greenroom studying by turns the pictures of past actor-humanity with
which the walls were peopled, or the present realities of actors who
came in and out of the room. Although he was so much younger then, Mr.
Pinero looked much as he does now. He played Rosencrantz very neatly.
Consummate care, precision, and brains characterized his work as an
actor always, but his chief ambition lay another way. Rosencrantz and
the rest were his school of stage-craft.

Kyrle Bellew, the Osric of the production, was another man of the
future, though we did not know it. He was very handsome, a tremendous
lady-killer! He wore his hair rather long, had a graceful figure, and a
good voice, as became the son of a preacher who had the reputation of
saying the Lord's Prayer so dramatically that his congregation sobbed.

Frank Cooper, a descendant of the Kembles, another actor who has risen
to eminence since, played Laertes. It was he who first led me onto the
Lyceum stage. Twenty years later he became my leading man on the first
tour I took independently of Henry Irving since my tours with my
husband, Charles Kelly.




VIII

WORK AT THE LYCEUM


When I am asked what I remember about the first ten years at the Lyceum,
I can answer in one word: _Work_. I was hardly ever out of the theater.