entle but evident
hostility, which Mr. O'Connor deprecated very much whenever he could
get a chance to do so. I looked into this matter a little and I do not
think it was true. Until almost the end of Mr. O'Connor's career,
Messrs. Abbey and Irving were not aware of his great metropolitan
success, and it is generally believed among the friends of the two
former gentlemen that they did not feel it so keenly as Mr. O'Connor was
led to suppose.

But James Owen O'Connor did one thing which I take the liberty of
publicly alluding to. He took that saddest and most melancholy bit of
bloody history, trimmed with assassinations down the back and looped up
with remorse, insanity, duplicity and unrequited love, and he filled it
with silvery laughter and cauliflower and mirth, and various other
groceries which the audience throw in from time to time, thus making it
more of a spectacular piece than under the conservative management of
such old-school men as Booth, who seem to think that Hamlet should be
soaked full of sadness.

I went to see Hamlet, thinking that I would be welcome, for my
sympathies were with James when I heard that Mr. Irving was picking on
him and seeking to injure him. I went to the box office and explained
who I was, and stated that I had been detailed to come and see Mr.
O'Connor act; also that in what I might say afterwards my instructions
were to give it to Abbey and Irving if I found that they had tampered
with the audience in any way.

The man in the box office did not recognize me, but said that Mr. Fox
would extend to me the usual courtesies. I asked where Mr. Fox could be
found, and he said inside. I then started to go inside, but ran against
a total stranger, who was "on the door," as we say. He was feeding red
and yellow tickets into a large tin oven, and looking far, far away. I
conversed with him in low, passionate tones, and asked him where Mr. Fox
could be found. He did not know, but thought he was still in Europe. I
went back and told the box office that Mr. Fox was in Europe. He said
No, I would find him inside. "Well, but how shall I get inside?" I asked
eagerly, for I could already, I fancied, hear the orchestra beginning
to twang its lyre.

"Walk in," said he, taking in $2 and giving back 50 cents in change to a
man with a dead cat in his overcoat pocket.

I went back, and springing lightly over the iron railing while the
gatekeeper was thinking over his glorious past, I went all around