s: came to us packed up in the ark."

"Really, indeed," said the boy, seriously. "How interesting! No, my
commission does not press for an hour or so. Do you think, sir, they had
any drama before the Deluge?"

"Drama! not a doubt of it. Men who lived one or two thousand years had
time to invent and improve everything; and a play could have had its
natural length then. It would not have been necessary to crowd the
whole history of Macbeth, from his youth to his old age, into an absurd
epitome of three hours. One cannot trace a touch of real human nature in
any actor's delineation of that very interesting Scotchman, because
the actor always comes on the stage as if he were the same age when he
murdered Duncan, and when, in his sear and yellow leaf, he was lopped
off by Macduff."

"Do you think Macbeth was young when he murdered Duncan?"

"Certainly. No man ever commits a first crime of violent nature, such as
murder, after thirty; if he begins before, he may go on up to any age.
But youth is the season for commencing those wrong calculations which
belong to irrational hope and the sense of physical power. You thus
read in the newspapers that the persons who murder their sweethearts are
generally from two to six and twenty; and persons who murder from other
motives than love--that is, from revenge, avarice, or ambition--are
generally about twenty-eight,--Iago's age. Twenty-eight is the usual
close of the active season for getting rid of one's fellow-creatures; a
prize-fighter falls off after that age. I take it that Macbeth was about
twenty-eight when he murdered Duncan, and from about fifty-four to sixty
when he began to whine about missing the comforts of old age. But
can any audience understand that difference of years in seeing a
three-hours' play? or does any actor ever pretend to impress it on the
audience, and appear as twenty-eight in the first act and a sexagenarian
in the fifth?"

"I never thought of that," said the boy, evidently interested. "But I
never saw 'Macbeth.' I have seen 'Richard III.:' is not that nice? Don't
you dote on the play? I do. What a glorious life an actor's must be!"

Kenelm, who had been hitherto rather talking to himself than to his
youthful companion, here roused his attention, looked on the boy
intently, and said,--

"I see you are stage-stricken. You have run away from home in order to
turn player, and I should not wonder if this note you want me to give is
for the manager of t