Here is a house that looks like a private residence, standing in its own grounds. There is a wall in front of it, and the door in this wall is solid and shuts out a view of the garden. It stands in a broad, busy thoroughfare, and thousands of people pass it daily on foot or by 'bus and tram. They glance at the house carelessly, perhaps, but very few of them know what lies behind the hiding walls. Here not long ago, in the shady garden, sat a monarch of merriment, a lord of laughterland, a bright comedian who had won world-wide fame, and whose quips and cranks had made the nation gay. He was beloved by all who love honest mirth. He was the idol of the people. And behind the high wall he sat day after day, haunted by morbid fancies, a prey to strange delusions, now singing a snatch of some old song of his that had echoed round the world, now imagining that once again he was travelling with a little show, and had to wheel his "props" and his baggage on a truck from the station to the little hall in which the evening show was to take place. Sometimes he would be patronizing, and generously bestow a knighthood or a baronetcy on an attendant. One day he would raise the kindly doctor who had charge of him to the peerage, and the next, forgetting that he had thousands at the bank, he would worry about some imaginary financial difficulty involving a few pounds. He left this retreat after a time, cured, it was supposed, and once more the public thronged to see him, and to laugh at his jokes and antics, and to cheer him frantically. Alas! it was but a temporary lifting of the cloud. There was a relapse, and then the end came swiftly and mercifully. I never see the pleasant retreat and look at the sheltering wall but I think of the delightful droll whom I knew and loved, and who passed the months of his madness here, his presence unsuspected by the thousands who passed by. They little thought what a train of mirth lay hidden away behind the few yards of brick. Here, in a mean street in a poor district, is a house let out in rooms. In the lower front room the ragged dirty blind is down. From this house you will see in a couple of hours, if you wait and watch, a grand funeral procession start. There will be an open car drawn by a pair of horses, and on it will be a wreath-laden coffin. Funeral coaches and four-wheel cabs will follow with many mourners, and the street will be filled with a crowd of women and children assembled to see the grand funeral of Widow Wilson's eldest son. While you are waiting for the funeral car and carriages to arrive, I will take down the fourth wall. Now you can see inside the room with the drawn blind.