Into the service of the theatre I immediately found myself intrigued and impressed, in the somewhat composite character of scene-painter, scene-shifter, poster-artist, actor, prompter, “noises-off,” and playwright. My first essay in this latter capacity was entitled “A Chelsea Christmas Eve,” the scene being a studio, embellished with sundry artistic audacities--nudes and nocturnes, post-impressionisms and cubisms--and from the cardboard window of which was a view of the Thames, including the Tower Bridge!--there entirely for economical reasons, and not geographic. [Illustration: “A CHELSEA CHRISTMAS EVE,” AS PLAYED AT CARLSRUHE LAGER] So pleasant, nevertheless, was this little make-believe interior that we rarely entered for a rehearsal without discovering and disturbing sundry reading animals who had crept into it as a quiet and congenial environment, and who frequently and regretfully suggested that it would be desirable as a permanency. During the performance the on-coming of a monstrous and realistic pie, built--not baked--in a wash-hand basin, filled with boiling water, and covered with a richly-coloured cardboard crust, was nearly provocative of an assault upon the stage by a hungry and overwrought audience! Another dramatic effort, devised for the bringing on to the stage of my good friends--and the good friends of all the camp--Bertolotti, Calvi the pianist, and Lazarri the sweet singer, was “An Italian Vignette.” The scenery, which was painted on paper readily reversible, so that one could very literally have “a prison and a palace” on each side, I evolved from pleasant if somewhat untrustworthy recollection of a fortnight’s stay in Venice many years ago. _There is a glorious city in the sea._ _The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets_--and that after such sort as proved somewhat disconcerting to the two Venetians present in camp. Owing to the circumscriptions of the stage the scene was more suggestive than realistic, the gondola, instead of entering from below the Ponte dei Sospiri, swimming in a canal running parallel with the Bridge of--Sighs--but of no dimensions! As regards dresses, it was possible to hire through “Hans,” the German orderly, one evening dress suit, one blue ditto, one odd pair of quite unmentionable “unmentionables,” and one Homburg hat. To prevent effort at escape these garments had to be returned to the authorities immediately after each performance. Nothing in anywise approximating to a garb mediæval being obtainable, each man--and “woman”--must dress the part to the best of possibilities.