The first meeting between Robertson and myself was cordial enough, but though he evidently appreciated the defence of “School,” which was the basis of our friendship, it was equally apparent that he had expected to meet an older man, and one who was at least somewhere “in the movement.” When at last we were alone, he became communicative. He was at the time probably suffering from the premonitory distresses of the disease which was destined to carry him off untimely. My first impression was of the bitterness with which he discussed men and things. It was so entirely different from that which I had expected in the mood of one who stood so illuminated in the sunlight of popular approval. Fame and competence had come too late for him. The long, hungry struggle for recognition had soured a nature once, perhaps, sunny enough. More than once during our conversation he alluded to his troubles with his first success, “Society.” It had originally been intended for Buckstone at the Haymarket—then _par excellence_ the Comedy theatre; and for six years after its refusal by Buckstone its author had hawked it about to all the London managers and to some in the provinces. I had asked him what chance of recognition a beginner at stage-writing should have with the managers. This it was that brought “Society” on the tapis. He drove home the lesson with the _argumentum ad hominem_. His deliverance certainly put me off any vague scheme I may have formed of commencing dramatist, and made me resolve to advance in the critical career upon which, in my youthful folly, I imagined I had successfully embarked. Speaking with great acerbity, he said: “I was born among stage associations. I grew up among them. It was the natural thing for me to look to the stage for my daily bread. My earliest craft was stagecraft. If I was compelled to carry about in my back-pocket for six years the play into which I had put all my experience before I could get a hearing, you can calculate for yourself the chances of an outsider.” Reverting to the charge of having drawn on the work of others for his most popular success, he said: “The author of a successful play is always charged with plagiarism. It was a commonplace to accuse Sheridan of the crime. And Shakespeare was—according to the critics—the greatest thief of all. I am, at least, pilloried in good company.” After a pause, he continued, with increased bitterness: “According to your critic, the only man who never plagiarizes is the dramatist who is hidebound by tradition; whose work reeks of the essence of authors who have gone before him, or who are his contemporaries. The only originality they know of is originality of phrase. Original dramatists of the sort generally find time to do a little dramatic criticism as well, so that their case runs no danger of being understated on the press.”