hand
impulsively. "I beg your pardon. If I had known--but if we're ever out
of this mess, I may give a better account of my stewardship."

Nevertheless, his plight now was comparable to that of the strollers
of old, hunted by beadles from towns and villages, and classed as
gypsies, vagabonds and professed itinerants by the constables. He was
no better served than the mummers, clowns, jugglers, and petty chapmen
who, wandering abroad, were deemed rogues and sturdy beggars. Yet no
king's censor could have found aught "unchaste, seditious or unmete"
in Barnes' plays; no cause for frays or quarrels, arising from pieces
given in the old inn-yards; no immoral matter, "whatsoever any light
and fantastical head listeth to invent or devise;" no riotous actors
of rollicking interludes, to be named in common with fencers,
bearwards and vagrants.

"Better give it up, Mr. Barnes," said a remarkably sweet and
sympathetic voice, as the manager was standing in the hotel office,
turning the situation over and over in his mind.

Barnes, looking around quickly to see who had read his inmost
thoughts, met the firm glance of his antagonist.

"Mr. Gough, it is an honor to meet one of your talents," replied the
manager, "but"--with an attempt to hide his concern--"I shall not be
sorry, if we do not meet again."

"An inhospitable wish!" answered the speaker, fixing his luminous eyes
upon the manager. "However, we shall probably see each other
frequently."

"The Fates forbid, sir!" said Barnes, earnestly. "If you'll tell me
your route, we'll--go the other way!"

"It won't do, Mr. Barnes! The devil and the flesh must be fairly
fought. 'Where thou goest'--You know the scriptural saying?"

"You'll follow us!" exclaimed the manager with sudden consternation.

The other nodded.

"Why, this is tyranny! You are a Frankenstein; an Old-Man-of-the
Sea!"

"Give it up," said the orator, with a smile that singularly illumined
his thin, but powerful features. "As I gave it up! Into what dregs of
vice, what a sink of iniquity was I plunged! The very cleansing of my
soul was an Augean task. Knavery, profligacy, laxity of morals,
looseness of principles--that was what the stage did for me; that was
the labor of Hercules to be cleared away! Give it up, Mr. Barnes!" And
with a last penetrating look, he strode out of the office.

In spite of Barnes' refusal, the soldier offered to sell his horse to
the landlord, but the latter curtly declined, havi