It has not been possible to elicit an entirely satisfactory account of Belasco’s career in the period extending from October 18, 1873, to about the end of February, 1876. In particular, it has been impossible, notwithstanding most earnest efforts, to establish the sequence of incidents of his experience in Virginia City. Nevertheless, much that occurred during the period indicated, nearly two and one-half years, has been ascertained beyond question, and such gaps as occur in the records have been supplied by reasonable surmise. He fulfilled, in all, five engagements in Virginia City, and three, if not four, of them were antecedent to “the fire” which, in 1875, devastated that mountain resort of licence and crime. Among the actors with whom he was most closely associated in Piper’s stock company were A. D. Billings, George Giddens, Sydney Cowell (Mrs. Giddens), George Hinckley (uncle of Blanche Bates), and Annie Adams (Mrs. Kiskaden, 1849-1916), mother of Miss Maude Adams. The period of his first employment there was a trying one and during it he broke down, became seriously ill, and was lodged for a time in the home of Piper, where his illness was augmented by a distressing experience with an unfortunate demented woman, the wife of Piper. Recalling that ordeal, he has said: “Her husband, naturally, felt loath to send his wife to the Insane Asylum in Stockton, so he had some rooms padded and arranged as comfortably as possible for her in his own house. I was ill there for three weeks, and my room, unhappily, was within calling distance of Mrs. Piper’s. During the long nights I could hear her groaning and crying out,—not a very encouraging atmosphere for one who was himself suffering, and more from ’nerves’ than anything else. Then one gray dawn I awoke to find Mrs. Piper standing at the foot of my bed. Apparently she was as sane as any one, and she expressed great solicitude as to my condition. It seemed to me an eternity as she stood there, though in reality it was only about five minutes. Suddenly her mood changed. ’I’m going to kill some one,’ she screamed, and made a lunge for me. But, luckily, her keeper, who had heard her, came in and restrained her, and we calmed her down and got her back to her own rooms.”

Belasco’s financial debt to Piper must have been paid or compounded on or about March 1, 1874, and his engagement in Virginia City terminated. On March 10, that year, he certainly was employed as a super, at the California Theatre, on the occasion of Adelaide Neilson’s first appearance in San Francisco. The play was “Romeo and Juliet”: Lewis Morrison acted Romeo and Barton Hill Mercutio. Miss Neilson’s engagement (during which she played Rosalind, Lady Teazle, Julia, in “The Hunchback,” and Pauline, in “The Lady of Lyons,” as well as Juliet) ended on March 30: Belasco, whose admiration for that great actress was extreme, contrived to be employed at the California Theatre during the whole of it. On April 4, following, “the Entire Lingard Combination” appeared at the Opera House (so designated) in an English version of Feuillet’s “La Tentation,” and on April 6 John T. Raymond acted at the California Theatre as Hector Placide, in Boucicault’s version of the same play, called “Led Astray.” Both those representations were seen by Belasco.

On April 23 Raymond, at the California, produced, for the first time, a stage synopsis made by Gilbert S. Densmore, of “The Gilded Age,” by Samuel L. Clemens and Charles Dudley Warner. Writing of it, Belasco says: “While that play was building Densmore talked it all over with me. As it was originally written it was in five long acts and had in it a curious medley of melodrama.... When the script was eventually read to him [Raymond], all the comment he made, with a few of those choice expletives which he knew so well how to choose, was that he hated all courtroom scenes, except those in ’The Merchant of Venice’ and in Boucicault’s ’The Heart of Midlothian.’... It was in this frame of mind that he was finally persuaded to try ’The Gilded Age.’ Of course, the play needed a lot of re-writing, and I don’t believe any one really thought it would be successful. It was put on as a try-out because the man was in such sore need of a vehicle, and, like so many other plays which are produced as makeshifts, it soared its way into instant popularity. It was not by any means a wonderful play in itself, it was merely another instance of the personality of the player being fitted to the part, and in the rÔle [sic] of Colonel Mulberry Sellers John T. Raymond found himself and, incidentally, fame and fortune.”

That is not altogether an accurate account of the dramatic genesis of “The Gilded Age.” Densmore’s adaptation of the book was piratical, and Clemens, hearing of it, protested vigorously, by telegraph, against continuance of its presentment. It was acted only once in San Francisco, in 1874. Densmore finally arranged to sell his stage version to Clemens, and that author himself made a dramatization of the novel. Writing about it, to William Dean Howells, he says:

On November 3, 1874, Raymond published the following letter:

Clemens’ “guess” as to the worth of his work as a play was short of the truth: it was of no consequence, possessed practically no merit whatever, except as a vehicle for the actor. [The character of Colonel Sellers is presented by the dramatist in only a few of the aspects available for its exposition and is attached to the play by only a slender thread. Raymond, nevertheless, by means of thorough personification, made the character so conspicuous that it dominated the whole action of the play. The common notion that words are indispensable to the expression of character is unfounded. Character shows itself in personality, which is the emanation of it, and which finds expression in countless ways with which words are not associated. Personality was the potent charm of Raymond’s embodiment of Colonel Sellers,—a personality compounded of vigorous animal spirits, quaintness, rich humor, amiability, recklessness, a chronic propensity for sport, a sensitive temperament, and an ingenuous mind. The actor made the character lovable not less than amusing, by the spontaneous suggestion of innate goodness and by various scarcely definable sweetly winning traits and ways. His grave inquiry as to the raw turnips, “Do you like the fruit?” was irresistibly droll. His buoyant, confident ejaculation,—closing each discourse on some visionary scheme of profit,—“There’s millions in it!” (which Raymond’s utterance made a byword throughout America) completely expressed the spirit of the sanguine speculator and was not less potently humorous because of a certain vague ruefulness in the tone of it. In acting Colonel Sellers Raymond did something that was new, did it in an individual way, was original without being bizarre, and, possessing the humor which is akin to pathos, he could cause the laugh that is close to the tear.—W.W. in “The Wallet of Time.”] “The Gilded Age” was first acted in New York, September 16, 1874, at the Park Theatre.

