In the early stages of the building up of the play there was an interesting occurrence which illustrates the influence of the actor on the author, especially when the former is a good stage manager. Marshall came to supper in the room which antedated the Beefsteak Room for that purpose. The occasion was to discuss the _scenario_ which had by then been enlarged to proportions comprehensive of detail—not merely the situations but the working of them out. Only the three of us were present. We were all familiar with the work so far as it was done; for not only used Marshall to send Irving a copy of each act and scene of the _scenario_ as he did it, but he used very often to run in and see me and consult about it. I would then tell Irving at a convenient opportunity; and when next the author came I would go over with him Irving’s comments and suggestions. This night we all felt to be a crucial one. The play had gone on well through its earlier parts; indeed it promised to be a very fine play. But at the point it had then reached it halted a little. The scene was in Dublin during a phase or wave of discontent even with the “patriotic” party as accepted in the play. Something was necessary to focus in the minds of certain of the characters the fact and cause of discontent and to emphasise it in a dramatic way. After supper we discussed it for a long time. All at once Irving got hold of an idea. I could see it in his face; and he could see that I saw he had something. He glanced at me in a way which I knew well to be to back him up. He deftly changed the conversation and began to speak of another matter in which Marshall was interested. I knew my cue and joined in, and so we drifted away from the play. Presently Irving asked Marshall to look at a playbill which he had had framed and hung on the wall. It was one in which Macready was “starred” along with an elephant called “Rajah”—this used in later years to hang in Irving’s dressing-room. Marshall stood up to look at it closely. Whilst he was doing so, with his back to us, Irving got half-a-dozen wine glasses by the stems in his right hand and hurled them at the door, making a terrific crash and a litter of falling glass. Frank Marshall, a man of the sunniest nature, was not built spiritually in a heroic mould. He gave a cry and whirled round, his face pale as ashes. He sank groaning into a chair speechless. When I had given him a mouthful of brandy he gasped out: “What was it? I thought some one had thrown a bomb-shell in through the window!”