The stage setting of “Men and Women” was uncommonly fine and much of the acting was excellent,--notably the performances of _Israel Cohen_ by Frederic de Belleville, _William Prescott_ by William Morris, _Calvin Stedman_ by R. A. Roberts, _Stephen Rodman_ by Frank Mordaunt, and _Mr. Pendleton_ by Charles Leslie Allen. Roberts was specially admirable for the manner with which he suffused his impersonation of the savagely implacable attorney with an antipathetic but wholly veritable air of saturated self-approbation in his cruel assumption of righteousness. The whole moral doctrine of Belasco, not only in this play but in several others of the same class,--a doctrine upon which he dwells with what, considering the existing way of the world, seems rather a superfluous insistence,--is comprised in four well-known lines by Robert Burns which, on the programme, were used as an epigraph for this play: “Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman, Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human.” It is. But many things that are human are reprehensible. “To step aside” sometimes causes sins that can never be expiated, sorrows that can never be assuaged, wrongs that never can be righted. The most terrible of all words is the word CONSEQUENCES. HATCHING “THE UGLY DUCKLING.” Belasco, while colaboring with De Mille in the writing of “Men and Women” and subsequently while rehearsing, for Frohman, the company which acted in that play, concurrently continued his tuition of Mrs. Carter; but it was beyond even his aspiring spirit and indefatigable industry to undertake at the same time the additional task of writing a new play for her use. In this dilemma he presently effected an arrangement with Mr. Paul M. Potter whereby that playwright agreed to furnish him with “a comedy drama” for Mrs. Carter’s use, so that he was left free to work at his other tasks and to seek for capital with which to launch his star. His next step was to arrange with Edward D. Price, a person widely experienced in theatrical affairs, to act as business manager of Mrs. Carter’s tour, Price accepting the office on condition that Belasco would provide a capital of $10,000, to be placed on deposit in a bank before beginning the season. This Belasco undertook to do,--not at that moment knowing how he was to do it, but feeling confident, nevertheless, that it could be done. On conferring with Mrs. Carter and her mother he was apprised that the latter had contrived to obtain the sum of $1,500. On learning that this would be wholly inadequate for the production of the new play, Mrs. Carter suggested that application for assistance should be made, on her behalf, to wealthy friends of hers, Mr. and Mrs. N. K. Fairbank, of Chicago, who had been kind to her throughout the distressing ordeal of her domestic troubles and who evidently believed in her integrity and ability. This application was at once made, and it was successful.