I went the next night and the next, and found the fascination increase. I saw him in Petruchio, Brutus, Hamlet, Richelieu, Lear, Iago, Claude Melnotte, Sir Giles Overreach, Romeo, and Pescara. He was uneven and fitful in everything, but in every part he played he did something that no other actor could rival. His youth, too, had a charm; the very crudeness of his acting gave a certain interest--it left room for anticipation. I was very much attracted by the stage at that time, so I called on young Booth and told him what I thought of his acting. He had plenty of admirers, but my enthusiasm seemed to touch him, and we struck up a friendship at once. At the end of a week he consented to spend Sunday with me; and from that time dated a peculiar intimacy. I had a good deal of leisure and could pass my days as well as nights in his company, and I knew no greater pleasure than he gave me, either on or off the stage. He was not then a finished scholar, nor by any means the great artist that he afterward became, and I was anxious that he should be both. I used to hunt up books and pictures about the stage, the finest criticisms, the works that illustrated his scenes, the biographies of great actors, and we studied them together. We visited the Astor Library and the Society Library to verify costumes, and every picture or picture-gallery in New York, public or private, that was accessible. He discussed his parts with me, and with the conceit of youth I often ventured to differ with him on points in his art where he should have been an authority. Often we quarrelled all day about an interpretation or a rendering, and I went to the theatre at night to be convinced that he was right and I was wrong. Sometimes he gave me a private box, and I took notes of the performance, and of the criticisms or changes that occurred to me. Next day we went over them together, and at night he would play Richard or Iago according to my suggestions--perhaps as much to gratify me as because he thought my judgment correct. Oftener I went to his dressing-room. It was very fascinating to watch the face of the character he was to play grow and vary beneath his hand. The character itself seemed to grow at the same time. When we entered at the stage door he was my friend--"Ned," I always called him; but as the paint and the cotton eyebrows, the wig and the tights, were put on, the stage personage appeared; and when Hamlet or Romeo was ready his manner assumed all the grace and dignity of the Prince or the Montagu. After he had played a scene or two the transformation was complete, and lasted till the stage clothes were taken off.