He had been one of the ruck when I had first seen him, and now, after at least twenty years, the ruck still claimed him for its own. I remember I had woven a sort of romance about him. There, I had thought to myself, is a man who, no doubt, began his stage career with high aspirations, and noble ambitions. It cannot have been his aim to figure for ever merely as one of a crowd. And I had pictured him gradually losing hope, and wearing his heart out in the bitterness of deferred ambition as he walked gloomily through life, with the stamp of failure on his brow. The picture was a pathetic one, you must admit, worthy to take its place on the line with the well-known fancy sketch of the Clown who, after making the masses split their sides, goes home to a private life of penury and despair. Well, that day I had seen a piece of my friend's private life at Epsom. Nothing could have been farther removed from misery. A light-hearted gaiety reigned in his face and ruled his every gesture. His companions seemed to bow to him, as to their leading humorist and mirth-maker. I was stimulated by the collapse of my elaborate illusion to make inquiries about him. I found that he had been born almost on the stage, and had taken part in stage-life from his earliest years. He never had any ambition: so long as he could be on the stage, and take part in its life, his desires were satisfied. He lived an absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting. Anybody who wishes can see him on any night, helping to troll forth the chorus of a song of Mexican warriors in the great spectacular drama of _Montezuma_. There is no more perfectly-satisfied being in existence. On that I am prepared to stake my life. Let this tale then be a warning to those who are over-hasty to construct romances of pathetic contrast on an insufficient foundation. One hugs such stories to one's heart, and it is something of a wrench to have to give them up in the light of a fuller knowledge. And here I am, having all but reached the limits of my appointed space, without apparently having gone one step nearer to the fulfilment of the task on which I set out. I can only ask you to take the will for the deed in the meantime. And after all, if this unambitious actor had only been what I imagined him to be, I could not have produced an apter example. But he had the impertinence to live his life in his own way, and that did not happen to accord with the theories I had been led to form about it. Shall I never be able to come to the point? I have not yet given up all hope? Yours as usual, D. R. * * * * *