To avoid any further discussion, I boarded a train and left New York, having seen very little of the city. Hill’s parting message was: ’If I don’t produce that play, no one shall.’ They never returned my manuscript, and years after, when I was stage-manager at the Madison Square, I thought that it would be a fitting successor to my ’May Blossom,’ which I had just produced. So I went to Dr. Mallory and told him of the Thompson-Hill episode. He had a streak of the fighter in him, and suggested that I sue Hill for the recovery of the manuscript. After some preliminary proceedings we were persuaded that Hill had actually lost the manuscript, even though he still refused to release me from my contract. So the suit was withdrawn, for there was nothing to go upon. “During the days when Hill was manager of the New York Standard Theatre we met again, and I did some work for him. It was then that he returned me my contract. Then, a miracle of miracles happened, at the time of the razing of the Union Square Hotel. The clerk sent for Mr. Ryan (who afterwards played in ’Naughty Anthony’), and told him that in one of the back rooms he had found a bundle of papers behind some old books. My lost manuscript was at last found! Some day I may finish it for David Warfield.” “WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE.” Belasco was re-employed by Maguire during the first days of February, 1879, and he at once resumed his multiform labor as stage manager, prompter, and playwright. The Baldwin Theatre was profitably occupied by the Wilson, Primrose & West Minstrel Company and his first work was done at the Grand Opera House, which Maguire had leased, and where, February 17, “the legitimate company from Baldwin’s” appeared in Belasco’s dramatization of Gaboriau’s story of “Within an Inch of His Life.” This melodrama, advertised as “the most powerful play ever acted,” was the product of “a week of strenuous days and sleepless nights,” it was produced as a stopgap, and--so Belasco writes--“the makeshift, like so many accidental productions, was an instant success.” That success was, in large part, due to a striking mechanical effect, devised and introduced by Belasco, representative of a conflagration, described in the newspapers of the day as “the terrific fire spectacle,” about which its inventor has given me this information: “The fire was in the First Act. I did away with the lycopodium boxes and made my ’flames’ by a series of red and yellow strips of silk, fanned from beneath by bellows and lit by colored lights. Some complaint was made of danger to the theatre and the authorities came upon the stage to investigate: they were a good deal nonplussed at finding the ’fire’ nothing but pieces of silk!” “Within an Inch of His Life” was acted at the Grand Opera House until March 1, when it was withdrawn to make way for “The Passion.” This was the cast of its original production: