In those days audiences liked plenty for their money, and a Shakespeare play was not nearly long enough to fill the bill. English playgoers in the early 'fifties did not emulate the Japanese, who go to the theater early in the morning and stay there until late at night, still less the Chinese, whose plays begin one week and end the next, but they thought nothing of sitting in the theater from seven to twelve. In one of the extra pieces which these hours necessitated, I played a "tiger," one of those youthful grooms who are now almost a bygone fashion. The pride that I had taken in my trembling star in the pantomime was almost equaled now by my pride in my top-boots! They were too small and caused me insupportable suffering, but I was so afraid that they would be taken away if I complained, that every evening I used to put up valorously with the torture. The piece was called "If the Cap Fits," but my boots were the fit with which I was most concerned! Years later the author of the little play, Mr. Edmund Yates, the editor of _The World_--wrote to me about my performance as the tiger: "When on June 13, 1859 (to no one else in the world would I breathe the date!) I saw a very young lady play a tiger in a comedietta of mine called 'If the Cap Fits,' I had no idea that that precocious child had in her the germ of such an artist as she has since proved herself. What I think of her performance of Portia she will see in _The World_." In "The Merchant of Venice" though I had no speaking part, I was firmly convinced that the basket of doves which I carried on my shoulder was the principal attraction of the scene in which it appeared. The other little boys and girls in the company regarded those doves with eyes of bitter envy. One little chorus boy, especially, though he professed a personal devotion of the tenderest kind for me, could never quite get over those doves, and his romantic sentiments cooled considerably when I gained my proud position as dove-bearer. Before, he had shared his sweets with me, but now he transferred both sweets and affections to some more fortunate little girl. Envy, after all, is the death of love! Mr. Harley was the Launcelot Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice"--an old gentleman, and almost as great a fop as Mr. Byrn. He was always smiling; his two large rows of teeth were so _very_ good! And he had pompous, grandiloquent manners, and wore white gaiters and a long hanging eye-glass. His appearance I should never have forgotten anyhow, but he is also connected in my mind with my first experience of terror.