During June, like Asmodeus, he flamed in many places, generally appearing for only a single performance. By July 15, 1876, he was at home again, and as prompter and stage manager, and sometimes as super or actor of small parts, was employed at Baldwin’s Academy of Music during an engagement there of George Fawcett Rowe, who, on that date, began, as _Waifton Stray_, in his play of “Brass,” and acted, in succession, _Micawber_, in “Little Em’ly,” and _Hawkeye_, in “Leatherstocking,” also one of his dramas. On July 23, Sunday night, Belasco appeared, as _DeWilt_, in a performance, for the benefit of E. J. Buckley, given “by John McCullough and members of the Dramatic Profession,” at the California Theatre. The play was Augustin Daly’s “Under the Gas-Light.” McCullough and Barton Hill recited, and McCullough performed as _Julian St. Pierre_, in the Dagger Scene, from “The Wife.” On August 14 Eleanor Carey made her first appearance in San Francisco, acting _Miss Gwilt_, in a dramatization of Wilkie Collins’ “Armadale,” and Belasco, then meeting her, formed an acquaintance which, eventually, was valuable to him: he made a play for Miss Carey, on the basis of “Article 47,” calling it “The Creole,” which was acted at the Union Square Theatre, New York, January 17, 1881, and in which she was seen in many cities. WITH BOOTH AT THE CALIFORNIA. The period of about two and a half years, from August, 1876, to February, 1879, was one of incessant activity for Belasco: in it he underwent much toil and acquired much knowledge which served to develop his faculties and tended to equip him for the many-sided labor of his later life. At first, his progress in that period was slow; but it is not daily exercise, it is the total effect of long persistence in it, that develops, and scrutiny of the register of Belasco’s experience in those years exhibits various events of signal significance and many incidents of interest which require mention and comment. One of the latter, which he recalls with special pleasure, was his meeting with Edwin Booth. That great actor, whose professional novitiate was served in San Francisco,--chiefly at the old Metropolitan Theatre,--from 1852 to 1856, left there in September, 1856, and did not again visit the West for exactly twenty years. On September 4, 1876, at the California Theatre, acting _Hamlet_, he began an engagement which lasted for eight weeks, in the course of which he was seen, in succession, as _Richelieu_, _Iago_, _Othello_, _King Richard the Second_, _King Lear_, _Bertuccio_, in “The Fool’s Revenge”; _Shylock_, _Pescara_, in “The Apostate”; _Marc Antony_, _Cassius_, and _Brutus_, in “Julius Cæsar”; _King Richard the Third_, _Mr. Haller_, in “The Stranger”; _Lucius Brutus_, in “The Fall of Tarquin,” and _Claude Melnotte_. Belasco was intensely eager to see and study the acting of Booth--surely the greatest tragic genius that has graced our Stage and a consummate