It has not been noticed, in these days of appropriation, that the piece was practically an ingenious variation, or adaptation, of Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit.’ For here we find old Dorrit, his two daughters, and one of their admirers; also the constant loans, the sudden good fortune, and the equally sudden reverse. It was easy to see that the piece had been formed by the evolution of this one character, the legitimate method, it has always seemed to me, of making a play; whereas the average dramatist adopts a reverse practice of finding a story, and then finding characters for it. Character itself _is_ a story. The character of Digby Grant was the first that gave him firm hold of public favour. It belongs to pure comedy—a fidgety, selfish being, self-deluded by the practice of social hypocrisies, querulous, scheming, wheedling. It is curious that a very good actor, who later filled the part, took the villainy _au sérieux_, giving the complaint, “_You annoy me very much!_” repeated so often, as a genuine reproach, and with anger. Irving’s was the true view—a simulated vexation, “_You annoy me very much!_” The audience sees that he is not “annoyed very much.” After our actor’s visit to America, his performance was noticed to be more elaborate and laboured, but it had lost some of its spontaneousness—a result which, it has been noted, is too often the result of playing to American audiences, who are pleased with broad effects. This piece continued to be played for about a year—then thought to be a prodigious run, though it is now found common enough—during which time Irving’s reputation steadily increased.[7] CHAPTER IV. 1871. ‘THE BELLS’—WILLS’S ‘CHARLES I.’