"I will give you some idea of what an American theatre is like," said Mrs. Kendal. "You reach your destination by rail at some small place for a one-night stay. If it is raining and the ground is wet, men in long jack-boots catch hold of you and gallantly take you across the puddles. You do not see a soul about--and you are in fear and trembling as to where your night's audience is coming from. You get to your hotel, and then your next thought is--where is the theatre? You expect to find a little, uncomfortable, band-box of a place, and you set out to see it with a heavy heart. It is a palace--a marble palace--a positive poem! And your heart leaps happily--only to drop dull again, for you suddenly remember that you have seen--nobody, not even the oldest inhabitant. You turn to the manager. "'Yes, yes--but, what about an audience, how are you going to fill it?' you ask. "'Wall,' he replies, 'I don't trouble myself much about that. I reckon that every seat in this theatre is sold for to-night, that's all!'" HARRY HOW. [Illustration: MR. KENDAL. _From a Photo. by Maurice Stephens, Harrogat._] "_Author! Author_!" BY E. W. HORNUNG. This story has to do with two men and a play, instead of a woman, and it is none of mine. I had it from an old gentleman I love: only he ought to have written it himself. This, however, he will never do; having known intimately in his young days one of the two men concerned. But I have his leave to repeat the story more or less as he told it--if I can. And I am going to him for my rebuke--when I dare. * * * * * "You want to hear the story of poor old Pharazyn and his play? I'm now going to tell it you. "Ah, well! My recollection of the matter dates from one summer's night at my old rooms in the Adelphi, when he spoilt my night's work by coming in flushed with an idea of his own. I remember banging the drawer into which I threw my papers to lock them away for the night; but in a few minutes I had forgotten my unfinished article, and was glad that Pharazyn had come. We were young writers, both of us; and, let me tell you, my good fellow, young writing wasn't in those days what it is now. I am thinking less of merit than of high prices, and less of high prices than of cheap notoriety. Neither of us had ever had our names before the public--not even in the advertised contents of an unread and unreadable magazine. No one cared about names in my day, save for the half-dozen great ones that were then among us; so Pharazyn's and mine never used to appear in the newspapers, though some of them used our stuff.