purpose." Yet, with the technical dexterity, which is Mr. Thomas's
strongest point, he pieced a bright comedy picture together--a very
popular one, too. In the course of his remarks, he says, "When I had
the art department on the old St. Louis Republican--" "There is an
avenue of that name [Leffingwell] in St. Louis, near a hill where I
used to report railroad strikes." Similar enlightening facts dot the
preface to "In Mizzoura," suggesting his varied employment in the
express and railroad business. Thus, with personal odds and ends,
we can build a picture of Thomas before he started on his regular
employment as a playwright, in 1884, with "Editha's Burglar", in
conjunction with Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett.

There is an autobiographical comment published, written presumably at
the request of the late Hamilton Wright Mabie, which is not only worth
preserving as a matter of record, but as measuring a certain facility
in anecdote and felicity of manner which have always made Thomas a
welcome chairman of gatherings and a polished after-dinner speaker.

"After Farragut ran the New Orleans blockade," he states, "my
father took direction of the St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans,
then owned by Ben De Bar. When he returned to St. Louis, in
1865, I was in my seventh year, and my earliest recollections
are tinged with his stories of Matilda Herron, John Wilkes
Booth, and others who played in that theatre. Father was an
orator of considerable ability, and I remember him, for the
amusement of my mother, reciting long speeches from Kotzebue,
Schiller, and Shakespeare. In his association with the theatre
he took me very early to plays, and I have always been an
attendant; consequently dialogue seemed the most natural
literary vehicle. I found later that this impression was