glance its capabilities for a theatre. I had been to the play a great
many times in New Orleans, and was wise in matters pertaining to the
drama. So here, in due time, was set up some extraordinary scenery of my
own painting. The curtain, I recollect, though it worked smoothly enough
on other occasions, invariably hitched during the performances; and it
often required the united energies of the Prince of Denmark, the King,
and the Grave-digger, with an occasional band from "the fair Ophelia"
(Pepper Whitcomb in a low-necked dress), to hoist that bit of green
cambric.

The theatre, however, was a success, as far as it went. I retired from
the business with no fewer than fifteen hundred pins, after deducting
the headless, the pointless, and the crooked pins with which our
doorkeeper frequently got "stuck." From first to last we took in a
great deal of this counterfeit money. The price of admission to the
"Rivermouth Theatre" was twenty pins. I played all the principal parts
myself--not that I was a finer actor than the other boys, but because I
owned the establishment.

At the tenth representation, my dramatic career was brought to a close
by an unfortunate circumstance. We were playing the drama of "William
Tell, the Hero of Switzerland." Of course I was William Tell, in spite
of Fred Langdon, who wanted to act that character himself. I wouldn't
let him, so he withdrew from the company, taking the only bow and arrow
we had. I made a cross-bow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very
well without him. We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the
Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head.
Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my
son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a
handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow
to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman,
and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek
fairly towards me.

I can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without flinching,
waiting for me to perform my great feat. I raised the crossbow amid the
breathless silence of the crowded audience consisting of seven boys and
three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way
in with a clothes-pin. I raised the cross-bow, I repeat. Twang! went the
whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right
into Pe