There was one incident of our journey that was rather unfortunate. I was acting as paymaster for the party, and at Cologne Irving cashed a circular note of _£100_, and the German notes we received in exchange were in my pocket-book as I took our tickets for Wurtzburg. At a junction on the route the train made a halt of some minutes to allow time for refreshments, and as I stood at the door of the buffet a young American of great politeness of manner questioned me as to the identity of Irving and Miss Terry. His tone was reverent and confidential, and as the crowd pressed through the doorway he apologised for jostling me in so unmannerly a fashion. When I retired for the night I realised that his apology was certainly not unneeded, for on emptying my pockets I found that my pocket-book was gone, and with it about £80 of Irving’s money and £30 of my own. We heard afterwards that a young gentleman answering to the description of my chance railway acquaintance had been doing a thriving trade on the Rhine steamers, and I daresay he still preserves my pocket-book as a souvenir of a prosperous day. It is, I think, impossible for any one who has been closely associated with the modern theatre not to be impressed with the need of some worthier support of the drama than is afforded by the fickle and shifting taste of the public; and the career of Irving, both as an actor and a manager, only goes to emphasise a truth that had been repeatedly enforced by the fortunes of his predecessors. We pride ourselves in this country upon what is achieved by individual enterprise, but we do not always remember at what a cost such achievements are won. The harvest is ours, but the labourers who have reaped and stored it are too often but miserably rewarded. Charles Kean, at the close of his long struggle at the Princess’s, confessed that he left the theatre a poorer man than when he entered it; Phelps’ fortunes at Sadler’s Wells left him nothing to boast of; and Henry Irving, though he enjoyed at the zenith of his career a popularity greater than was accorded to either of his predecessors, had good reason before its close to realise that the motley public of a great capital is not to be counted upon for the enduring support of the more serious form of dramatic enterprise.