“The Highest Bidder” was set in handsome scenery and the parts in it were judiciously cast: _Lawrence Thornhill_ J. W. Piggott. _Bonham Cheviot_ William J. LeMoyne. _Jack Hammerton_ Edward H. Sothern. _Muffin Struggles_ Rowland Buckstone. _Evelyn Graine_ Herbert Archer. _Joseph_ Walter Clark Bellows. _Parkyn_ William A. Faversham. _Rose Thornhill_ Belle Archer. _Mrs. Honiton Lacy_ Alice Crowther. _Louise Lacy_ Vida Croly. LeMoyne and Miss Archer, on this occasion, made their first appearance at the Lyceum. The play was well acted, Sothern animating the serio-comic part of _Hammerton_ with earnest feeling and sustained and winning vivacity. The success had not been expected. Dismal forebodements had preceded its production. “We had a small private audience at a dress rehearsal,” said Belasco, “and it was ghastly; everybody was unresponsive and chilly, they pretty well took the starch out of all the actors, and made us all nervous, despondent, and miserable. We had another ’go’ at the piece, with nobody in front, and it seemed a little better; but we were all stale on it; we couldn’t tell what would happen. What a difference when we had a friendly audience, fresh to the piece and willing to be pleased!” “The Highest Bidder” held the stage from May 3 to July 16, when the Lyceum was closed for the season, but it was revived on August 29, and it ran till September 17. Then, on September 20, under Belasco’s stage direction, Cecil Raleigh’s neat farce of “The Great Pink Pearl” was brought out, together with the drama in one act called “Editha’s Burglar.” The latter is an adaptation of a story by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, and its production is specially notable as being that of the first play by the brilliant and representative American dramatist Augustus Thomas, and because of the instant success achieved in its central character by Elsie Leslie,--certainly the most remarkable child actor of the last sixty years and one of the loveliest and most enchanting children ever seen anywhere. To her captivating personality, and to her instinctive histrionic talent, judiciously fostered and elicited by Belasco, was due the success of the “double bill”: it held the Lyceum stage until October 30, and thereafter was acted in many other cities. In New York the principal adult part, that of the _Burglar_, was assumed by E. H. Sothern: “on the road” it was played by William Gillette. “PAWN TICKET 210.”