_Time and the Hour_, as it turned out, was, in its way, a kind of curiosity. For the cast comprised, besides Wigan himself, a whole bouquet of coming managers, some of whom were at the beginning of their professional careers. There were J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, and Charles Wyndham. Other plays acted at the Queen's Theatre under Mr. Labouchere's management were Tom Taylor's _Twixt Axe and Crown_, and H. J. Byron's _Dearer than Life_. In the former the lovely Mrs. Wybert Rousby flashed for the first time in her full beauty on the London stage, and in the latter the cast included Henry Irving, J. L. Toole, John Clayton, Lionel Brough, and Charles Wyndham, and last, but most important of all, as Lucy, that clever artist and fascinating personality, Henrietta Hodson, who afterwards became Mrs. Labouchere. Another star at the Queen's Theatre, during the first year of Mr. Labouchere's management, was Ellen Terry. She thus describes herself playing there in the _Double Marriage_. "As Rose de Beaurepaire," she writes, "I wore a white muslin Directoire dress and looked absurdly young. There was one curtain which used to convulse Wyndham. He had a line, 'Whose child is this?' and there was I looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head too, answering: 'It's _bine_!' The very thought of it used to send us off into fits of laughter."[9] A contemporary picture of Mr. Labouchere at this time is given by Mr. George Augustus Sala, in his _Life and Adventures_. Mr. Labouchere had begged Sala to write him a play, full of exciting situations. "An appointment was made with him," said Sala, "to meet Halliday (another dramatic author) and myself at ten o'clock one evening at the Queen's Theatre. He was then one of the members for the County of Middlesex. He struck me as being in all respects a {100} remarkable man, full of varied knowledge, full withal of humorous anecdotes, and with a mother wit very pleasant to listen to. His conversation was to me additionally interesting, because, when I was in Mexico, I had gone over most of the ground which he had travelled."