Conversation turned upon the question of insuring Madame Tussaud’s against fire, and Irving remarked that money would be a very poor compensation for the loss of our irreplaceable collection, especially having regard to the relics of Napoleon and the heads of the French revolutionaries. The actor told me of an alarming experience he had while acting at the Lyceum Theatre. The play was nearing its most dramatic climax when he noticed that fire had broken out in the “sky borders,” and the fear of a panic in the audience rose in his mind lest any member of it should chance to see the flames. He admitted that it was an ordeal that required all his courage to face without betraying signs of anxiety, but he succeeded in continuing to play his part without a single person in the front of the house suspecting that there was any cause for alarm. Fortunately, the stage carpenters and attendants were able to extinguish the fast-spreading flames without any interruption. The curtain was eventually rung down on an applauding audience, quite oblivious of the danger that had threatened. Irving lighted his pipe on his departure, which set me thinking that he would have enjoyed a smoke during the sitting, but was too courteous and considerate to suggest one. He told me he hoped, on his return from America, to visit the Exhibition and see his portrait. He came and saw it, but I did not see him. Sir Henry used to employ the same cabman to take him to the theatre each evening. He asked him once if he had ever seen him act, and, the man replying in the negative, Irving gave him five shillings with which the cabman could procure seats for himself and his wife in the pit. On the following day the actor asked the driver what he thought of him on the stage. “To tell you the truth,” said the ingenuous jehu, “we didn’t go.” “Not go,” said Irving, “when I gave you the money for the seats!” “Well, sir,” said the man, “it was this way. It was my missus’s birthday, and I asked her which she would prefer to do--go to see you act, or go to Madame Tussaud’s, and she said she preferred the waxworks.” Irving often related this story against himself with the greatest gusto, enjoying it quite as much as his hearers did. On many occasions Madame Tussaud’s has been of service to the stage. When the late W. G. Wills, the author of _Jane Shore_, a prolific playwright in his day, was at the height of his popularity, my father was approached by Mr. Coleman, manager of the Queen’s Theatre, Long Acre, to produce for him a figure of Charles I. The reason of this request was, surely, one of the strangest that ever entered the brain of even the most enterprising of theatrical managers. Mr. George Rignold was playing at that theatre a drama, written by Wills, entitled _Cromwell_. This play was the successor of another by the same dramatist, namely, _Charles I_, in which Irving played the part of the King, and confirmed the reputation he had made in _The Bells_.