Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote delightful verse and was a charming man, but little things sometimes irritated him greatly. I remember him coming into the club evidently as cross as two sticks. The publishers had had the “cheek” to refuse a poem of his. I asked why. “Oh, I suppose they found it too meter-icious.” And this was long before the days of free verse. Louis Aldrich made a fortune from the play “My Pardner,” taken from the Bret Harte story called _Tennessee’s Pardner_. When Louis Aldrich was chairman of the house committee of The Players, I saw him one noon standing at the door of the dining room, talking to Walter, the head waiter. Presently, in a loud voice, he said: “Walter, what is the lunch to-day?” “Pork chops and sausages, sir.” “An insult to the house committee.” Then later at the table: “Walter, bring me some of that damn Christian food.” Henry E. Dixey and Louis were in a war play together, and I heard the latter pray Harry (who had the part of a New York policeman) to spare him when he gave a long speech about the flag. I was one of the first-night audience, and at that most pathetic climax about Old Glory, etc., the policeman suddenly fell dead. Many actors have a ready wit. Jack Wendall became quite famous for his excellent portrayal of the dog in Rostand’s “Chanticleer.” One of these silly, satisfied business men was a guest at The Players and, meeting Jack, insisted upon his giving an example of his bark right then and there. After much persuasion and, in order to silence the man, he did so. Whereupon the man proceeded to bark much louder and much better than Jack. The actor was worsted at his own game and by such a fatuous creature, but he turned and said, with the most cunning inference: “It is fine, but you see, sir, _I_ had to learn.” Speaking of Rostand, I _am_ proud of a translation of mine of two lines of “Cyrano.” Mark Smith had challenged my statement that it could be done in English verse and gave as a test: “_Qu’est-ce qu’un baiser? C’est le point rose sur l’I du mot aimer._” I gave him: “What is a kiss? The rosy dot upon the ‘I’ of bliss.” Mark was an actor and the son of an actor. I saw him first with Mrs. Leslie Carter. It is told of him that just before his birth his parents were in Paris. His father, being very patriotic, went to the American embassy, got some earth from the cellar, and, filling four saucers with it, placed them under the legs of the bed where his wife lay. With Old Glory over the bed, Mark was ushered into the world as near an American citizen as his father could make him.