Charles Wyndham was one of the first of the theatrical profession to recognize in the Thames Valley a peaceful resort in which, after the Saturday performance, to rest and study and contrive. It was at a very critical period in the history of the Criterion, and the ambitious manager—surely the finest of English comedians—was suffering all the horrors of insomnia. Affairs were balanced on the edge of a knife, as it were, at the theatre, and it was doubtful whether the courageous young manager could hold on or not. His objective in those days was the Swan, at Thames Ditton, and here for the greater part of Sunday he would shut himself up in a private room studying manuscript plays, French and English of their kind. All who knew him then rejoiced when a brilliant success at last followed his judgment in selection, and the anxiety and the insomnia simultaneously disappeared. Those who have only known him in later years as the rich and popular Sir Charles Wyndham will learn that his success—like all solid and lasting successes—was strenuously won. But it was not until a later period that the general weekend migration of Bohemia to the Thames set in with yearly increasing severity. And those who followed Wyndham to the river of pleasure did not, you may be quite sure, follow his example in the matter of arduous study. A good deal of “shop” was talked, no doubt, at the merry forgatherings of actors in flannels and actresses in white frocks—actors will pass their time in heaven talking “shop”—but serious consideration of the business of the theatre was as a rule taboo. The spirit of the little assemblages of friends all along the Valley was frankly a holiday spirit; the dominant note of the Bohemian parties was gaiety. The Saturday-to-Monday establishments spread themselves from Twickenham—then below locks—to Datchet. Nowadays the profession may be found encamped higher up the stream. But there were no motors in the dark days of which I am writing, and players whose engagements were in or near the Strand were limited to the river resorts served by the South-Western Railway Company. Whatever disadvantages may have been incident on this limitation, it had the advantage of placing the week-enders from the theatres within visiting distance of each other. D’Oyly Carte hired a big house at Hampton, close to Tagg’s Island, where he entertained largely on Sundays. It had a lawn running down to the river—a lawn on which I have met some very pleasant people, but none as pleasant and unassuming as Carte himself, or more hospitable and gracious than his talented wife. Carte evidently regarded the Thames as an ideal stream by which to live, for he afterwards bought an eyot higher upstream, and built a house on it.