It was because he did not know what the people of New York wanted that he had to give up the management of his theater and to accept a benefit performance arranged for him by his friendly rivals, Augustin Daly and A. M. Palmer. Altho he had been born in New York Lester Wallack was always proud to consider himself an Englishman. So it was that he remained an alien in the city of his birth, unresponsive to the shifting currents of American life and unaware that the playgoers of New York were slowly surrendering their former habit of colonial dependence upon London. Wallack was so insistently English that he never found himself at home in an American part in an American play; and perhaps he may have felt that he was not really qualified to pass on the merits of a drama dealing with the life of this country. Brougham and Boucicault, Irishmen both, had each of them a far better understanding of American likes and dislikes than Wallack had, altho such an understanding is, of course, absolutely necessary to the manager of a New York theater. His more energetic rivals in management, Daly and Palmer, often outbid him for the acquisition of the “latest London success,” and they also made direct arrangements to acquire the latest Paris success, whereas Wallack waited until this French piece had been transmogrified into a British piece, almost as foreign to the traditions of the American people as the French original had been. In time Dion and John ceased to supply him with occasional new plays. So it was that he was reduced to the third of his three sources of supply, the Old Comedies. In so doing he was for a while secure from rivalry, altho Daly was soon to become a vigorous and dangerous competitor in this field, which Wallack had long thought to be his exclusive property. What were these Old Comedies that Wallack mentioned airily and with assurance that his hearer would know exactly what he meant? I can see how the youthful playgoer of to-day might be completely puzzled if called upon to explain this term, perfectly familiar to playgoers who were youthful two score years ago. I can hear this youthful playgoer of to-day asking for a catalog of these Old Comedies and for a list of their authors. And I can imagine him wondering also why it is that he has rarely had a chance to see these Old Comedies which delighted the lovers of the acted drama in the days of his grandfather. II