Eton has furnished some capital recruits to the London stage--Charles Kean, the brothers Hawtrey, Mr. Willie Elliot, and others, including that excellent actor, Mr. Arthur Bourchier, who even as an Eton boy was celebrated for his dramatic zeal. About 1882, with Bogle Smith, Collet, Gilmor, and a few more, he organised the “Eton Strollers,” the prologue for whose first play was written by the Hon. Arthur Bligh, a boy of considerable literary and poetic taste, who, in collaboration with Bourchier, wrote a drama which was sent to Irving for production. “Do these boys play cricket?” inquired the great actor when he received the manuscript; as a matter of fact both were very fair cricketers, Bourchier being a good wicket-keep. Mr. Bourchier’s first theatrical _entrepreneur_ was Lord Kenyon, in whose room at Cameron’s he made his _début_ in _Uncle’s Will_, in which he acted with Johnson and Berkeley-Levett. When Mr. Cameron, who was not sympathetic to theatricals, left Eton, Bourchier went to the Rev. T. Dalton’s, where his aspirations received far greater encouragement; indeed his Housemaster became imbued with such enthusiasm for theatricals that a colleague once chaffingly inquired of him, “Is it true that young Bourchier is going to bring you out on the Music Hall stage?” Regular performances were now given in Pupil Room, for which a small charge--generally a penny a seat--was made, the proceeds going to the Eton Mission, for the benefit of which the whole company, including Mr. Dalton (who gave a humorous recitation), gave an entertainment at Hackney Wick. The exigences of the drama, however, occasionally clashed with discipline. When, for instance, in _Still Waters Run Deep_, after the lines, “Do you smoke?” “Yes, I’ll have a cigar,” two of the actors lit up, Mr. Dalton from his place amongst the audience shouted out, “No, you don’t,” and was only appeased by an examination of the cigars, which proved to be dummies. On another occasion when a careless or mischievous Lower boy had manufactured snow for the duel scene in the _Corsican Brothers_ by tearing up a pile of “extra-works” which had been lying on Mr. Dalton’s desk for correction, the latter became so scandalised at seeing the duellists enveloped in a “cloud of equations” that, after ejaculating, “One minute! This performance now ceases,” he set actors and audience to the uncongenial task of putting the pieces together. The most ambitious effort of the company was an elaborate performance of _The Merchant of Venice_, in which Reggie Lucas (see Chapter X.) took part.