It was in this way that I first encountered that handsomest and gayest of young actors, H. J. Montague, whose charm exercised a widespread fascination upon the play-goers of his day, and who was further, and quite independently of such histrionic gifts as he could boast, a companion of the most sympathetic spirit. If not endowed with absolute wit, he could so infect the recital of the most ordinary adventures that he had encountered during the day with something of the rollicking sense of boyishness that was his own, as to keep his hearers in a mood of unflagging merriment and enjoyment. But on one particular occasion, which I recall, he was bidding for a victory that lay not quite so easily within his reach. Chosen by the chairman as the spokesman of the day, he had selected me, perhaps because I was the youngest member of the Club, as the object of his raillery, and I remember now the look of amazement, almost of consternation, on his face when I replied to him in something of the same spirit which animated his own speech, and retorted with unsparing ridicule upon his own qualifications as an actor and as a member of our little society. Joyous, indeed, were those weekly meetings of “The Lambs,” where we met in eager appreciation of that new birth in the drama inaugurated by Tom Robertson, and which was being presented, with so loyal a faith in their mission, by the company which Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft had gathered together in the little house in Tottenham Court Road. We were all enthusiasts, all animated by a firm faith in the future of the drama we loved, all supported by the thought that to-morrow would see the dawn of such a new birth of drama upon the stage as England had not witnessed for many a generation. And even looking back now it seems plain to me that the movement in which we were taking a part was not without its direct and important influence upon the new spirit that had crept into the theatre. It is difficult now quite to realise the warmth of welcome we were then glad to bestow upon that little revolution which must be always associated with the Prince of Wales’s Theatre under the management of the Bancrofts. The return to realism which was there sought, and in a measure achieved, was exercised only in a narrow compass, and with an outlook that was restricted and limited. But it was designed to have a larger influence than seemed possible from such modest beginnings. It sought no triumphs which were not within the region of comedy, and that comedy itself did not strive for the interpretation of more than the current sentiments of the time. But, by its earnest endeavour to bring the life as presented upon the stage into closer contact with the life of its time, it served to exercise an influence upon the art of the future in a wider and a deeper sense than was, perhaps, quite consciously entertained by those who were conducting its efforts. CHAPTER XVII SOCIAL HOURS