Here, on the ragged edge of the Empire, things are managed expeditiously by the authorities. Scarcely an hour after the _Nautilas_ has dropped her pick the tugboat comes out again and flings us our mail. Bosun and donkeyman trudge aft and take the letters for the foc'sle, the mess-room steward deposits a letter in my lap, and I think of my friend. At this moment he is engaged in repartee with the housekeeper as she lays the table for tea. The heavy twilight is settling down over the river outside; lovers are pacing the walk as they return from their Sunday tramp. Possibly, too, that fantastic scene which he has described to me is now enacting. He is at the piano; the housekeeper, in tears, is on her knees beside him, and they raise their melodious voices "_for those in peril on the sea_." How affecting, for one to be so remembered! I thank them both with all my heart. And now he tells me that his play goes well, and I am glad. It will indeed be a red-letter day when I pay my shilling and climb into the gallery to see his work. No, I shall not criticise. Probably I shall hardly listen. I shall be thinking many thoughts, dreaming dreams, feeling simply very glad and very proud. I sympathise always with his struggles with his _personnel_, but I think, though, he hardly allows enough for the point of view. These actors and actresses are not literary. (They _should_ be, I know.) They look at an author's work as a man looks at the universe--a small part at a time. That trite old paradox that, to the actor, the part is greater than the whole, should never be forgotten. Remember, too, how "touchy," as he calls it, they _must_ be, in the nature of things. Their touchiness, their affectation, their lack of culture--all are inherent in them. _Their_ success is always immediate, using the word in its literal sense as a metaphysician would use it; the author's success is mediate, through time and trial. So one should not be discouraged because they fail to appreciate one's efforts to give them the atmosphere of the period. They will get the atmosphere intuitively, or not at all.