money to loan him, it is so easy to put
your name on the back of a note. Of course, it is rarely paid at
maturity, because your friend's judgment was wrong, and so the note
is renewed and the amount increased. When finally you wake up
to the fact that if you do not stop you are certain to be ruined,
your friend fails when the notes mature, and you have lost the
results of many years of thrift and saving, and also your friend.

I declined to marry until I had fifty thousand dollars. The happy
day arrived, and I felt the fortunes of my family secure. My
father-in-law and his son became embarrassed in their business,
and, naturally, I indorsed their notes. A few years afterwards
my father-in-law died, his business went bankrupt, I lost my
fifty thousand dollars and found myself considerably in debt. As
an illustration of my dear mother's belief that all misfortunes
are sent for one's good, it so happened that the necessity of
meeting and recovering from this disaster led to extraordinary
exertions, which probably, except under the necessity, I never
would have made. The efforts were successful.

Horace Greeley never could resist an appeal to indorse a note.
They were hardly ever paid, and Mr. Greeley was the loser. I met
him one time, soon after he had been a very severe sufferer from
his mistaken kindness. He said to me with great emphasis:
"Chauncey, I want you to do me a great favor. I want you to have
a bill put through the legislature, and see that it becomes a law,
making it a felony and punishable with imprisonment for life for
any man to put his name by way of indorsement on the back of
another man's paper."

Dear old Greeley kept the practice up until he died, and the law
was never passed. There was one instance, which I had something
to do with, where the father of a young man, through whom Mr. Greeley
lost a great deal of money by indorsing notes, arranged after
Mr. Greeley's death to have the full amount of the loss paid to
Mr. Greeley's heirs.

XXIII. ACTORS AND MEN OF LETTERS

One cannot speak of Sir Henry Irving without recalling the wonderful
charm and genius of his leading lady, Ellen Terry. She never
failed to be worthy of sharing in Irving's triumphs. Her remarkable
adaptability to the different characters and grasp of their
characteristics made her one of the best exemplifiers of Shakespeare
of her time. She was equally good in the great characters of other
playwrights. Her