In the first week of the tour at the Princes Theatre, Bristol, on September 21, 1894, _A Story of Waterloo_ was given. The matter was one of considerable importance in the dramatic world; not only was Irving to play a new piece, but that piece was Conan Doyle’s first attempt at the drama. The chief newspapers of London and some of the greater provincial cities wished to be represented on the occasion; the American press also wished to send its critical contingent. Accordingly we arranged for a special train to bring the critical force. Hearing that so many of his London journalistic friends were coming an old friend of Irving’s then resident in Bristol, Mr. John Saunders, arranged to give a supper in the Liberal Club, to which they were all invited, together with many persons of local importance. The play met with a success extraordinary even for Irving. The audience followed with rapt attention and manifest emotion, swaying with the varying sentiments of the scene. The brief aid to memory in my diary of that day runs: “New play enormous success. H. I. fine and great. All laughed and wept. Marvellous study of senility. Eight calls at end.” Unfortunately the author was not present to share the triumph, for it would have been a delightful memory for him. He was on a tour in America; “and thereby hangs a tale.” Amongst the audience who had come specially from London was Mr. H. H. Kohlsaat, owner and editor of the _Chicago Times Herald_, a close and valued friend of Irving and myself. He was booked to leave for America the next day. When the play was over and the curtain finally down, he hurried away just in time to catch the train for Southampton, whence the American Line boat started in the morning. He got on board all right. The following Saturday he arrived in New York, just in time to catch the “flyer,” as they call the fast train to Chicago on the New York Central line. On Sunday night a public dinner was given to Conan Doyle to which of course Kohlsaat had been bidden. He arrived too late for the dining part; but having dressed in the train he came on to the hotel just as dinner was finished and before the speeches began. He took a chair next to Doyle and said to him: “I am delighted to tell you that your play at Bristol was an enormous success!” “So I am told,” said Doyle modestly. “The cables are excellent.” “They are not half enough!” answered Kohlsaat, who had been reading in the train the papers for the last week. “Indeed! I am rejoiced to hear it!” said Conan Doyle somewhat dubiously. “May I ask if you have had any special report?” “I didn’t need any report, I saw it!” “Oh, come!” said Conan Doyle, who thought that he was in some way chaffing him. “That is impossible!” “Not to me! But I am in all human probability the only man on the American continent who was there?” Then whilst the gratified author listened he gave him a full description of the play and the scene which followed it.