All things considered, it was not surprising that Mr. Labouchere's proprietorship of the Queen's Theatre was a financial failure. Joseph Hatton gives a curious description of the way in which Mr. Labouchere managed the business, the facts of which he got from the same personal interview already quoted: "Sometimes he brought out plays himself. He generally lost by them, but now and then had a success. Occasionally in the preparations for a new production he would go abroad. When particularly wanted by the management, he could not be found. The work went on, however, all the same, and so did the loss. Once he was advised to cram the house for a week with orders, so that nobody could get in. The traditional 'Full' was posted at all the entrances. He did this on condition that, after a week, every one should be compelled to pay. When the second week came the house was empty. Then the actors complained. {104} They could not act to empty benches. 'Why don't you draw?' was Labouchere's reply to their grievance. 'Draw! confound it! Why don't you draw?' He announced Shakespearean revivals, proposing to produce one new play of the bard's in splendid style every year. Notices were put up at all the entrances, inviting the audiences to vote on the piece. For a long time he worked up quite an excitement by posting up the result of the voting. 'This was a capital idea; it increased the number who paid at the door immensely.' Nevertheless the Queen's did not prove a success, and it has lately been converted into a co-operative store."[14] At every period of his life, Mr. Labouchere displayed all the happiest characteristics of the Bohemian, or, what comes to the same thing, the instincts of the real aristocrat. He was comfortably at home in whatever social milieu he happened to find himself--a camp of nomadic Indians, a Court ball, a rowdy hustings, the manager's room of a London theatre, the _vie intime_ of a royal country house, or the bourgeois domesticity of a thrifty German home--and he was welcomed and appreciated in every one of them--except by the prigs and the bores.