The closing of the season and some inward agreement with Madame’s verdict ended my attempts at acting except for one or two occasions when I was forced by some great emergency to jump into some part to save a performance and one dreadful time, of which I will speak later, when stern necessity seemed to be facing me. Two of the occasions when I had to become an actor or close a theater are fresh in my memory. During its second season my play THROUGH THE BREAKERS was booked to open in Jersey City with a holiday matinée. Unfortunately the worst blizzard of twenty years had been raging and at matinée time several of the company had been unable to cross the river. I was the company manager and after switching the cast about as much as possible I found that the only way to give a performance at all was for me to go on and play the part of the rough and villainous sailor. Reluctantly I decided to go through with it, and did so to the best of my ability. By evening the storm was over and the company were all on hand and, during the extremely melodramatic second act I stood in the rear of the darkened theater and watched the performance. It was just at the height of the villainous sailor’s most villainous moment when the head usher, who happened to be beside me, whispered: “That ain’t the same man who played the old sailor this afternoon.” “No,” I answered, “it isn’t.” “I thought it wasn’t,” replied the usher, “seems to me he’s a damned sight better.” [Illustration: SALLY COHEN, 1898 With Rice, one of the “favorite entertainers of vaudeville and musical comedy.” (_Courtesy of The Players_) ] The other occasion of which I wrote—and, come to think of it, my last appearance as an actor on any stage—was in a musical comedy I concocted about twenty-five years ago for John C. Rice and Sally Cohen, then and for many years afterwards favorite entertainers of vaudeville and musical comedy. Saturday night of the first week of the play John Rice came to me and in a hoarse whisper informed me he had completely lost his voice, a fact that was only too evident to any one who witnessed his distress in trying to speak above a whisper. The house was sold out and I owned a third of the show, so it required very little persuasion from the local theater manager to induce me to take a chance. Sally Cohen was, I think, the first to propose that I take her famous husband’s part, and I distinctly recall that the only thing that prevented John Rice from absolutely forbidding it was the fact that by that time he was quite incapable of making any sound at all and could only protest by frantic signs and facial contortions. [Illustration: JOHN C. RICE, 1896 (_Courtesy of The Players_) ]