I know that Richard at least saw him and heard that wonderful
voice of thunder. It seems that one day, while my mother and
Richard were returning home, they got on a street-car which
already held the great tragedian. At the moment Forrest was
suffering severely from gout and had his bad leg stretched
well out before him. My brother, being very young at the time
and never very much of a respecter of persons, promptly fell
over the great man's gouty foot. Whereat (according to my
mother, who was always a most truthful narrator) Forrest broke
forth in a volcano of oaths and for blocks continued to hurl
thunderous broadsides at Richard, which my mother insisted
included the curse of Rome and every other famous tirade in
the tragedian's repertory which in any way fitted the occasion.
Nearly forty years later my father became the president of the
Edwin Forrest Home, the greatest charity ever founded by an actor
for actors, and I am sure by his efforts of years on behalf of
the institution did much to atone for Richard's early unhappy
meeting with the greatest of all the famous leather-lunged
tragedians.

From his youth my father had always been a close student of
the classic and modern drama, and throughout his life numbered
among his friends many of the celebrated actors and actresses
of his time. In those early days Booth used to come to rather
formal luncheons, and at all such functions Richard and I ate
our luncheon in the pantry, and when the great meal was nearly
over in the dining-room we were allowed to come in in time for
the ice-cream and to sit, figuratively, at the feet of the
honored guest and generally, literally, on his or her knees.
Young as I was in those days I can readily recall one of those