And what a host he was! You saw him at his best then, I think, his Majesty in evening dress, presiding at his table, after the play. You had seen him crowned and robed and reigning, heard him cheered by his loyal subjects, the British public, and now you were to sup with him after the play. His guests--they might be two, or six, or a dozen--would be shown to a suite of historic rooms upstairs behind the scenes, the rooms which in the eighteenth century and later had belonged to The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks. Perhaps, that night, the play had finished at eleven. The green curtain seldom fell earlier at the Lyceum. In fifteen or twenty minutes Irving would come in. If Miss Terry were coming, she would be later. An actress is usually longer than an actor about "changing." But whether she came, or not, and she would not always come, the feast would be a memorable one, both as to company and to dishes, to coffee and cigars and wines. In those days teetotalism did not stalk over the world, and arrogantly claim all the virtues, and cry {203} tyrannically, "You shall not touch wine! There are weak souls who cannot drink without drunkenness. To protect them we shall deprive you!" A lot of kindly feeling has vanished with the rise of Bolshevism, Syndicalism, and Teetotalism. Are we coming to a time when Shaving will be forbidden because razors are dangerous? If there are people who drink to excess, are there none who eat excessively? Are dyspepsia and indigestion to reduce the world to a common level of sallowness and pain, to the pangs and palenesses that prevail in teetotal regions? What has all this to do with Henry Irving? Nothing, of course, seeing that he died in 1905. But were he living and in his prime, I can fancy him saying, as many another man is saying: "No more America for me. They won't let me have a pint of wine with my dinner. I believe in freedom."