in one.

Later on, when we were older and mother could leave us at home, there
was a fire one night at our lodgings, and she rushed out of the theater
and up the street in an agony of terror. She got us out of the house all
right, took us to the theater, and went on with the next act as if
nothing had happened. Such fortitude is commoner in our profession, I
think, than in any other. We "go on with the next act" whatever
happens, and if we know our business, no one in the audience will ever
guess that anything is wrong--that since the curtain last went down some
dear friend has died, or our children in the theatrical lodgings up the
street have run the risk of being burnt to death.

My mother had eleven children altogether, but only nine survived their
infancy, and of these nine, my eldest brother, Ben, and my sister
Florence have since died. My sister Kate, who left the stage at an age
when most of the young women of the present day take to it for the first
time, and made an enduring reputation in a few brilliant years, was the
eldest of the family. Then came a sister, who died, and I was the third.
After us came Ben, George, Marion, Flossie, Charles, Tom, and Fred. Six
out of the nine have been on the stage, but only Marion, Fred, and I are
there still.

Two or three members of this large family, at the most, were in
existence when I first entered a theater in a professional capacity, so
I will leave them all alone for the present. I had better confess at
once that I don't remember this great event, and my sister Kate is
unkind enough to say that it never happened--to me! The story, she
asserts, was told of her. But without damning proofs she is not going to
make me believe it! Shall I be robbed of the only experience of my first