“Lal” Brough and John L. Toole were the especial favourites of Londesborough among the players, and they might frequently be seen on his drag—his lordship was an accomplished “whip”—driving down to race-meetings near London, or enjoying in his company the beauties of Scarborough. Another indomitable patron of the stage in the seventies and eighties was the Duke of Beaufort. His Grace was particularly quick in discovering budding talent in pretty actresses. To his fostering care was due the great advance which Miss Connie Gilchrist made in an education outside the meagre accomplishments demanded in an actress of burlesque—an education which fitted her for taking that high place in Society which she was destined to fill. Ah, dear me! it seems but a little while ago since the Duke was giving those luncheons in the upper room at Rule’s in Maiden Lane, at which the time passed for all of us so quickly and so gaily. Yet how few of those who sat at the board have survived to tell the tale! In a public-house kept by one Beck in that part of the Strand which backed on to Holywell Street, and has disappeared under the advance of the County Council improvements, there was established a small club of actors and journalists, called the Unity Club. This was a coterie to which admission was not quite so easy as its surroundings might suggest. The talk there was excellent because, I think, there were always a sufficient number of butts upon which to exercise the ingenuity of the wits. It was in this select assembly that George R. Sims was first enabled to give a taste of his quality. His butt-in-ordinary was a very boastful actor named Harcourt, and the verses—chiefly in parody of great poets—which Sims wrote on one of Harcourt’s big boasts will still be recalled by those who were privileged to read one of the few copies printed. The “house-dinner” at the Unity Club was one of the most enjoyable feasts to which I ever sat down. The fare, indeed, was plain and substantial, but the sauce provided by the cheery players and pressmen who sat round the table was the most piquant to be obtained in all London.