exceptions, of course.

When it came to the last ten days before the date named for the
production of "Hamlet," and my scenes with him were still unrehearsed, I
grew very anxious and miserable. I was still a stranger in the theater,
and in awe of Henry Irving personally; but I plucked up courage, and
said:

"I am very nervous about my first appearance with you. Couldn't we
rehearse _our_ scenes?"

"_We_ shall be all right!" he answered, "but we are not going to run the
risk of being bottled up by a gas-man or a fiddler."

When I spoke, I think he was conducting a band rehearsal. Although he
did not understand a note of music, he felt, through intuition, what the
music ought to be, and would pull it about and have alterations made. No
one was cleverer than Hamilton Clarke, Henry's first musical director,
and a most gifted composer, at carrying out his instructions. Hamilton
Clarke often grew angry and flung out of the theater, saying that it was
quite impossible to do what Mr. Irving required.

"Patch it together, indeed!" he used to say to me indignantly, when I
was told off to smooth him down. "Mr. Irving knows nothing about music,
or he couldn't ask me to do such a thing."

But the next day he would return with the score altered on the lines
suggested by Henry, and would confess that the music was improved. "Upon
my soul, it's better! The 'Guv'nor' was perfectly right."