It is hard in these days, when the earlier prejudices against the theatre are so nearly effaced, to realise the extraordinary vogue which this particular class of entertainment enjoyed. An author who wrote for the German Reeds had to tread warily, and the presence of a harmonium, as the sole support of the piano in the orchestra, was there constantly to remind him of the somewhat orthodox tone he was enjoined to observe. Corney Grain, who in later days rarely appeared in the dramatic part of the programme, was a host in himself when he was seated at the piano, inimitable as he was in humorous perception of the lighter foibles of the day. For years he was a constant figure at the Beefsteak Club, where in private life he betrayed the same quick glance into the little idiosyncrasies of individual character allied to a power of ridicule that never sought to wound, and a deeply seated geniality of nature that won him many friends, and never, as I think, a single enemy. Of all the entertainers in this kind who have sought single-handed to amuse the public, partly in humorous characterisation and partly through musical accomplishment, he remains, as far as my impression goes, easily first in the class he represented. A chapter of pleasant memories in the earlier days of my theatrical association is provided by a little club called “The Lambs,” to which I have already alluded. It had been founded in 1868, and I suppose it was about the year 1870 that I was admitted into the fold. Though not exclusively composed of actors, it was mainly concerned with interests that were theatrical, and it was there I first met Sir Squire Bancroft and Sir John Hare, in days when neither dreamed of the distinction of a title, and when both, indeed, were little past the threshold of their fame. There were no matinées then, and so we were enabled to meet for dinner on every Saturday during the autumn and winter at the pleasant hour of four o’clock. When I first joined the society our meeting-place was at the old Gaiety Restaurant, but afterwards we moved to the Albemarle Hotel, then an old-fashioned hostelry at the corner of Piccadilly, which has long been supplanted by a more modern structure. They were the pleasantest gatherings that I can recall as being connected with that period of my youth. The rules of our Club prescribed just that little touch of ceremony and ritual by which grown men when they come together for social purposes prove themselves to be so nearly allied to children, and as a part of that ceremonial it was ordained that the “Shepherd” of the day, an office filled in rotation, had, at the summons of a graceful little silver bell, designed by one of our members, Fred Jameson, the right to call upon any one of those present whom he chose to select for a speech, which, with its reply, was all in the way of oratory that our rules permitted.