hears him speak, and even sing, could not have been more terribly frightened. Her terror soon gave way to indignation, however, and this found vent in a torrent of invective, which sounded very ill coming from such pretty red lips. Say what she might, the sick man would only reply with amusing impudence

"Well, then, I'll give your kiss back; come, now, I'm willing, take it back:" actually grasping her arm, and puckering up his saucy mouth in a manner which should have earned for him a good sound box on his pallid cheeks.

The girls left the room in high dudgeon, one remarking to the other that this man was evidently a disciple of "Beast Butler;" that, in fact, all Yankees were such disciples-all Yankees were to be detested and despised now and forevermore.

But I observed when the Yankees happened to be goodlooking, dashing fellows, as many were, the rebel girls were far more lenient in their judgment, and I fancy those young ladies who were forbidden to enter the doors of the Rev. Mr. L-d's church, in the little town of C-kville, Tennessee, because they invited Federal officers to their houses, found ample recompense for such proscription in the society of the ostracised heroes of the shoulder-strap. It was in this town I met my old friend, the celebrated Southern beauty, Molly C. She was a rampagious rebel; told me she hated me cordially while we were shaking hands; said she despised my principles while we were drinking tea, and called me an abominable Abolitionist while she was requesting my photograph.

When we returned to the town, only a few weeks after, you may imagine my surprise on hearing that she was engaged to be married to a Federal officer! She talked to me about him-he was a Duck, a Darling and a Dear; lollypops, sugarplums and bonbons were tasteless sweets

beside him; he was an Adonis, an Apollo, a Beau Brummell and a Count D'Orsay.

"But he is a Yankee?" I said.

“Oh, on that point," she answered, blushing, "we have agreed to disagree!"

I saw them that night when they were parting; he going forward with his men, she remaining in the stupid town. If kisses, and prayers, and clasping of hands, and assurances of constancy, and tears, and smiles, and sighs, and sobs, were evidences of the agreeing disagreement, they were all present. I ran away, for I thought of the old French song.

"Veux-tu savoir comment les soldats aiment?

Ils aiment si passionement,

Ils sont de si passionees gens,

Et on les entend toujours disant,

Ah, Louise, que je t'aime!

Mais enfin (voyons !) je pars demain !''

The wretched metre and the worse rhyme do not take from this little chanson its perfect coloring of the reckless soldier nature.

The next morning I bade farewell to Nashville and the Mason.

MONSIEUR MONFRERE.

239

CHAPTER XXII.

The "Felon's Daughter."-Actresses' Cartes de Visite.-The Flower Basket Nuisance.-Theatrical Critics in the West.-Dumb Waiters.

Ohio Legislators. Western Hotels. Andersonville! A High Private. From the Shoe Shop to the Camp.-The Guide Book Nuisance. Chicago.— Miltonian Tableaux. - Number 99.-On the Cars. Flirts and Babies en Route.-The Newly Married Couple.The Gum-Drop Merchants.-The New York Hurled.-A Walk in a Graveyard.-A Terrible Gymnast.-Indiana Loafers.-Nomenclature.

"Shall we stay here over night, or shall we go straight on to Cincinnati?" I asked of Mère when we arrived at the Galt House in Louisville.

"Better go on, I think, and spend all the leisure time you have in Cincinnati."

We did so, and that very night the Galt House was burned to the ground, with an immense destruction of property, and loss of life to six people. Mère thanked Providence for our preservation, but I could not do this. Is it not a bitter mockery to those who have met their fate, to offer thanks that you have escaped it? No, it was a settled decree of an inscrutable Providence that we should avoid this horrible calamity, reserved, perhaps, to meet some still more dreadful one. Who knows? There is a divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them as

we may.

In Cincinnati we spent a delightful week, at the house of Monsieur Monfrère. Monfrère is as pleasing a specimen of the fine young American gentleman as can well be found. Of his oratorical talents, and, indeed, all those requisites to make a mark in the legal profession, I do not hesitate to say he stands far ahead of his compeers. His handsome face, his rich voice, his admirable gesticulation

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240

DISCUSSING THE HEROINE.

(as necessary to the lawyer as they are to the player), and, above all, his clear judgment and scholarly acquirements have gained for him an enviable and an enduring position. Monfrère is something of a litterateur as well, and kindly said he would give me a little advice about my play of Eveleen," transformed to suit the growing appetite for the sensational into "The Felon's Daughter." The piece had already been much changed since I first produced it in New York, and was now no more like the original play than that jack-knife was like the original jack-knife which got first a new blade fixed to it, and then a new handle fixed to that.

Monfrère said he thought the effect would be better if I were to enrich the heroine by making her authoress of a few sensation novels, rather than by the hackneyed and quite delusive plan of acquiring a fortune through acting parts.

"That's all very well, Tom," I remarked; but, under existing circumstances, it seems hardly modest in me to make all my characters talk about the wonderful genius of this young lady as an authoress, and her enriching herself by the mere power of her pen."

"Well, my dear," said Monfrère, coolly blowing away his cigar smoke, "it strikes me it's about as broad as it's long. You made your heroine a magnificent actress, which you are not; then, why object to making her a splendid authoress, which, permit me to observe, but without wishing to give offence, you are not, also."

This was quite true, but I had never thought of it before. Indeed, it was painfully true-and truth, you know, is stranger than fiction. I altered the play. Eveleen, no longer Lady Macbeth, is Miss Braddon, Mrs. Henry Wood, George Eliot, George Sand, Mrs. A. B. C. D. E. F. Southworth, Olive Logan, or "what you will."

It was from Monfrère I had a ludicrous account of the

sale of photograpnic "cartes de visite" in the front of the theatre. I had been told that "stars" realized immense profits from this source. Nevada, Colorado and Arizona paled before the gold which "photographs" yielded. Several castles in the Moorish regions had been built by "stars" in this way, and a railway to Chimeraville was about to be opened to the public, on Photographic rôle-ing stock. Of course, to be orthodox, I must do the same, and the inevitable small boy, with ill-kept nose, came to me in every town, and took away several dozen of cartes de visite.

But pray mark the mode of procedure of the inevitable small boy with ill-kept nose!

In a fiendishly exultant manner, he rushes up to an inoffensive spectator, and, thrusting the picture under the visual organs of the aforesaid, cries out, in a shrill voice: "Have Olive Logan, sir? Street dress and costume. Do take Olive Logan, sir. Only twenty-five cents !"

And if the inoffensive spectator remains obdurate to my varied charms at such a very low figure, the inevitable small boy cries:

"What! not Olive Logan, sir? Olive Logan, the Felon's Daughter-the Robber's Wife!!"

Is it extraordinary that, under these circumstances, I immediately stopped the sale of My Photographs?

The town of Columbus, the State capital of Ohio, stood next in my line of march, and a pretty wide-awake place it is, too, especially in the legislative session, during which period I happened to be there. I was particularly pleased with the general appearance of Columbus. If I say it reminded me forcibly of an English town, I mean this as a compliment. Beautiful villas, nearly or quite surrounded by wide-spreading trees, by well-kept gardens, full of the rarest flowers, and possessing so many other attributes of