Albery’s “Two Roses” was succeeded by a comedy from the same author called “Apple-Blossoms.” It was not a success. Nor, indeed, did Albery ever produce another play to equal his first. I came to know him well; collaborated with him in a small way; and visited him when he was living at Evans’s Hotel, and after he had furnished some pleasant chambers in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury. He was an admirable talker, a splendid listener, and possessed a pretty turn for unexpected epigram. The Suffragette existed in those remote days. But she practised under another name. And the questions of Woman’s Rights and Female Emancipation were argued as warmly then as now. The subject came up on one occasion at Albery’s rooms. His visitors were taking sides. One strong believer in tradition took his stand on Genesis, and asserted woman’s inferiority on Scriptural grounds. “Woman was made out of the rib of Man,” he declared. “And was thus a mere side-issue of creation,” suggested Albery. Albery ended sadly. He became addicted to a habit which ruined a good many of the best fellows of a convivial period. His great gifts were wasted entirely in conversational sallies, and among boon companions at the Savage Club and other Bohemian resorts. He had married a lady who subsequently “went on the stage,” and greatly succeeded in her vocation, becoming one of the most popular actresses of her time and of our own. A story of the days of Albery’s decadence has come to me. Some time before his lamented death, and in a contrite mood, he called his wife to his bedside, and said: “Ah, my dear, you should have married a different man!” “I _did_, Jim,” was the tearful reply. And there, I think, we plumb the very deeps of pathos.