'Chums' hit the New Zealand fancy, and the little play was kindly received in many places. I had begun to write another drama of a much more serious sort, and was working pretty busily as well at a revised edition of my first effort, when a serious accident befell us. My manager and I were travelling together to Dunedin (for we had formed a definite scheme of partnership, and had arranged to spend a year or two in the preparation of a _repertoire_ of pieces which might be fit to face the lights of London by the time we got there), when a telegram found us at a railway station _en route_. It told us that an important member of the company had seceded. I know now the story of his secession; but I have some slight acquaintance with the law of libel, and the history is of no particular interest to anybody. We were announced to open in Dunedin in 'Jim the Penman,' and our missing man was to have played the part of Baron Hardfeldt The town was billed, seats were booked; there was no going back from the engagement without disaster. Then I had a goodly number of friends in Dunedin who were coming to see my own play, and there was a financial loss to be encountered into the bargain. Personally I experienced a keen sense of disappointment; but the manager was in despair. There was no filling the place of the recalcitrant for love or money--there was very little capital behind the concern; and, in short, it looked as if we had found a finish for our enterprise. Then it was that I bethought me, 'Why the dickens shouldn't I play Baron Hardfeldt?' I communicated my idea to my companion, who grasped at it as a drowning man grips a straw. We consulted together. We found it possible to begin to study at midnight, and we arranged for a rehearsal on the morrow. I had seen the piece once, and recalled its general tenor, and began to construct a Hardfeldt. One of my dearest friends is a Zliricher, and I felt certain of his accent. That was a point gained, for the rascally Baron might as well have come from Zurich as from anywhere else in the world. I recalled, with no twinge of inward apology, every tone of my old friend's voice, every trick of facial expression, and every little touch of Swiss gesture which helps his breezy and warm-hearted talk. I determined to dower Sir Charles Young's admirable scoundrel with all my dear old J---- G----'s tricks and manners; and I was the less remorseful in copying his cheerful and childlike _bonhomie_ because our recalcitrant had been in the habit of giving the Baron away at his very entrance, and had stamped him from the first as a ruffian of the deepest dye, whereas I was disposed to think that a really successful adventurer would be likely to have an honest and engaging manner.