I first met Captain Marshall at Sir W. S. Gilbert’s. The younger man almost worshipped his host, and considered him a model playwright. On his side, Sir William had been very kind and encouraging. His manner was perfectly frank, and he never hesitated to say whether he thought a piece of work good or bad, as it struck him. There are not many cases in which a man can earn an income in two different professions. Lord Roberts is a soldier and a writer; Mr. Forbes Robertson, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, and Mr. Bernard Partridge are both actors and artists; Mr. Lumsden Propert, the author of a great book on miniatures, was a doctor by profession; Mr. Edmund Gosse and Mr. Edward Clodd have other occupations besides literature; Sir A. W. Pinero is no mean draughtsman; Miss Gertrude Kingston writes and illustrates as well as acts; and Mr. Harry Furniss is as clever with his pen as with his brush. No one looking at Captain Marshall would have imagined that ill-health pursued him; such, however, was the case, and but for the fact that a delicate chest necessitated retiring from the army, he would probably never have become a dramatist by profession. “After one gets up in the service,” he amusingly said, “one receives a higher rate of pay, and has proportionately less to do. Thus it was I found time for scribbling, and it was actually while A.D.C. and living in a Government House, that I wrote ‘His Excellency the Governor.’ Three days after it came out I left the army.” Many men on being told to relinquish the profession they loved because of ill-health would have calmly sat down and courted death. Not so Robert Marshall. He at once turned his attention elsewhere; chose an occupation he could take about with him when each winter drove him to warmer climes to live in fresh air, doing as he was medically bidden, thus cheating the undertaker for ten years. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to spend an evening at the Opera. One night I happened to sit in a box between him and Mr. Cyril Maude, and probably there were no more appreciative listeners in the house than these two men, both intensely interested in the representation of “Tannhäuser.” Poor Mr. Maude was suffering from a sore throat, and had been forbidden to act that evening for fear of losing the little voice that remained to him. As music is his delight, and an evening at the Opera an almost unknown pleasure, he enjoyed himself with the enthusiasm of a boy, feeling he was having a “real holiday.” Since then he has appeared as a singer himself, in a Christmas frolic.