Sublime

Mr. S put Karloff up there with the Barrymores. The only stars in Hollywood he may have admired as much were Bogart and Fred Astaire. He had met the horror icon on a studio lot in the late forties and had been bowled over by what an English gentleman he was. Karloff’s real name was William Henry Pratt and his two great passions in life were cricket

When Steinmeyer writes about the theater a century ago, he speaks as one who's met modern versions of the characters, who's even reconstructed their tricks onstage. So when, for example, he describes David Devant's Mascot Moth (which Steinmeyer reproduced in Doug Henning's Merlin),