uth, have the excuse of
real picturesqueness, however bad the entertainment given, for the
players live and have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the
wharf. But the plain fact about the ordinary little southern "road show"
is that it does not deserve to make money.

The life of a poor player touring the South must be very wretched, for
generally, excepting in large cities, hotels are poor. Before we had
gone far upon our way, my companion and I learned to inquire carefully
in advance as to the best hotels, and when we found in any small city
one which was not a fire trap, and which was clean, we were surprised,
while if the service was fairly good, and the meals were not very bad,
we considered it a matter for rejoicing.

We were advised to stop, in Charlottesville, at the New Gleason, and
when we alighted at the dingy old brick railroad station--a station
quite as unprepossessing as that at New Haven, Connecticut--we began to
feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse hitched to the
hack in which we rode to the Gleason evidently felt the same, for at
first he balked, and later tried to run away.

The hotel lobby was a perfect example of its kind. There were several
drummers writing at the little desks, and several more sitting idly in
chairs adjacent to brass cuspidors. All of them looked despondent with a
despondency suggesting pie for breakfast. Behind the desk was a
sleepy-looking old clerk who, as we arrived, was very busy over a
financial transaction involving change of ownership in a two-cent stamp.
This enterprise concluded, he assigned us rooms.

Never have I wished to win the toss for rooms as I wished it when I saw
the two allotted to us, for though the larger one could not by a flight
of fancy be termed cheerful, the sight of the lesser chamber filled me
with thoughts of madness.

Of course I lost.

Never shall I forget that room. It was too small to accommodate my
trunks with any comfort, so I left them downstairs with the porter,
descending, now and then, to get such articles as I required. The
furniture, what there was of it, was of yellow pine; the top of the
dresser was scarred with the marks of many glasses and many bottles; the
lace window curtains were long, hard and of a wiry stiffness, and the
wall-paper was of a scrambled pattern all in bilious brown. During the
evening I persuaded my companion to walk with me through the town, and
once I got him out I kept him going