te of all which considerations, at one picnic,
memorably dull, and after I had exhausted every other art of pleasing,
I gave, in desperation, my one song. From that hour my doom was gone
forth. Either we had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect
him), or the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
tradition. At every successive picnic word went round that Mr. Dodd was
a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle_, and finally that
now was the time when Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle;_ so that
the thing became a fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you
are to conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause. It is a
beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably offered an encore.

I was well paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an
average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics
were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall.
This was at the end of the season, after the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress
Gala." Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged
wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when
the campaign re-opened. Among my purchasers was a workingman of the
name of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again on the wrong
side, and playing the creditor to some one else's debtor. Speedy was
in the belligerent stage of fear. He could not pay. It appeared he had
already resold the hampers, and he defied me to do my worst. I did not
like to lose my own money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing
of my creditor incensed me.

"Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the penitentiary?" said
I, willing to read him a lesson.

The dire expression was overheard in the next room. A large, fresh,
motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell to besiege me
with caresses and appeals. "Sure now, and ye couldn't have the heart to
ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well known to be a pleasant gentleman; and
it's a pleasant face ye have, and the picture of me own brother that's
dead and gone. It's a truth that he's been drinking. Ye can smell it off
of him, more blame to him. But, indade, and there's nothing in the
house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It's the stock that ye'll
be taking, dear. A sore