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he asked if I would like to go on the stage. I did—as a sort of super."

Mr. Kendal's first important engagement lasted four or five years at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Here he met and played with such people as Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), G. V. Brooke, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, Dion Boucicault, Fechter, Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe), and the elder Sothern. When Sothern left, the accomplished young actor played Dundreary, and found himself straying in the footsteps of the famous originator of the part, even to the hop. One would have thought that people would have praised the actor for taking such a worthy example—but it displeased Tom Taylor, and he wrote very wrathfully. Then Mr. Kendal went to the Haymarket, met Miss Robertson, and from their wedding day their lives may be said to have been the same in thought, word, and deed.

As an organizer and man of business his tact and judgment were tested and proved during his joint management of the St. James's with Mr. Hare in 1881. For some time previous to this Mr. Kendal had been on the look-out for a theatre, and his mind wandered towards the St. James's, but it required a large sum of money spending on it before it could be opened.

"One night I was talking to Lord Newry at my club," said Mr. Kendal, "and happened to say that if £2,000 or so were spent on the St. James's I might feel inclined to take it.

"'Suppose I spend that amount of money on the place, will you take it?' Lord Newry asked.

"My only reply was that I would think about it. In the meantime I went to the Court, from there to the Prince of Wales's to play in 'Diplomacy'—it ran a year—'Peril' and 'London Assurance.' Then I returned to the Court again, and during this time Newry had practically gutted the old and unlucky St. James's, turned it inside out—John Hare, my wife and self entered, and we remained there nearly ten years."

Sketch from Hotel window, Cleveland, U.S.A., by Mr. Kendal.

Mr. and Mrs. Kendal share the same opinion of America—it is the land of to-day, the land of the future. As to its theatres in comparison with ours, Mrs. Kendal—who had now joined us—was most enthusiastic. I had reached the pillars, from which hung curtains of intricate Japanese workmanship, leading to the hall. Victoria, the Jubilee dog, was barking a friendly "Good-bye," and the lusty throats of Miss Grimston's two-and-twenty canaries forced their sweet notes from a far-away room into the passage.

"I will give you some idea of what an American theatre is like," said Mrs. Kendal. "You reach your destination by rail at some small place for a one-night stay. If it is raining and the ground is wet, men in long jack-boots catch hold of you and gallantly take you across the puddles. You do not see a soul about—and you are in fear and trembling as to where your night's audience