My mind went back forty-five years, and I remembered that from a poor, starved, and small Sunday-school library I had got Defoe’s ‘History of the Plague.’ How it thrilled and absorbed me! ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ ever rang in my ears, so with a rattle (lads made them in those days) in a little old Staffordshire town I ran about the streets shouting out: ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ I remembered, too, that I emulated the poor half-witted drunken piper in the ‘dead-cart,’ and blew unearthly noises on a tin whistle, innocently asking: ‘I ain’t dead, am I?’ But whatever prospects I may have had of becoming an actor were doomed to early death, and it happened on this wise. A large travelling theatre came often to our town. How well I remember it, with its framework of thin deal painted green, and its patched and torn roof! Every evening on an elevated stage at the front the company in full dress disported themselves, the band played, the whip cracked, and there were pressing invitations to the small crowd to ‘Walk up! Walk up!’ How they responded may be gathered from the fact that one night the master of the ceremonies giving the usual invitation made a slight variation, and it came out as follows: ‘Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and see one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful tragedies, entitled----’ Here he became anxious as to the size of the house, and putting his head through the canvas to look, he soon drew it back, and called out to one of the company: ‘Only five in.’ I never got inside this booth, but those who did told fascinating tales. One Shakespearian night ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was to be performed, and as Romeo did not come on, the ‘house’ waited in expectancy the while. The stage manager came to make some explanation, but before he could speak one of the company rushed on to the stage, and called out to him: ‘Romeo’s drunk!’ But the messenger was closely followed by the pot-valiant Romeo, who roared out: ‘’Tis false, you dastard! Romeo is not drunk!’ and promptly knocked the accuser down.