At about the time of the first San Francisco production of “The Gilded Age” Belasco appears to have been employed by William Horace Lingard, and it is practically certain that he was a member of Lingard’s company,—though I have not ascertained in what capacity,—on the occasion of “the grand opening of Maguire’s New Theatre” (which was the old Alhambra Theatre, rebuilt and altered), on May 4, when “Creatures of Impulse,” “Mr. and Mrs. Peter White,” and a miscellaneous entertainment were presented there.

During the summer of 1874 Belasco worked as a secretary and copyist for Barton Hill, at the California Theatre, and also he performed, in a minor position, as an actor, at Maguire’s New Theatre. He was thus associated with, among others, Sallie Hinckley, in a revival of “The New Magdalen”; Charles Fechter and Lizzie V. Price in a repertory which comprehended “Ruy Blas,” “Don CÆsar de Bazan,” “The Lady of Lyons,” “Hamlet,” and “Love’s Penance”; Miss Jeffreys-Lewis and Charles Edwards in “School,” Boucicault’s “The Willow Copse” and “The Unequal Match”; William J. Coggswell in “Nick o’ the Woods”; Samuel W. Piercy in “Hamlet,” and Charles Wheatleigh in a dramatization of “Notre Dame” and in other plays. For Piercy Belasco has ever cherished extreme admiration and a pitiful memory of his untimely death, which,—caused by smallpox,—befell, in Boston, in 1882. During the summer of 1874 Belasco also made various brief and unimportant “barnstorming” ventures in small towns and camps of California, Oregon, and Washington; likewise, he was associated, as stage director, with several groups of amateur actors in San Francisco. On August 31 a revival of Augustin Daly’s play of “Divorce” was effected at Maguire’s,—James A. Herne (his name billed without the “A.”) and Miss Jeffreys-Lewis playing the principal parts in it. Whether or not Belasco was then in the company at Maguire’s is uncertain, but I believe that he was. At any rate, when Mlle. Marie Zoe,—designated as “The Cuban Sylph,”—began an engagement there, September 14, in the course of which she appeared in “The French Spy,” “The Pretty Housebreaker,” “Nita; or, Woman’s Constancy” (and “Mazeppa”?), Belasco was employed to co-operate with her in sword combats on the stage: he also served Mlle. Zoe, during her stay in San Francisco, as a sort of secretary.

From October 1 to the latter part of December, 1874, Belasco continued in employment at Maguire’s New Theatre, officiating not only as an actor of small parts but as stage manager, as a hack playwright, and as secretary for Maguire. On October 12 he played the Dwarf (one of the Phantom Crew of Hendrick Hudson), in “Rip Van Winkle,” Herne personating Rip and Alice Vane appearing as Gertrude. On October 21 he participated in a representation of “The People’s Lawyer” (playing Lawyer Tripper?), in which Herne acted as Solon Shingle. On the next night “Alphonse” was acted at Maguire’s, but Belasco seems not to have been in the bill, because he is positive that he attended the first production in San Francisco, made that night at the California Theatre, of Frank Mayo’s dramatization of Charles Reade’s powerful and painful novel of “Griffith Gaunt.” “I made a version of that book,” Belasco has told me, “and it was a good one, as I remember it; but it passed out of my control soon after it was written: I sold it—to James McCabe, I think,—for a few dollars. I know it was much played in the interior [meaning the small towns of California, Nevada, etc.]. About the same time that I made my version of ’Griffith Gaunt,’—which, of course, was prompted by seeing Mayo’s,—we brought out a new play at Maguire’s, called ’Lady Madge,’ by J. H. Le Roy. I don’t recall what it was about. I remember that it was written expressly for Adele Leighton, a rich novice, and that I did some work on it for Le Roy and made him a clean script and set of the parts. Herne, Sydney Cowell, and Thomas Whiffen were in the cast.” “Lady Madge” was acted at Maguire’s November 3, and did not hold the stage for more than a week. On the 11th of that month a dramatization of Lever’s “Charles O’Malley,” made by Herne, was brought out, Herne appearing in it as Mickey Free and Sydney Cowell as Mary Brady. On November 16 Annette Ince and Ella Kemble acted at Maguire’s, supported by Herne and Whiffen, in “The Sphinx,” and on the 26th a notably successful revival was made of “Oliver Twist,”—a more or less rehashed version of the dramatic epitome of the novel which had been made known throughout our country by E. L. Davenport and James W. Wallack, the Younger, being used. Herne played Sikes; Annette Ince, Nancy; Ella Kemble, Rosa Maylie, and—— Lindsay, Fagin. On December 1 “Carlotta! Queen of the Arena” was brought out, with Miss Ince as Carlotta and Herne as Bambuno. I have been able to find only one other definite record of a performance at Maguire’s, prior to March 1, 1875; that record is of a presentment there of the old musical play of “The Enchantress,” on December 24, with Amy Bennett in the principal female part: Belasco directed the production (ostensibly under the stage management of Herne) and appeared in the prologue as Pietro and in the drama as Galeas. “I did a lot of hard work on ’The Enchantress’ for Miss Bennett’s appearance in it,—in fact, I rewrote most of the dialogue,” Belasco has declared to me.