nd. And young Gillette needed all the recuperative powers possible, for
when "The Professor" was brought to public attention the critics hurled at
it their keenest shafts.

The actor-playwright managed to survive, although his play didn't, and,
failing to be discouraged, he went ahead with his work on "Esmeralda."
This was a story written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, in which the Mallorys
of the theater had become interested, and the dramatization of which, in
association with the author, they had entrusted to Gillette. This proved
to be a big hit, with Annie Russell in the name-part, and ran to over
three hundred performances.

Another adaptation success quickly followed--that of "The Private
Secretary," in which Gillette also played. Meantime he was at work on
another original piece, "Held by the Enemy," a war drama which almost beat
"Shenandoah" on its own ground in the race for popularity.

Inspired by the success he had achieved, Gillette was not content to go
ahead on the same lines. He ached to branch out, to astonish folks, to do
something big, and with his record behind him he had little difficulty in
persuading Charles Frohman to go halves in the production of "Ninety
Days."

This was a melodrama of the most lurid type, but the Third Avenue edge of
it was supposed to be taken off by the elaborate fashion in which it was
staged and the care with which the mechanical effects were looked after.
It failed completely, running a bare month, and carrying down all
Gillette's savings in its collapse. The disappointment shattered his
health, and he retired to a cabin in South Carolina, where, after a time,
he set to work on some more adaptations--"Too Much Johnson," "All the
Comforts of Home," and "Mr. Wilkinson's Widows."

These were all produced successfully, which could not be said of what
eventually turned out to be his most famous work; for "Secret Service,"
called originally "The Secret Service," was looked upon coldly when it was
launched in Philadelphia, with Maurice Barrymore in the lead.

Gillette gave the piece a thorough overhauling, and it was put on in the
new form, and with the author as the hero, at the Garrick, New York, in
1896, and made the hit that was really the beginning of Gillette's career
of fame as actor-playwright.

BELLEW WAS A SAILOR.

He Studied for the Ministry and Ran
Away to Sea Before He Got Into
the Spot-light.

Kyrle Bellew, soon to follow "Raffles" with "The Right o