ilor, engineer, pilot, painter, manager, lecturer,
bartender, soldier, author, clown, pantaloon, and a brass band. To
preach a sermon would disconcert him as little as to undertake to
navigate a balloon. He could get away with a pint of Jersey lightning,
and under its stimulating influence address a blue ribbon temperance
meeting on the pernicious effects of rum. Where he was born no one could
tell. He claimed laughingly that it was so long since he was first
produced he had lost track of the date. A friend of his maintained that
he was bred in the blue grass region, he was such an admirable judge of
whisky. On that score he might as well have been born in the County
Galway as in the state of Kentucky. He had a voluminous shock of red
hair; his name was Handy, and no one ever thought of addressing him
otherwise, even on the slightest acquaintance. When he had an engagement
he was poorer than when he was out of a job. He was a daisy of the
chronic impecunious variety.

The summer of --'7 was a hard season with actors, and as Handy was one
of the guild he suffered like the rest of his calling. He was not so
fortunate as to have country relatives with whom he might visit and
spend a brief vacation down on the old farm, so he had to bestir himself
to hit upon some scheme or other to bridge over the so-called dog days.
He pondered over the matter, and finally determined to organize a
company to work the towns along the Long Island Sound coast. Most men
would have shrunk from an undertaking of this character without the
necessary capital to embark in the venture. Handy, however, was not an
individual of that type. He was a man of great natural and economical
resources, when put to the test. Moreover, he had a friend who was the
owner of a good-sized canvas tent; was on familiar terms with another
who was the proud possessor of a fairly good-sized sailing craft; his
credit at the printer's was good for twenty or twenty-five dollars, and
in addition he had eleven dollars in hard cash in his inside pocket.
What more could an enterprising man, with energy to burn, desire?

On the Rialto Handy picked up seven good men and true, who, like
himself, had many a time and oft fretted their brief hour upon the
stage--and possibly will again,--who were willing to embark their fame
and fortune in the venture. They knew Handy was a sailor bold, and so
long as they had an angel in the shape of a vessel to perform the
transportation part of