o 'come out' in
a great part is one of the easiest things in the world; while to avoid
going in again is one of the most difficult. In my time I have both come
out and gone in again; and though I am not disposed to tax my modesty
for defences, or to offer prophecies for the future, it is not
improbable that I may repeat the experience in its completeness. I
suppose that the pursuit of the successful actor is the most fascinating
in the world. Here and there one learns that it has been distasteful in
an individual instance; but these cases are only the exceptions which
prove themselves and nothing else.

A great many people have been good enough to tell the story of my first
appearance on the stage; and they have told it in ways so diverse, and
yet so circumstantially, that I have been sometimes tempted to doubt
the genuineness of my own recollections. Here, however, for what it is
worth, is my belief about the matter.

I was in New Zealand some three years ago, when a travelling manager
whom I ran across in the course of my wanderings asked me if I happened
to have such a thing as a new and original drama about me. I confessed
that I had a scheme for a drama in my mind (the manager confessed
himself to be singularly anxious to produce it), and I undertook to
finish it and to see it through rehearsal. It will be observed that none
of the usual difficulties which lie in the way of the ordinary pretender
to dramatic fame obstructed my progress. There was no question of
suitability--no thought of excellence or the reverse. The travelling
manager had anything to gain and nothing to lose by the production of a
piece from my hand. It meant no more than the trouble of rehearsing; and
if the thing failed, it failed and there an end; and if it succeeded,
the manager stipulated for half profits wherever the piece might be
produced. He has not, so far, retired from business. In the innocence
of my heart I promised that the piece should be ready for rehearsal in
three weeks' time, and I set to work with the greatest vigour, burying
myself for the first week at Gisborne, a weird and lonely seaside town
where there has as yet been no whisper of a railway, and where
the steamers which ply along the coast may or may not call for the
traveller, according to the weather.

If I may say so of myself without immodesty, I am a rapid and assured
workman.

All my best work has been done at a tremendous pace. I turned out
'Joseph's Coat' in