? I haven't got the
pistol!"

The last scene in the eventful history of "Meadisms" in "'The Lyons
Mail" was when Mead came on to the stage in his own top-hat, went over
to the sofa, and lay down, apparently for a nap! Not a word could Henry
get from him, and Henry had to play the scene by himself. He did it in
this way:

"You say, father, that I," etc. "I answer you that it is false!"

Mead had a remarkable _foot_. Norman Forbes called it an _architectural_
foot. Bunions and gout combined to give it a gargoyled effect! One
night, I forget whether it was in this play or another, Henry, pawing
the ground with his foot before an "exit"--one of the mannerisms which
his imitators delighted to burlesque--came down on poor old Mead's foot,
bunion gargoyles and all! Hardly had Mead stopped cursing under his
breath than on came Tyars, and brought down _his_ weight heavily on the
same foot. Directly Tyars came off the stage he looked for Mead in the
wings and offered an apology.

"I beg your pardon--I'm really awfully sorry, Mead."

"Sorry! sorry!" the old man snorted. "It's a d----d conspiracy!"

It was the dignity and gravity of Mead which made everything he said so
funny. I am afraid that those who never knew him will wonder where the
joke comes in.

I forget what year he left us for good, but in a letter of Henry's dated
September, 1888, written during a provincial tour of "Faust," when I was
ill and my sister Marion played Margaret instead of me, I find this
allusion to him:

"Wenman does the Kitchen Witch now (I altered it this morning) and Mead
the old one--the climber. Poor old chap, he'll not climb much longer!"

This was one of the least successful of Henry's Shakespearean
productions. Terriss looked all wrong as Orsino; many other people were
miscast. Henry said to me a few years later when he thought of doing
"The Tempest," "I can't do it without three great comedians. I ought
never to have attempted 'Twelfth Night' without them."

I don't think that I played Viola nearly as well as my sister Kate. Her
"I am the man" was very delicate and charming. I overdid that. My
daughter says: "Well, you were far better than any Viola that I have
seen since, but you were too simple to make a great hit in it. I think
that if you had played Rosalind the public would have thought you too
simple in that. Somehow people expect these parts to be acted in a
'principal boy' fashion, with sparkle and animation."

We had the