y new friends somewhat down
at the heels and their rate of emolument exceedingly low, as well
as for a certain little incident to be recounted shortly, I might
well have joined the group of future Booths and Forrests that
loitered along the near-by Rialto, looking for jobs as Roman soldiers
or footmen in some coming production.

But the change from my well-appointed lodgings in Cambridge and my
luxurious surroundings at the Cock and Supr to a distinctly shabby
theatrical boarding-house, where the guests plainly exhibited traces
of the lack of proper ablutional facilities and the hallways smelt
of cabbage and onions, was a distinct shock to my highly sensitive
tastes. However, my new acquaintances proved warm-hearted and
hospitable and did everything in their power to make me feel at my
ease, with the result that in spite of the cabbage and the wooden
slats that served as springs in my bed--which nearly filled the
rear hall bed-room I had hired for one week at four dollars and
twenty-five cents--I resolved to postpone entering upon an active
career until I should know the city better and have made a few
friends.

Those of my new comrades who were lucky enough to have employment
did not rise in the morning until the neighborhood of twelve o'clock,
and those who had no employment at all followed their example. I
thus found myself adopting of necessity, as it were, the pleasant
practice of sauntering out on Broadway after a one o'clock breakfast,
and of spending most of the afternoon, evening, and following
morning in or about the same locality. We usually went to some
theatrical show on what was known as "paper," and I afterward joined
my actor friends at a restaurant, where we sang songs and told
stories until the gas-lamps were extinguished and gray dawn crept
over the house-tops. Downtown--into the mysterious district of
Wall Street--I did not, as yet, go, and I might still be haunting
the stage entrances of the theatres had it not been for an adventure
in which I was an involuntary participant.

It so happened that among my new acquaintances was a careless,
rattle-brained youth known as Toby Robinson, who in spite of some
histrionic ability was constantly losing his job and always in
debt. He was a smooth-faced, rather stout, good-natured-looking
person, of the sort who is never supposed to have done harm to
anybody. Not long before he had enjoyed a salary of fourteen
dollars per week, but having overslept s