orning at a
rehearsal, the manager informed us that, in consequence of the depressed
state of the drama in Galway, the treasury would be closed until further
notice, and that he had come to the resolution to depart on the following
morning for Castlebar, whither he requested the company to follow him
without delay. Fancy my consternation at this unexpected announcement! I
mechanically thrust my hands into my pockets, but they were completely
untenanted. I rushed home to our lodgings, where I had left Ned Davis; he,
I knew, had received a guinea the day before, upon which I rested my hopes
of deliverance. I found him fencing with his walking-stick with an
imaginary antagonist, whom he had in his mind pinned against a
closet-door. I related to him the sudden move the manager had made, and
told him, in the most doleful voice conceivable, that I was not possessed
of a single penny. As soon as I had finished, he dropped into a chair, and
burst into a long-continued fit of laughter, and then looked in my face
with the most provoking mock gravity, and asked--

"What's to be done then? How are we to get out of this?"

"Why," said I, "that guinea which you got yesterday!"

"Ho! ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "The guinea is gone."

"Gone!" I exclaimed; and I felt my knees began to shake under me.
"Gone--where--how."

"I gave it to the wife of that poor devil of a scene-shifter who broke his
arm last week; he had four children, and they were starving. What could I
do but give it to them? Had it been ten times as much they should have had
it."

I don't know what reply I made, but it had the effect of producing another
fit of uncontrollable laughter.

"Why do you laugh," said I, rather angrily.

"Who the devil could help it;" he replied; "your woe-begone countenance
would make a cat laugh."

"Well," said I, "we are in a pretty dilemma here. We owe our landlady
fifteen shillings."

"For which she will lay an embargo on our little effects--three black wigs
and a low-comedy pair of breeches--this must be prevented."

"But how?" I inquired.

"How? never mind; but order dinner directly."

"Dinner!" said I; "don't awaken painful recollections."

"Go and do as I tell you," he replied. "Order dinner--beef-steak and
oyster-sauce."

"Beef-steak! Are you mad"--but before I could finish the sentence, he had
put on his hat and disappeared.

"Who knows?" thought I, after he was gone, "he's a devilish clever fellow,
something may tu