The poor little fellow, now almost in tears, looked ruefully at us as we drove away. But there is a pretty ending to the story, for I happen to know that on the next day, which was his birthday, Toole sent him a little bicycle for his own. During those earlier days when I first made his acquaintance and Irving’s, I was from time to time, and on different papers, employed as a dramatic critic, and I remember it was in that capacity that I had written a notice of Mr. Wills’ play of _Charles I._, in which Irving had enforced and enlarged the impression created by his appearance in _The Bells_. I think I had done sufficient justice to Irving’s impressive personation of the king, but my pronounced democratic inclinations were perhaps justly wounded by Mr. Wills’ almost farcical representation of the character of Cromwell. This opinion, openly declared in my criticism, deeply incensed Irving’s manager Mr. Bateman, and it was perhaps in order to find the opportunity of informing me of his disapproval that he invited me to a supper at the Westminster Club on the second or third night of the production. My friend Thomas Purnell, to whom I have already referred, was present, and Irving and Toole were also of the company. When he thought the fitting moment had arrived, Mr. Bateman led the conversation to the point at issue, and lured on, I think, in a spirit of mischief by Purnell, he at last emphatically banged the table with his fist, and in the loudest of tones declared that he did not produce his plays at the Lyceum Theatre to please Mr. Comyns Carr. There was a moment’s awkward pause, which I did not feel quite able to break, but which was released by Purnell with a chuckle of delight and the happy retort: “Well, dear boy, then you can’t be surprised if they don’t please him.” All this while my own ambition to make an adventure as a writer for the stage had been steadily growing. My wife and I had made an experiment in a version of _Frou-frou_ entitled _Butterfly_, which was produced by Miss Terry and Mr. Kelly during one of their provincial tours at Glasgow. But it was not until the year 1884 that I succeeded in getting a play presented at a London theatre. In the Christmas of 1883 Messrs. Arrowsmith of Bristol had published a short story entitled _Called Back_ which won instant attention from the public. Almost immediately after its publication I was dining at the Beefsteak Club, which at that time occupied rooms over Toole’s theatre opposite King William Street, and I was there recommended by one of my fellow-members to read it without delay.