ad
been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful and
prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years--not many;
because these men either die early, or by unnaturally taxing their
bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone
they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained so fast
upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in
the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The
public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist.
Neglected disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his
portion as death itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he did
persevere, and the result may be guessed. He could obtain no engagement,
and he wanted bread. 'Everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical
matters knows what a host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the
stage of a large establishment--not regularly engaged actors, but ballet
people, procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during
the run of a pantomime, or an Easter piece, and are then discharged,
until the production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for
their services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort;
and taking the chair every night, at some low theatrical house, at once
put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to
gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him;
his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched
pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a
state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by
borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at one
or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did earn
anything it was spent in the old way.

'About this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year
no one knew how, I had a short engagement at one of the theatres on the
Surrey side of the water, and here I saw this man, whom I had lost sight
of for some time; for I had been travelling in the provinces, and he had
been skulking in the lanes and alleys of London. I was dressed to leave
the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me
on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight that met my
eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomimes in all the
absurdity of a clown's co