eight years of life? Never!

During the rehearsals of a pantomime in a Scottish town (Glasgow, I
think. Glasgow has always been an eventful place to me!), a child was
wanted for the Spirit of the Mustard-pot. What more natural than that my
father should offer my services? I had a shock of pale yellow hair, I
was small enough to be put into the property mustard-pot, and the
Glasgow stage manager would easily assume that I had inherited talent.
My father had acted with Macready in the stock seasons both at Edinburgh
and Glasgow, and bore a very high reputation with Scottish audiences.
But the stage manager and father alike reckoned without their actress!
When they tried to put me into the mustard-pot, I yelled lustily and
showed more lung-power than aptitude for the stage.

"Pit your child into the mustard-pot, Mr. Terry," said the stage
manager.

"D--n you and your mustard-pot, sir!" said my mortified father. "I won't
frighten my child for you or anyone else!"

But all the same he was bitterly disappointed at my first dramatic
failure, and when we reached home he put me in the corner to chasten me.
"_You'll_ never make an actress!" he said, shaking a reproachful finger
at me.

It is _my_ mustard-pot, and why Kate should want it, I can't think! She
hadn't yellow hair, and she couldn't possibly have behaved so badly. I
have often heard my parents say significantly that they had no trouble
with _Kate_! Before she was four, she was dancing a hornpipe in a
sailor's jumper, a rakish little hat, and a diminutive pair of white