I think at the first nobody was more surprised than Mr. Bateman at the success achieved by Irving’s experiment. In those days the favourite haunt of actors was the old Albion Tavern in Drury Lane. Clubs were comparatively few, and fewer still the actors who belonged to them. The licensing laws imposing the early closure upon the London taverns had not yet been passed, and it was the habit of those who were interested in the theatre to gather in the old-fashioned boxes of the Albion, and to remain in eager discussion over the things of the drama till the small hours of the morning. It was on one evening during the first rendering of _The Bells_ that I found myself seated there in company with a few genial spirits including Henry Montague, Toole, and Tom Thorne, when we noticed that Irving’s manager, Mr. Bateman, had entered and was gazing round the room as though in search of some one he had appointed to meet. It occurred at once to the mischievous spirit of Toole to turn the occasion to account. In a whispered sentence he made the rest of us co-conspirators in the little drama he had suddenly devised, and as Mr. Bateman, still scanning the visitors assembled, advanced from box to box, he and Montague, in tones designedly pitched so that all might hear, began an animated discussion as to Irving’s rightful claims to a larger salary than he was at that time receiving. I believe, in fact, that Irving’s remuneration was something like £15 a week, which represented a substantial advance upon the payment he had received during his engagement for _The Two Roses_ at the Vaudeville Theatre; but Montague and Toole vied with one another like competing bidders at an auction in loud proclaim of his larger worth. “£15 a week!” said Toole. “Why, he’s worth £20 at any rate!” “£20!” retorted Montague. “Nonsense! He’s worth £30 if he’s worth a penny!” And then Thorne, topping Montague, said he would be perfectly willing to give him £40 if he would return to the Vaudeville; and as the voices grew louder in the increasing estimate of Irving’s value, Bateman, attracted by the discussion, drew nearer and nearer to the box in which we sat, until at last, leaning with his elbows upon the mahogany partition, he leant forward with lowering brows no longer able to contain the indignation which these comments had provoked. And then at last Toole, always incorrigible in humorous mischief, topped all previous bidders by the emphatic announcement that Henry Irving was worth £50 a week if he was worth a shilling, to which Bateman, now incensed beyond measure, retorted, “Yes, and you are the scoundrels who would put him up to asking it.”