Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/88

"We used to live over the old Adelphi Theatre," he said, "and I was never allowed to go into the theatre, but there was a long staircase which connected the dwelling part with the public lobby, and I would often creep down there unobserved and listen to the talk in the boxes and pit. The lights and dresses and dancers used to bewilder me. It was at the Old Adelphi one night that a cry of 'Fire' was heard from the streets, and I was taken out of my little crib and held up to see the heavens lit up. I saw the glare caused by the Royal Exchange and Tower of London being on fire. At the time of the riots in Canada, I remember seeing the Foot Guards marched through the streets. Whether my father felt the honour of possessing me I do not know, but he used to delight in taking me by the hand and allowing me to accompany him through the streets.

"In this way I met the Duke of Wellington, who addressed my father with 'How do, Yates?' On the same day we met Dan O'Connell."

Albert Smith.

It was his aunt Eliza who taught young Edmund his ABC; the printer of the theatre, who evinced a keen interest in his welfare, having cut him out a set, which used to be placed on the floor, and Edmund would walk round like the little trained poodle at the circus and pick them out. At five years of age he went to a preparatory school at Highgate, and at nine was located at Highgate Grammar School, where his headmaster was the Rev. Prebendary Dyne, who is still alive and resident at Rogate, near Petersfield.

"Amongst my schoolfellows," he continued, "were Richard and Slingsby Bethell and Philip Worsley, who translated the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' and many other famous fellows. I was not what you might call a studious boy. I cultivated that very bad habit of smuggling pieces of candle in order that I might sit up and devour the contents of a small library of somewhat sensational literature—literature calculated to raise hair on a brass door-knob. I liked cricket, and was addicted to borrowing other boys' ponies promiscuously and exercising them for my own particular benefit. I remained there until I was fourteen or fifteen, and then went to Düsseldorf. I had been there but a few months when my mother sent for me, saying that Lord Clanricarde had been appointed Postmaster-General and I was to come home."

The Library.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.

It meant that instead of going into the Church, as originally intended, Edmund Yates, at the age of sixteen, on the 11th March, 1847, entered the Missing Letter Department of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and remained there for exactly five-and-twenty years. They were days of real happiness. Whilst working hard at the Post-office he also entered "Bohemia," and obtained a knowledge of men and manners attainable by no other means. His experiences gathered in those days, and the names of people he met, would cover many