I returned to my easy-chair before the fire. Wife, children, home! After all, was not that the true work of man--of the live man, not the dreamer? I saw them round me, giving to my life dignity, responsibility. The fair, sweet woman, helper, comrade, comforter, the little faces fashioned in our image, their questioning voices teaching us the answers to life's riddles. All other hopes, ambitions, dreams, what were they? Phantoms of the morning mist fading in the sunlight. Hodgson came to me one evening. “I want you to write me a comic opera,” he said. He had an open letter in his hand which he was reading. “The public seem to be getting tired of these eternal translations from the French. I want something English, something new and original.” “The English is easy enough,” I replied; “but I shouldn't clamour for anything new and original if I were you.” “Why not?” he asked, looking up from his letter. “You might get it,” I answered. “Then you would be disappointed.” He laughed. “Well, you know what I mean--something we could refer to as 'new and original' on the programme. What do you say? It will be a big chance for you, and I'm willing to risk it. I'm sure you can do it. People are beginning to talk about you.” I had written a few farces, comediettas, and they had been successful. But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it can mar him. A comic opera above all other forms of art--if I may be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject--demands experience. I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my hope--growing each day fainter--to take the theatrical public by storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright. “It's very simple,” urged Hodgson. “Provide Atherton plenty of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing is done.” “I'll tell you what,” continued Hodgson, “I'll take the whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We'll have a coach, and leave the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to study them. You'll be able to have a talk with them and get to know just what they can do. Atherton has ideas in his head; he'll explain them to you. Then, next week, we'll draw up a contract and set to work.” It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my role of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic opera. A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start. “Nothing wrong, is there?” enquired the leading lady, in a tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her cab. “It isn't a fire, is it?”