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of the crowd. It reminds me of the scene between an English parliamentary candidate and a caucus constituency, with the exception that the American questioners are quite friendly and respectful, their chief desire evidently being to give Mr. Irving texts upon which he can speak with interest to their readers.

      “Mr. Booth and I are warm friends. It is not necessary to tell you that he is a great actor. I acted with him many subordinate parts when he first came to England, about twenty years ago.”

      “What do you think is his finest impersonation?”

      “I would say ‘Lear,’ though I believe the American verdict would be ‘Richelieu.’ Singularly enough ‘Richelieu’ is not a popular play in England. Mr. Booth’s mad scene in ‘Lear,’ I am told, is superb. I did not see it; but I can speak of Othello and Iago: both are fine performances.”

      “You played in ‘Othello’ with Mr. Booth in London you say?”

      “I produced ‘Othello’ especially for Mr. Booth, and played Iago for the first time on that occasion. We afterwards alternated the parts.”

      “Shakespeare is popular in England—more so now than for some years past, I believe?”

      “Yes.”

      “What has been the motive-power in this revival?”

      “England has to-day many Shakespearian societies, and our countrymen read the poet much more than they did five and twenty years ago. As a rule our fathers obtained their knowledge of him from the theatre, and were often, of course, greatly misled as to the meaning and intention of the poet, under the manipulation of Colley Cibber and others.”

      “Which of Shakespeare’s plays is most popular in England?”

      “ ‘Hamlet.’ And, singularly, the next one is not ‘Julius Cæsar,’ which is the most popular after ‘Hamlet,’ I believe, in your country. ‘Othello’ might possibly rank second with us, if it were not difficult to get two equally good actors for the two leading parts. Salvini’s Othello, for instance, suffered because the Iago was weak.”

      “You don’t play ‘Julius Cæsar,’ then, in England?”

      “No. There is a difficulty in filling worthily the three leading parts.”

      By this time Mr. Irving is on the most comfortable and familiar terms with the gentlemen of the press. He has laid aside his cigar, and smiles often with a curious and amused expression of face.

      “You must find this kind of work, this interviewing, very difficult,” he says, presently, in a tone of friendly banter.

      “Sometimes,” answers one of them; and they all laugh, entering into the spirit of the obvious fun of a victim who is not suffering half as much as he expected to do, and who indeed, is, on the whole, very well satisfied with himself.

      “Don’t you think we might go on deck now and see the harbor?” he asks.

      “Oh, yes,” they all say; and in a few minutes the “Yosemite’s” pretty saloon is vacated.

      Mr. Irving and his friends go forward; Miss Terry is aft, in charge of Mr. Barrett. She is looking intently down the river at the far-off “Britannic,” which is now beginning to move forward in our wake, the “Yosemite” leaving behind her a long, white track of foam.

      The interviewers are again busily engaged with Mr. Irving. He is once more the centre of an interested group of men. Not one of them takes a note. They seem to be putting all he says down in their minds. They are accustomed to tax their memories. One catches, in the expression of their faces, evidence of something like an inter-vision. They seem to be ticking off, in their minds, the points as the speaker makes them; for Irving now appears to be talking as much for his own amusement as for the public instruction. He finds that he has a quick, intelligent, and attentive audience, and the absence of note-books and anything like a show of machinery for recording his words puts him thoroughly at his ease. Then he likes to talk “shop”; as who does not? And what is more delightful to hear than experts on their own work?

      “Do your American audiences applaud much?” he asks.

      “Yes,” they said; “oh, yes.”

      “Because, you know, your Edwin Forrest once stopped in the middle of a scene and addressed his audience on the subject of their silence. ‘You must applaud,’ he said, ‘or I cannot act.’ I quite sympathize with that feeling. An actor needs applause. It is his life and soul when he is on the stage. The enthusiasm of the audience reacts upon him. He gives them back heat for heat. If they are cordial he is encouraged; if they are excited so is he; as they respond to his efforts he tightens his grip upon their imagination and emotions. You have no pit in your American theatres, as we have; that is, your stalls, or parquet, cover the entire floor. It is to the quick feelings and heartiness of the pit and gallery that an actor looks for encouragement during his great scenes in England. Our stalls are appreciative, but not demonstrative. Our pit and gallery are both.”

      Irving, when particularly moved, likes to tramp about. Whenever the situation allows it he does so upon the stage. Probably recalling the way in which pit and gallery rose at him—and stalls and dress-circle, too, for that matter—on his farewell night at the Lyceum, he paces about the deck, all the interviewers making rapid mental note of his gait, and watching for some startling peculiarity that does not manifest itself.

      “He has not got it; why, the man is as natural and as straight and capable as a man can be,” says one to another.

      “And a real good fellow,” is the response. “Ask him about Vanderbilt and the mirror.”

      “O Mr. Irving!—just one more question.”

      “As many as you like, my friend,” is the ready reply.

      “Is it true that you are to be the guest of Mr. Vanderbilt?”

      “And be surrounded with ingeniously constructed mirrors, where I can see myself always, and all at once? I have heard strange stories about Mr. Vanderbilt having had a wonderful mirror of this kind constructed for my use, so that I may pose before it in all my loveliest attitudes. Something of the kind has been said, eh?” he asks, laughing.

      “Oh, yes, that is so,” is the mirthful response.

      “Then you may contradict it, if you will. You may say that I am here for work; that I shall have no time to be any one’s guest, though I hope the day may come when I shall have leisure to visit my friends. You may add, if you will” (here he lowered his voice with a little air of mystery), “that I always carry a mirror of my own about with me wherever I go, because I love to pose and contemplate my lovely figure whenever the opportunity offers.”

      “That will do, I guess,” says a gentleman of the interviewing staff; “thank you, Mr. Irving, for your courtesy and information.”

      “I am obliged to you very much,” he says, and then, having his attention directed to the first view of New York, expresses his wonder and delight at the scene, as well he may.

      Ahead the towers and spires of New York stand out in a picturesque outline against the sky. On either hand the water-line is fringed with the spars of ships and steamers. On the left stretches far away the low-lying shore of New Jersey; on the right, Brooklyn can be seen, rising upwards, a broken line of roofs and steeples. Further away, joining “the city of churches” to Manhattan, hangs in mid-air that marvel of science, the triple carriage, foot, and rail road known as the Brooklyn bridge. Around the “Yosemite,” as she ploughs along towards her quay, throng many busy steamers, outstripping, in the race for port, fleets of sailing vessels that are beating up the broad reaches of the river before the autumn wind.

VI.

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      “She

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