It _certainly_ is true that Belasco was carried on the stage, in childhood, at Victoria, that later he there “went on” for the little _Duke of York_, in “King Richard III.,” with Charles Kean,--as previously mentioned,--and that he made informal appearances, as declaimer and as super, in the theatres of San Francisco, while yet a schoolboy,--all those juvenile essays being cumulative toward his final embarkation on the career of actor, dramatist, and theatrical manager: thus, on December 20, 1868, he participated in a public entertainment, given at Lincoln Hall, by pupils of the Lincoln Grammar School, reciting “The Banishment of Catiline” and “The Maniac” (the latter a recitation he was often called on to make and with which, at one time or another, he won several prizes); in the “Catiline” recital he appeared in a costume comprising his father’s underdrawers and undershirt and a toga of cheap cloth. On November 24, 1869, he appeared, for a night or two, with Mme. Marie Methua-Scheller (18---1878), at Maguire’s Opera House, as one of the newsboys, in Augustin Daly’s “Under the Gas-Light,” and in the course of that performance he played on a banjo and danced: on November 27 he “went on,” at the same theatre, as an _Indian Brave_, in a presentment by Joseph Proctor (1816-1897) of “The Jibbenainosay.” “I was much too small,” he told me, “but Proctor kept me because I gave such fine warwhoops.” On March 17, 1871, at the Metropolitan Theatre, he assumed the character of an _Indian Chieftain_, in “Professor Hager’s Great Historical Allegory and Tableaux, ’The Great Republic,’” which prodigy was performed by a company of “more than 400 young ladies and gentlemen” of various schools in the city, and for the benefit of those schools: it was several times exhibited: in the Second Part thereof he personated _War_. On June 2, following, he figured prominently in “competitive declamations” given at Platt’s Hall, by pupils of the Lincoln School, and also in an amateur theatrical performance, on the same occasion, appearing as _High-flyer Nightshade_, in “The Freedom of the Press.” Hager’s “The Great Republic” was a pleasing entertainment of its kind, and, after the close of the Lincoln School, Hager arranged to give it in Sacramento, and obtained permission to take with him to that city young Belasco and his friend, James O. Barrows, who were considered the bright particular stars of the performance. They appeared there, in the “Allegory,” April 15, 1871, “for the benefit of the Howard Association.” “I consider Professor Hager to have been my first manager,” says Belasco,--why, I do not know.