The Times

TINY TALKS.

It was on one of last week's many hot nights that a Times man went behind the scenes at the Columbia in search of anyone willing to invite renewed suffering by the exertion of being interviewed. The members of "Jimmy" Barrows' estimable organization were lying round on pianos and other long things gasping for air and fanning furiously. Some of the men occasionally varied the monotony of the evening by giving vent to long, sulphuric strings of profanity that echoed through the darkest recesses of the fly gallery and, like chickens, came home to roost. Maud Haslam, alone did not seem much bothered by the heat and was accordingly approached gently as to her views on the subject of talking for publication at times when the thermometer was soaring ambitiously upward and the best of folk might well feel tempted to say things that would not look well in print.

"I don't know exactly what grudge you can have against me," Miss Haslam remarked, after the leading up had culminated in a point blank request for information as to her past life, "but if you'll whistle to the orchestral director for some slow music, arrange for calcium lights and meet me on the other side of the stage after this scene is over I'll tell you all I know about it." And so, after a period of ten minutes, both parties found themselves inactively ensconced near an upstairs window talking, not only on the experiences of the lady in question, but on a number of general subjects.

"I have been in the business ever since I was six years old," she began, and from the age of fourteen I have always had the fortune or misfortune to play leads. My first work was done-I won't say in what year-with the Barnes Stock Company at De Bar's Theater in St. Louis. I was there for seven seasons and appeared as a small portion of the support of several famous people. These included John T. Raymond, Mrs. Bowers, Agnes Booth and many others. I might also mention having been a page to the Juliet of Miss Nielsen.

"Following this an engagement brought me into the Frohman fold, where I grazed, figuratively, for eight years. One season with Nat Goodwin at the time that actor was playing 'Turned Up' and 'Lend Me Five Shillings' culminated in a period spent in appearing in Ada Rehan's roles in the Daly comedies. Next I must chronicle the fact that I have created five parts for William Gillette, among them the principal one in 'Too Much Johnson.' Ida Conquest is now doing the role in London and making a considerable success. Washingtonians had an opportunity to see her in it also before the company left for England.

"Last year a good part of my time was spent at the Fifth Avenue Theater with 'A Southern Romance.' There were only three feminine characters in the piece- a leading emotional, a leading comedy and an old negress. Katherine Grey had the first and I the second. The season just gone was taken up in many ways. Two weeks were spent with 'A Paris Model,'