uttoned up his coat with great
deliberation. Wallack got very irritated, and just as the old gentleman
was going out, he called out to him, 'The piece is not finished yet,
sir.' The old gentleman, who was not in the least disconcerted, replied,
'Thank you, Mr. Wallack, I have seen _quite_ enough.'" When we returned
to the drawing room, into which I had first been shown, having specially
noted on my way through the hall Keeley Halswelle's sketch of Mr. Toole
as _The Artful Dodger_ in 1854, and a few pages from Thackeray's MSS. of
"Philip" which hung upon the wall, Mr. Toole took out an enormous
photographic album which contained the portraits of all the celebrities,
big and little--and some of them were very big indeed, and some of them
were very small--who had been present at a great banquet which was given
in Mr. Toole's honour before he left England for his Australian tour.
Everyone was there--noblemen, journalists, and actors; legal luminaries
and ecclesiastical dignitaries, people of social prominence and
scientific fame; all the principal figures, indeed, that go to the
making of this vast body politic. "I told a gentleman on board ship,"
humorously remarked Mr. Toole, "that these were all the members of my
company. I don't know if he believed me or not." Then came albums full
of autographs, old playbills, portraits of celebrated actors long since
crumbled into the dust, letters the writing of which was fast fading
away, a characteristic letter from Charles Dickens acknowledging a
beautiful paper knife which Toole had sent him.

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AND HIS "RAVEN."]

[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE.]

[Illustration: THE HALL.]

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN "ARTFUL CARDS."]

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AND HIS JAPANESE AUDIENCE.]

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN "OFF THE LINE."]

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS "THE DON."]

One of the letters which Mr. Toole most prizes, and the prayer of which,
with Mr. Hollingshead's assistance, he was delighted to grant, is the
following characteristic epistle:--

"Belle Vue Mansions, Brighton, August 6th, 1873.

"My dear Toole,--Were you ever in a mess? If you never were I can
explain it to you, having been in several; indeed, I don't mind
confessing to you that I am in one now, and, strange to say, you are
perhaps the only man who can get me out of it. You need not button
up your pockets, it isn't a pecuniary one. Only fancy! after