Belasco was absent from San Francisco from about the middle of January, 1875, until the following May. A Miss Rogers, who had been a school teacher, who is described as having been “very beautiful,” and who became infected with ambition to shine as a dramatic luminary, obtained sufficient financial support to undertake a starring tour and Belasco was employed by her as an agent, stage manager, and actor. The tour appears to have begun, auspiciously, in (Portland?), Oregon, and to have been continued, with declining prosperity, in small towns along the Big Bear and Little Bear rivers. The repertory presented comprised “East Lynne,” “Camille,” “Frou-Frou,” etc., and “Robert Macaire.” “I always liked to play _Macaire_,” Belasco has told me, “and whenever I got a chance to make up a repertory I included that piece in it.” The tour lasted as long as the financial support was continued: then the company was ignominiously disbanded. Belasco and Miss Rogers, however, continued to act together for several weeks, presenting a number of one-act plays--such as “A Conjugal Lesson,” “A Happy Pair,” “Mr. and Mrs. Peter White,” etc.,--which require only two performers. Belasco also gave recitations. “One of my ’specialties,’” he has told me, “was ’The Antics of a Clown,’ in which I gave imitations of opera singers and ballet dancers--using a slack rope instead of a taut wire. I also gave imitations of all the well-known actors, and I had a ’ventriloquist act,’ with dummies. I made my own wigs and costumes and, altogether, I worked pretty hard for a living!” On February 15, 1875, Augustin Daly produced his authorized adaptation of Gustav von Moser’s “Ultimo,” at the second Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, under the name--once known throughout our country--of “The Big Bonanza.” Its success was instant and extraordinary. R. H. Hooley, of Chicago, presently employed Bartley Campbell (1844-1888) to make another version of that play, [Illustration: DAVID BELASCO AS _ROBERT MACAIRE_ _Strop._ Suppose he should _wake_? _Macaire_. He _won’t_ wake! Photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco. Original loaned by Mrs. David Belasco.]