Belasco was a member of the Metropolitan Company at that time, having appeared five days earlier, in a performance by way of “A Grand Complimentary Benefit to Marian Mordaunt,” with, among others, Alice Harrison, D. C. Anderson, Owen Marlowe, James C. Williamson, Henry Edwards, Henry Courtaine, John Woodard, and Charles E. Allen,--those players having been assembled from several companies. The bill included “A Morning Call,” “The Colleen Bawn,” and the First and Second acts of “Darling.” Belasco, on the occasion [Illustration: From old photographs. Belasco’s Collection. THE CHAPMAN SISTERS ELLA CHAPMAN BLANCHE CHAPMAN] of that benefit, played _Peter Bowbells_, in “The Illustrious Stranger.” In the opening bill of the Chapman Sisters, “Little Don Giovanni,” Belasco acted the _First Policeman_. Other plays in which the Chapmans appeared during that engagement were “Checkmate,” March 21; “Schermerhorn’s Boy,” April 2; “The Wonderful Scamp; or, Aladdin No. 2,” and “The Statue Lover,” April 3; “Pluto,” April 15; and “The Beauty and the Brigands.” In those plays Belasco acted, respectively, _Strale_, _Reuben_, the _Genius of the Ring_, _Peter True_, the _First Fury_, and _Mateo, the Landlord_. “A Kiss in the Dark” and “A Happy Pair” were also played at the Metropolitan at this time, and probably he appeared in them, but I have not found specification of his doing so. The Chapman Sisters, Blanche and Ella, were daughters of an English actor, Henry Chapman (1822-1865), and were handsome and proficient players of burlesque. One of their most successful vehicles was “The Gold Demon.” Belasco appeared in it with them (March 18, 1873), as _Prince Saucilita_, and made up and played in imitation of a local eccentricity, known as “Emperor” Norton. His performance, practically a caricature, was considered clever and it elicited considerable commendation. “The Figaro” critic wrote of him: “D. Belasco took the house by storm with his make-up for ’Emperor’ Norton, which was quite a feature of the piece.” Actors have often exhibited theatrical travesties of anomalous individuals: Samuel Foote (1720-1777), on the old English Stage, frequently did so: sometimes such exhibitions have proved attractive to the public and largely remunerative: generally they are trivial and contemptible. Thomas D. Rice (1808-1860), the actor who carried Joseph Jefferson, as a child, upon the stage, in 1833,--the first time he was ever seen there,--gained wealth and popularity by copying the grotesque behavior of an old negro named “Jim” Crow, who had been a slave and who was well known to residents of Louisville, Kentucky, about 1828-’29. Edwin Booth, in his novitiate, made a “hit” in San Francisco, about 1852-’53, by imitating a local notoriety named Plume. It did not, however, in his case, lead on to fortune,--nor did it in that of young Belasco as “Emperor” Norton. His remuneration was, for a long time, extremely small.