There were seven or eight theaters in St. Louis, three or four of them staging only that better sort of play known as a first-class attraction; the others giving melodrama, vaudeville and burlesque. The manager of the Grand, a short, thick-set, sandy-complexioned man of most jovial mien, was McManus, father of the well-known cartoonist of a later period and the prototype of his most humorous character, Mr. Jiggs. He exclaimed upon seeing me: “So you’re the new dramatic editor, are you? Well, they change around over there pretty swift, don’t they? What’s happened to Carmichael? First it was Hartridge, then Albertson, then Hazard, then Mathewson, then Carmichael, and now you, all in my time. Well, Mr. Dreiser, I’m glad to see you. You’re always welcome here. I’ll take you out and introduce you to our doormen and Mr. —— in the box-office. He’ll always recognize you. We’ll give you the best seat in the house if it’s empty when you come.” He smiled humorously and I had to laugh at the way he rattled off this welcome. An aura of badinage and humor encircled him, quite the same as that which makes Mr. Jiggs delightful. This was the first I had ever heard of Hazard having held this position, and now I felt a little guilty, as though I had edged him out of something that rightfully belonged to him. Still, I didn’t really care, sentimentalize as I might. I had won. “Did Bob Hazard once have this position?” I asked familiarly. “Yes. That was when he was on the paper the last time. He’s been off and on the _Globe_ three or four times, you know.” He smiled clownishly. I laughed. “You and I’ll get along, I guess,” he smiled. At the other theaters I was received less informally but with uniform courtesy; all assured me that I should be welcome at any time and that if I ever wished tickets for myself or a friend or anybody on the paper I could get them if they had them. “And we’ll make it a point to have them,” said one. I felt that this was quite an acquisition of influence. It gave me considerable opportunity to be nice to any friends I might acquire, and then think of the privilege of seeing any show I chose, to walk right into a theater without being stopped, and to be pleasantly greeted en route! * * * * * The character of the stage of that day, in St. Louis and the rest of America at least, as contrasted with what I know of its history in the world in general, remains a curious and interesting thing to me. As I look back on it now it seems inane, but then it was wonderful. It is entirely possible that nations, like plants or individuals, have to grow and obtain their full development regardless of the accumulated store of wisdom and achievement in other lands, else how otherwise explain the vast level of mediocrity which obtains in some countries and many forms of effort, and that after so much that has been important elsewhere?