He met the press representatives in my office, all gathered around the same table where many other English men of letters had been on the stand. There was great interest in him. The reporters recognized a brilliant subject, and succeeded in getting about as rich material for “space” as they had encountered for some time. Zangwill answered questions of every conceivable sort, and returned the fire from his assailants with vigor. The reports in all the papers the next day were excellent, and the interest in the great Jewish novelist was manifest everywhere. Lecture committees called and letters of inquiry came pouring in, but as yet I could give no answer. In the interviews the day before he evaded all questions as to his plans, and so it went on until October. Many excellent applications had to be rejected because no definite answer could be given. The result was that when an understanding was finally reached, nearly all the lyceum courses in the country were made up, and the only way to book Zangwill was to hire halls and speculate or accept certainties wherever they came from. After our contract was duly signed, I at once engaged the Lyceum Theatre in New York for his initial performance in America. It took place on the afternoon of October 11th, 1898. The pretty theatre was crowded with as intelligent and fashionable an audience as New York could turn out to welcome a stranger. “The Drama as a Fine Art” was the subject chosen by Mr. Zangwill. He told me that he would speak without notes, as he had been assured that to attempt to read a lecture to a New York audience was fatal. There was no use of arguing this with him. It was with some difficulty that he got under way, but the lecture itself was a shower of epigrams interspersed with sparkles of wit that carried his audience with him from the beginning to the very last word. Not until the close of the lecture did a single person leave the house. The speaker was recalled and cheered vociferously for a long time. The lecture was a severe criticism of the dramatic critics, and most of our New York critics were there. The only one of whom Zangwill had spoken kindly was William Winter, on whom the compliment was lost because the latter had ceased long ago to take interest in such affairs. Many of New York’s best people rushed upon the stage to congratulate Zangwill on his real success. Some of the most prominent Jewish citizens were there--among them Mr. Seligman and Mr. Isidor Straus. The latter, who sat by me, declared that I had certainly found a winner. I don’t think I ever knew an audience to be more delighted.