Moy Thomas was an excellent judge of what a play ought to be, and understood also the sort of treatment best suited to the public for whom he wrote. For many years he wrote the dramatic notices for the _Daily News_. In those far-off days it had a literary staff, the character of which was not second to that of any morning journal. Thomas’s articles were remarkable for their admirable lucidity, sound judgment, and polished literary style. He also provided the dramatic notices for the _Graphic_. “Willie” Wilde, whom I have just mentioned in connection with the burly Joseph Knight, was a determined first-nighter. He was an exceedingly talkative man, and he talked so very well that one did not care to stop his agreeable chatter even when it was inconveniently out of place. One evening I happened to occupy a stall next to that of a then well-known gentleman of the Jewish persuasion who commenced in Fleet Street as an advertising canvasser, and subsequently blossomed into a newspaper proprietor, although the newspaper in question was, to quote the immortal excuse of the wet-nurse in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” “a very little one.” I imagine he has done well, for the last time I saw him he was lolling back in a victoria, and driving down Portland Place with the air of a man who owned all the houses on both sides. On the occasion to which I allude, he had not as yet arrived at the victoria stage. Indeed, he had been released from gaol that very morning. He had been remanded in custody on a charge of a commercial kind; but being now out on bail, and having none of that supersensitiveness which would characterize a Gentile similarly situated, he celebrated his release by taking his wife to the theatre. Wilde was sitting immediately behind the pair, and next to William Mackay, to whom, as the play proceeded, he indulged in a series of humorous commentaries. Our hero, being very intent on the play—an opera-bouffe—became at last annoyed by the chatter behind him, and, turning round to Mackay, who had not uttered a word, said in a voice audible all over the place: “I wish, sir, you’d make less noise.” Mackay, conscious of innocence and deeply resentful, turned to Wilde, and observed audibly, with a touch of malice which was seldom absent from his impromptus: “Do keep quiet, Willie; you are annoying the occupant of the _adjoining cell_.” A London edition of the _New York Herald_ was published in the Strand at the time when this little incident happened, and next morning the critic of that journal, under the head of “An Incident,” tacked the story on to his dramatic notice—names and all. He added the comment: “A word in season, how good it is!”