“She wuzn’t wuth nothin’, jest ez you say. But all the same I sold her fur a hunderd dollars—and I got the money right here in my pocket, too.” “I got to say it again,” declared Eth. “You certainly air the smart one! A hundred dollars! Why that there old mare wuzn’t wuth ten dollars. She wuz eighteen year old if she wuz a day and blind of one eye and spavined and wind-broke and all stove up. Who, in the name of Goshen, did you sell her to?” “I sold her,” said Wes, “to mother.” § 126 Speaking, as It Were, with Frankness Since an actor of distinction told me this story I take it that it may be repeated here without serious offence to the profession which he adorns and dignifies. The proprietor of a small hotel of a small New England town was hunched behind the clerk’s desk of his establishment when the door opened and there strode in a typical heavy man of a traveling repertoire company. The newcomer wore a mangy fur overcoat and a soiled white waistcoat and, as if to make up for his lack of baggage, bore himself with an air of jaunty assurance. He advanced to the clerk’s desk and waited there as though expecting the innkeeper to rise and in accordance with the ritual, swing the register about for him and hand him a pen newly dipped in ink. If that was what the Thespian expected he was disappointed. The prospective guest was not to be daunted by the lack of the customary evidences of hospitality and welcome. In his deepest and most impressive stage voice he said: “I take it, my good man, that you are the Boniface of this hostelry.” “Wall, I’m runnin’ this here tavern, ef so be that’s whut you mean.” “Exactly so. It is even as I suspected. And what are your lowest terms for members of my profession?” “Which?” “I say, what are your lowest terms for actors?” “Liars, loafers and dead-beats!” § 127 Glass of Fashion and Mould of Form! In the last year of the Civil War a company of Federal soldiers were encamped in the Tennessee foothills. They had pitched their tents in a meadow belonging to a farmer whose log house stood in a grove at the edge of the field. Through the meadow ran a good-sized creek. The soldiers lost no time in pulling off their dusty garments and bathing in the stream. That same evening the owner of the farm, a whiskered gentleman, called upon the young lieutenant in command of the detachment. He began by saying that his sympathies were with the Union and he felt upon this account if upon no other he was entitled to consideration. He had a complaint to make. He had no objection to the use of his meadow as a camp ground but he did wish to protest again the action of the men in swimming within sight of his domicile because, as he explained, he had two half-grown daughters.