, 'you have come too late. I am
sorry to say that I have just engaged Mr. Perry for the part.'

"This was the last straw. I had gone through so much that this rebuff,
just when my hopes were at their highest, was more than I could stand.
Grown man that I was, then and there I began to cry, and hardly knowing
where to go, and certainly not caring, I turned and went back into the
lobby again, only to run up against Mr. Thomas, who must have come to
Chicago by another road.

"'Why, my boy,' he said, after one look at me, 'what is the matter?'

"I seized him as a drowning man would clutch at a straw, and between my
sobs I told him the dreadful truth. He settled matters, fixed it up with
Perry, I had my trial, made good, and played _Tony_ for three years. And
seven years from the time I was getting eight dollars a week with Gillette
in 'Secret Service' he was paying me one hundred and fifty to play a part
in 'Sherlock Holmes.'

"I mustn't forget to add that Bleiman, who brought out my 'Rough Rider's
Romance,' was the same man who dismissed me as an usher at the Herald
Square."

LOVE.

A SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being an Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Chops the Dwarf.

By CHARLES DICKENS.

When Charles Dickens visited the United States in 1867 and
gave the course of public readings which netted him two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a few months, he
prepared special versions of his popular stories for
platform use. All these versions are more dramatic and more
pointed than the originals, containing as they do more
dialogue and less description. Among them was the tale of
"Chops the Dwarf," first written as a Christmas story. In it
Dickens dwells upon a kind of life which seems gr