After this play had been withdrawn from the boards Mark’s ambition to establish himself as a dramatist did not again manifest itself. However, it is pleasant to believe that the pain of his own failure may have been more or less assuaged by the better fortune of dramatizations of two of his novels. I have already noted that not long after the publication of the ‘Prince and the Pauper’ Mrs. Clemens had arranged scenes from it to be acted by members of the family and by their young friends, and that Mark himself had undertaken the part of Miles Hendon. A little later a dramatization of the whole story was made by Abby Sage Richardson; and this was produced in New York in January, 1890. It achieved instant popularity, as well it might, since the story is indisputably dramatic and since it has a more direct action than any other of Mark’s novels. This version, revised by Amélie Rives, was revived in 1920 by William Faversham, who appeared as Miles Hendon. The revival met with a reception as warm as that which had greeted the original production. In one respect this professional dramatization was inferior to Mrs. Clemens’s amateur arrangement; it was so devised that one performer should assume two characters, the little Prince and the little Pauper; and this necessitated the omission of the culminating moment in the tale when the Prince and the Pauper stand face to face. And in both the amateur and the professional performances these two lads were impersonated by girls. This may have been necessary, since it is almost impossible to find competent boy actors, while there are girl actors aplenty; but none the less was it unfortunate, since a girl is never entirely satisfactory in boy’s clothes. Very rarely can she conceal from us the fact that she is a girl, doing her best to be a boy. Curiously enough, boys can act girls’ parts and make us forget for the moment that they are not what they seem. Five years after Mrs. Richardson had dramatized the ‘Prince and the Pauper,’ Frank Mayo made a most effective play out of ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson.’ He arranged the title-part for his own vigorous and impressive acting. He simplified Mark’s story and he amplified it; he condensed it and he heightened it; he preserved the ingenious incidents and the veracious characters; he made his profit out of the telling dialog; and he was skilful in disentangling the essentially dramatic elements of Mark’s rather rambling story. He produced it in New York in the spring of 1895. Mark was then in Europe; but when he returned he made haste to see the piece. He was discovered by the audience and called upon for a speech, in which he congratulated the player-playwright on a “delightful play.” He ended by saying, “Confidentially I have always had an idea that I was well equipt to write plays, but I have never encountered a manager who has agreed with me”—which was not strictly accurate since two different managers had accepted the ‘Gilded Age’ and ‘Ah Sin.’ V