passionate, gentle Charles Reade.  Never have I known anyone who combined so many qualities, far asunder as the poles, in one single disposition.  He was placid and turbulent, yet always majestic.  He was inexplicable and entirely lovable—­a stupid old dear, and as wise as Solomon!  He seemed guileless, and yet had moments of suspicion and craftiness worthy of the wisdom of the serpent.  One moment he would call me “dearest child”; the next, with indignant emphasis, “Madam!”

When “The Wandering Heir” had at last exhausted its great popularity, I went on a tour with Charles Reade in several of his plays.  In spite of his many and varied interests, he had entirely succumbed to the magic of the “irresistible theater,” and it used to strike me as rather pathetic to see a man of his power and originality working the stage sea at nights, in company with a rough lad, in his dramatic version of “Hard Cash.”  In this play, which was known as “Our Seaman,” I had a part which I could not bear to be paid twenty-five pounds a week for acting.  I knew that the tour was not a financial success, and I ventured to suggest that it would be good economy to get some one else for Susan Merton.  For answer I got a fiery “Madam, you are a rat!  You desert a sinking ship!” My dear old companion, Boo, who was with me, resented this very much:  “How can you say such things to my Nelly?”

“Your Nelly!” said Charles Reade.  “I love her a thousand times better than you do, or any puling woman.”

Another time he grew white with rage, and his dark eyes blazed, because the same “puling woman” said very lightly and playfully:  “Why did poor Nell come home from rehearsal looking so tired yesterday?  You work her too hard.”  He thought this unfair, as the work had to be done, and flamed out at us with such violence that it was almost impossible to identify him with the kind old gentleman of the Colonel Newcome type whom I had seen stand up at the Tom Taylors’, on Sunday evenings, and sing “The Girl I Left Behind Me” with such pathos that he himself was moved to tears.  But, though it was a painful time for both of us, it was almost worth while to quarrel with him, because when we made it up he was sure to give me some “treat”—­a luncheon, a present, or a drive.  We both felt we needed some jollification because we had suffered so much from being estranged.  He used to say that there should be no such word as “quarrel,” and one morning he wrote me a letter with the following postscript written in big letters: 

     “THERE DO EXIST SUCH THINGS AS HONEST MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

“There, my Eleanora Delicia” (this was his name for me, my real, full name being Ellen Alicia), “stick that up in some place where you will often see it.  Better put it on your looking-glass.  And if you can once get those words into your noddle, it will save you a world of unhappiness.”

I think he was quite right about this.  Would that he had been as right in his theories about stage management!  He was a rare one for realism.  He had preached it in all his plays, and when he produced a one-act play, “Rachael the Reaper,” in front of “The Wandering Heir,” he began to practice what he preached—­jumped into reality up to the neck!