are claims to merit, I trust I shall not be found deficient." Nor was he found deficient. Bringing extraordinary determination to the task, he soon got the theatre into order, with an efficient working company, of which he and his sister, Mrs. Siddons, were the ruling spirits.
Sheridan had not even the good sense in this critical juncture in his affairs to propitiate the great actress on whom the fortunes of the house rested. There is something comic, indeed, in his relations with the Tragedy Queen. They rather remind us of an incorrigible schoolboy continually offending those in authority, and yet confident in their affection and his own powers of persuasion to obtain indulgence and forgiveness.
Once Mrs. Siddons had declared that she would not act until her salary was paid, she resisted inflexibly the earnest appeals of her colleagues and the commands of the manager, and was quietly sewing at home after the curtain had risen for the piece in which she was expected to perform. Sheridan appeared, like the magician in a pantomime, courteous, irresistible; she yielded helplessly, "and suffered herself to be driven to the theatre like a lamb."
One night, Mr. Rogers tells us, having heard the story from her own lips, when she was about to drive away from the theatre, Mr. Sheridan jumped into the carriage. "Mr. Sheridan," said the dignified Muse of Tragedy, "I trust that you will behave with propriety; if not, I shall have to call the footman to show you out of the carriage." She owned that he did behave himself. But as soon as the carriage stopped, he leaped out, and hurried away, as though wishing not to be seen with her. "Provoking wretch!" she said,
