"Pit your child into the mustard-pot, Mr. Terry," said the stage
manager.
"D--n you and your mustard-pot, sir!" said my mortified father. "I won't
frighten my child for you or anyone else!"
But all the same he was bitterly disappointed at my first dramatic
failure, and when we reached home he put me in the corner to chasten me.
"_You'll_ never make an actress!" he said, shaking a reproachful finger
at me.
It is _my_ mustard-pot, and why Kate should want it, I can't think! She
hadn't yellow hair, and she couldn't possibly have behaved so badly. I
have often heard my parents say significantly that they had no trouble
with _Kate_! Before she was four, she was dancing a hornpipe in a
sailor's jumper, a rakish little hat, and a diminutive pair of white
ducks! Those ducks, marked "Kate Terry," were kept by mother for years
as a precious relic, and are, I hope, still in the family archives!
I stick to the mustard-pot, but I entirely disclaim the little Duke of
York in Richard III., which some one with a good memory stoutly insists
he saw me play before I made my first appearance as Mamilius. Except
for this abortive attempt at Glasgow, I was never on any stage even for
a rehearsal until 1856, at the Princess's Theater, when I appeared with
Charles Kean in "A Winter's Tale.
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