o impressed with the advantages of
that place as a theatre that he did not even speak to his friends
until he had paced up and down the room, dreaming of the fame that
might be achieved there.

Already the pea-nut merchant seemed to have put all thoughts of his
roaster and his wares far from him, and to fancy that he was before an
audience of his particular and critical friends, welcomed by them as
an artist of whom all the world might be proud.

He was recalled from these pleasant dreams by stepping on a tack that
penetrated his shoe at a place where a patch was much needed, and then
he appeared to see for the first time his friends, who were anxiously
waiting for him to complete his survey of the room.

"It's a stunner!" he said, patronizingly, to Ben, as he seated himself
on the floor with easy grace, to remove the tack from his foot--"it's
a stunner! an' we can jest set the boys wild if we can play somethin'
with plenty of murder in it."

"Then you'll come in with us?" asked Johnny, delighted at the praise
of this boy, whom he was anxious to have for a partner because of the
influence he wielded, and also because it had been whispered among
their immediate circle of friends, not many months before, that Master
Dowd had fixed up a play that "laid all over" anything that the world
had ever yet seen at the Bowery theatre.

"Yes, I'll join yer," said Mopsey, impressively, looking around as if
he expected to see every face light up with joy at his decision--"I'll
join yer, an' I'll come here to board to-morrow."

Then, as was perfectly proper, this new partner was informed of the
amount of cash capital on hand; and after Paul had ascertained that
their dollar represented thirty-three and one-third cents as the share
of each one, Mopsey generously counted out thirty-four cents,
disdaining any credit for the extra two-thirds of a cent. Thus it was
that the firm of Treat, Jones, Weston & Dowd sprang into existence.

CHAPTER VI.

THE THEATRICAL ENTERPRISE.

When it became known among that portion of the mercantile world of
which Ben and Johnny were members that Mopsey Dowd, the pea-nut
merchant of Fulton Ferry, had connected himself with the theatrical
enterprise about which so many comments had been made, the matter put
on an entirely different aspect, and it was at once shrewdly guessed
that he had put in the greater portion of the working capital.

There no longer seemed to be any doubt as to the succe