In 1876 Edward J. Baldwin, locally known as “Lucky Baldwin,” in a business association with Thomas Maguire built a theatre in San Francisco which was named Baldwin’s Academy of Music. Baldwin had been an hostler, Maguire a cab-driver; both had prospered and become wealthy--Baldwin to an astonishing degree. The theatre, which was incorporated with an hotel, called the Baldwin, was built on land owned by Maguire, at the corner of Market and Powell streets, and it was an uncommonly spacious and commodious edifice. Baldwin and Maguire, although associated in this enterprise, were not friends, and Belasco has assured me that most of their business transactions were carried on through him, as an intermediary. Baldwin’s Academy of Music was opened March 6, 1876. Maguire was announced as “proprietor,” James A. Herne as stage manager: Belasco, although not advertised as such, officiated as assistant stage manager and prompter. The opening bill was “King Richard III.,”--Cibber’s perversion of Shakespeare’s tragedy,--with the Irish tragedian Barry Sullivan in the central character, supported by the stock company from Maguire’s New Theatre. That company included, among others, James A. Herne, Arthur D---- Billings, Louis James, Edward J---- Buckley, William Henry Crane, Michael A. Kennedy, Katie Mayhew, Emily Baker, Louise Hawthorne, and Mrs. Belle Douglass. James F---- Cathcart was specially engaged, to play _Richmond_, which part he acted till March 10, when he was superseded by James O’Neill; he played various other parts, however, during the engagement. Belasco played _Sir Richard Ratcliff_. The engagement of Barry Sullivan lasted till April 16, the plays presented, after “King Richard III.,” being “The Wonder,” “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “The Gamester,” “King Lear,” “Othello,” “The Merchant of Venice,” a version of “Don Cæsar de Bazan” called “A Match for a King,” “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” and “The Wife.” In all of those plays Belasco participated, acting small parts, which are named in the schedule of his repertory given later in this work. On April 18 Mrs. James A---- Oates and her “Grand Opera Company” succeeded Sullivan, at Baldwin’s Academy, in “Mme. l’Archiduc,” while Maguire’s stock company returned to Maguire’s New Theatre, where some of its members, including Belasco, appeared, in support of Messrs. Baker and Farron, in a trivial play called “Heinrich and Hettie.” Belasco, who had profited by his association with Barry Sullivan,--an actor of exceptional ability and wide experience, and, though rough in method and sometimes violently vehement in delivery, a master of his vocation,--and had been so fortunate as to please that austere martinet, provides, in his “Story,” this interesting glimpse of him: