A BIRTHDAY SUPPER IN THE BEEFSTEAK ROOM OF THE LYCEUM IN 1891]

"All this information you are most welcome to use, the next time you are in want of something to talk about. You may say you learned it from 'a distinguished etymologist,' which is perfectly true, since anyone who knows me by sight can easily distinguish me from all other etymologists.

"What parts are you and Polly now playing?

"Believe me to be (conventionally)

"Yours affectionately,
C. DODGSON."

_"Sentimental Tommy" Writes Himself_

No two men could be more unlike than Mr. Dodgson and Mr. J. M. Barrie, yet there are more points of resemblance than "because there's a 'b' in both!" If "Alice in Wonderland" is the children's classic of the library, and one perhaps even more loved by the grown-up children than by the others, "Peter Pan" is the children's stage classic, and here again elderly children are the most devoted admirers. I am a very old child, nearly old enough to be a "beautiful great-grandmother" (a part that I am sure Mr. Barrie could write for me), and I go and see "Peter" year after year and love him more each time. There is one advantage in being a grown-up child--you are not afraid of the pirates or the crocodile.

I first became an ardent lover of Mr. Barrie through "Sentimental Tommy" and I simply had to write and tell him how hugely I had enjoyed it. In reply I received this letter from Tommy himself:

"Dear Miss Ellen Terry:

"I just wonder at you. I noticed that Mr. Barrie, the author (so-called), and his masterful wife had a letter they wanted to conceal from me, so I got hold of it, and it turned out to be from you, and _not a line to me in it_! If you like the book, it is _me_ you like, not him, and it is to me you should send your love, not to him. Corp thinks, however, that you did not like to make the first overtures, and if that is the explanation, I beg herewith to send you my warm love (don't mention this to Elspeth), and to say that I wish you would come and have a game with us in the Den (Don't let on to Grizel that I invited you). The first moment I saw you, I said to myself 'This is the kind I like,' and while the people round about me were only thinking of your acting, I was wondering which would be the best way of making you my willing slave, and I beg to say that I believe I have 'found a way,' for most happily the very ones I want most to lord it over are the ones who are least able to resist me.

"We should have ripping fun. You would be Jean MacGregor, captive in the Queen's Bower, but I would climb up at the peril of my neck to rescue you, and you would faint in my strong arms; and wouldn't Grizel get a turn when she came upon you and me whispering sweet nothings in the Lovers' Walk. I think it advisable to say in _writing_ that I would only mean them as nothings (because Grizel is really my one), but so long as they were sweet, what does that matter (at the time)? And, besides, _you_ could love _me_ genuinely, and I would carelessly kiss your burning tears away.

"Corp is a bit fidgetty about it, because he says I have two to love me already, but I feel confident that I can manage more than two.

"Trusting to see you at the Cuttle Well on Saturday when the eight o'clock bell is ringing,

"I am, Your Indulgent Commander,
"T. SANDYS.

"P. S.--Can you bring some of the Lyceum armour with you, and two hard-boiled eggs?"

Henry Irving once thought of producing Mr. Barrie's play "The Professor's Love Story." He was delighted with the first act, but when he read the rest he did not think the play would do for the Lyceum. It was the same with many plays which were proposed for us. The ideas sounded all right, but as a rule the treatment was too thin, and the play, even if good, on too small a scale for the theatre.

_Mrs. Craigie's Great Promise_

One of our playwrights from whom I always expected a great play was Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). A little one-act play of hers, "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting," in which I first acted with Johnston Forbes Robertson and Terriss at a special matinée in 1894, brought about a friendship between us that lasted until her death. Of her it could indeed be said with poignant truth, "She should have died hereafter." Her powers had not nearly reached their limit.

_From the painting by Miss Maud Porter_]