But, say, you didn't happen to be up to the openin' of Peter K.'s new
Alcazar the other night, did you? Well, Sadie and I was, on account of
being included in one of Chunk's complimentary box parties. And, honest,
when they sprung that clouded moonlight water view, with the Long Island
lights in the distance, and the Sound steamers passin' back and forth at
the back, and the rocks in front, hanged if I didn't feel like I was on
the veranda of our yacht club, watchin' it all over again, the same as it
was that night!

Then in from one side comes this boat; no ordinary property piece faked
up from something in stock; but a life sized model that's a dead ringer
for the old Queen of the Seas, even to the stovepipe and the shirts hung
from the forestay. It comes floatin' in lazy and natural, and when Cap
Spiller goes forward to heave over the anchor he drops it with a splash
into real water. He's wearin' the same old costume,--shirt sleeves, cob
pipe, and all,--and when he begins to putter around in the cabin, blamed
if you couldn't smell the onions fryin' and the coffee boilin'. Yes, sir,
Chunk had put it all on!

Did the act get 'em interested? Say, there was fifteen straight minutes
of this scenic business, with not a word said; but the house was so still
I could hear my watch tickin'. But when he drags out that old accordion,
plants himself on the cabin roof with one leg swingin' careless over the
side, and opens up with them old tunes of his--well, he had 'em all with
him, from the messenger boys in the twenty-five-cent gallery to the
brokers in the fifteen-dollar boxes. He takes five curtain calls, and the
orchestra circle was still demandin' more when they rung down the front
drop.

"Chunk," says I, as he shows up at our box, "I take it back. You sure
have picked another winner."

"Looks like it, don't it?" says he. "And whisper! A fifty-minute act for
a hundred a week! That's the best of it. Up at the Columbus their top
liner is costing them a thousand a day."

"It's a cinch if you can hold onto him, eh?" says I.

"Oh, I can hold him all right," says Chunk, waggin' his head confident.
"I know enough about human nature to be sure of that. Of course, he's an
odd freak; but this sort of thing will grow on him. The oftener he gets a
hand like that, the more he'll want it, and inside of a fortnight that'll
be what he lives for. Oh, I know people, from the ground up, inside and
outside!"

Well, I was beginnin'