THE MODERN MATHEWS: America! Yes, been there professionally three times. Wonderfully patient people. One night I was timed to appear at a certain theatre at eight o'clock. Breakdown on the line. Didn't get to playhouse until half-past nine. Expected to find the theatre empty. Audience had waited until nine o'clock without showing a sign of being fidgety. Manager went before the curtain saying he had received a telegram from me explaining the circumstances, and stating I should shortly arrive. So the sufferers held on another half-hour, when they began to file out of the theatre. We met them all coming out. "Here we are. Here we are again. Go back! We've arrived!" and go back they did! Ten minutes afterwards the curtain had gone up on the first act of the play. Excuse me! M.P. my part! (_Rapid exit. Rattles off M.P. and returns as merrily as before._) [Illustration: MR. WYNDHAM AS "JOHN MILDMAY." (Still Waters Run Deep.) _From a Photo by Barraud, London._] THE MODERN MATHEWS: Americans never grumble. They kept a train waiting for four hours and a quarter for us one night, and the passengers as well! But the passengers only grumbled in the right direction. They thought it a bit too bad, because if they had known the cause of the long wait, they might have gone to the theatre! Then their double E's--enormous enterprise. Once we had to wait for four-and-twenty hours to catch a train. A manager came to see me, and pressed for a performance, at which the prominent citizens of the town would be present. I consented. No time to post bills--they sent out runners. I went down to see the hall. Not a seat in the place! "Don't you worry about that, you'll find all the chairs there to-night." And so I did, sure enough. When I arrived in the evening the hall was half full of chairs of all shapes and sizes. Camp stools, piano stools, three-legged stools, drawing-room, dining-room, kitchen chairs--in fact, anything on which one might sit down. I couldn't understand it. I was informed that it was a rule of the theatre that everybody who purchased a seat should provide his own! The place at night was packed--the approaches to the theatre being crowded with contingents of families entering the place, followed by Negro servants carrying half-a-dozen chairs on their shoulders. I'm wanted on again. What, are you off? (INTERVIEWER _takes off his finger the Czar's ring shown to him a few hours before, and in shaking hands with the actor artfully slips it into his open palm._) THE MODERN MATHEWS: Halloa, what's this? Good gracious--my ring! M.R.; M.R.! I must remember that in future! I thought at first it was a tip for the interview! _Curtain._ [Illustration: MR. WYNDHAM AS "CHARLES SURFACE." (School for Scandal.) _From a Photo by Barraud, London._] _Martin Hewitt, Investigator._ BY ARTHUR MORRISON. III.--THE CASE OF MR. FOGGATT.