find they’ll look after you. So long!”

He walked off.

“I say,” he cried, returning hastily on his steps, and lowering his voice, “when you meet my wife, don’t say anything about her theatrical career. She don’t like it. She’s a great lady now. See?”

“Why, of course!” I agreed.

He slapped me on the back and departed.

It is easy to laugh at Sullivan. I could see that even then — perhaps more clearly then than now. But I insist that he was lovable. He had little directly to do with my immense adventure, but without him it could not have happened. And so I place him in the forefront of the narrative.