not easily roused, but being vexed, "nasty in the extreme!" As a
craftsman he had wonderful taste, and could copy antique furniture so
that one could not tell the copy from the original.

The great aim at the Lyceum was to get everything "rotten perfect," as
the theatrical slang has it, before the dress rehearsal. Father's test
of being rotten perfect was not a bad one. "If you can get out of bed in
the middle of the night and do your part, you're perfect. If you can't,
you don't really know it!"

Henry Irving applied some such test to every one concerned in the
production. I cannot remember any play at the Lyceum which did not begin
punctually and end at the advertised time, except "Olivia," when some
unwise changes in the last act led to delay.

He never hesitated to discard scenery if it did not suit his purpose.
There was enough scenery rejected in "Faust" to have furnished three
productions, and what was finally used for the famous Brocken scene cost
next to nothing.

Even the best scene-painters sometimes think more of their pictures than
of scenic effects. Henry would never accept anything that was not right
_theatrically_ as well as pictorially beautiful. His instinct in this
was unerring and incomparable.

I remember that at one scene-rehearsal every one was fatuously pleased
with the scenery. Henry sat in the stalls talking about everything _but_
the scenery. It was hard to tell what he thought.

"Well, are you ready?" he asked at last.