TOOLE—COVENTRY STREET PICTURE SHOP—DOLLY AND POLLY, GAIETY THEATRE.

Toole, in his “Reminiscences,” does not, I think, tell enough of the many hundreds of good-natured practical jokes he has played upon his own friends and many strangers during his public career as an actor.

I have many times been afraid that he would not pull off successfully a little harmless trick when the victim has been a perfect stranger to us. Not that there was ever any fear of Toole's countenance betraying him. An undertaker's face at an expensive funeral was never more serious than his when he was playing a practical joke upon anyone.

I have many a time gone to the other side of the street when I have known him bent on putting to a passer-by the most absurd query possible, perplexing the questioned person in a way ludicrous in the extreme. After fogging the man or boy, he would walk on, saying, “Ah, I thought I was wrong,” or “You don't understand me.”

Lionel Brough, a friend, and I were one evening completely sold—not as pictures—by Toole at a picture shop in Coventry Street, Haymarket.

We were on our way to the Criterion to dine, when Toole told the cabman to pull up at the picture shop in question, informing us that he wanted to speak to the owner of the shop about a pair of oil paintings he was anxious to purchase for about fifty pounds.