House), playing _Mme. Dumesnil_, in an English translation of Octave Feuillet’s “La Tentation.” There is, moreover, no play entitled “The Lioness of Nubia.” There is, however, a play called “The Lion of Nubia,” and there was an actress, of the soubrette order, named Minnie Wells, who appeared in that play at the Metropolitan Theatre, December 16, 1872, acting the central part, _Harry Trueheart_. The play was billed as “The Great Eastern Sensational Military Drama, ’The Lion of Nubia,’ introducing Banjo Solos, Banjo Duets,” etc. This play was thus advertised in San Francisco newspapers, December 16 to 22, 1872. John R. Woodard and Frank Rea, both of whom Belasco specifies as having been in the performance he supposes to have been given by “Mary Wells,” were members of the company supporting Minnie Wells at the Metropolitan in December, 1872, and it was with the latter and in “The Lion of Nubia” that Belasco made the appearance which he has misremembered and inadvertently misstated in his published “Story.” The part that he played, _Lieutenant Victor_, was practically that of a super. He was billed on that occasion as “Walter Kingsley,” the name of the circus clown who had befriended him in his childhood. It was a common expedient of the time for actors to adopt names not theirs when embarking on a theatrical career, and it pleased Belasco, for no special reason beyond a boyish whim, to do likewise. He used the name of Walter Kingsley for a little while, but his doing so distressed his mother and therefore he presently dropped it and wisely reverted to his own. In the early records that I have found it generally appears as “D. Belasco,” and often various superfluous initials are inserted through compositors’ errors. Belasco’s account of the appearance with Miss Wells, as given to me, specifies that he had one line to speak, which was “Perhaps the stress of the weather has driven them further up the coast”; that his schoolmates, in large number, were in the gallery; that his appearance was hailed by them with applause; that they clamorously demanded he should recite “The Maniac”; that their boisterous behavior interrupted the performance and annoyed the actress, and that she caused Woodard to discharge him.