Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/223

Rh he turned over to E. M. Holland, his successor, $80.40, the entire assets. Yet, in a year more, the club had moved into its first home, rented quarters at Number 34 West Twenty-sixth Street, where I joined in 1887. I am, I believe, the third or fourth oldest member now, and I have been both Boy and Shepherd.

Montague not only was a highly capable actor, but he was the handsomest man on the stage of his day, and had been an idol from his first appearance with the Wallack Company. None of the be-bustled belles who worshipped him from across the footlights, few even of his associates, knew that he was dying swiftly of tuberculosis. Perhaps the knowledge would have made him only more darkly romantic in their eyes. When the run of the tremendously successful "Diplomacy" ended at Wallack's, Montague declined to renew his contract, and asked instead for the western rights to the new play. Although he was Wallack's most valuable player, the manager released him and Montague went to California at the head of his own company. Soon after his San Francisco engagement opened, the actor was seized with a hemorrhage at the end of the second act one night, was carried to his hotel and died before morning. Maurice