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 the scheme without being compelled to count railroad ties, in case of ill luck, sailing was good enough for them. Besides, time was no object, for they had plenty of it to spare. They were all actors like Handy himself. The stories they could unfold of barn-storming in country towns in years gone by would fill a volume as bulky as a census report. Moreover, they could turn their talents to any line of business and double, treble, quintuple parts as easily as talk. They were players of the old stock school. One of the company played a cornet badly enough to compel the inhabitants of any civilized town to take to the woods until he had made his departure; another was a flutist of uncertain qualifications, while a third could rasp a little on the violin; and as for Handy himself, he could tackle any other instrument that might be necessary to make up a band; but playing the drum,--the bass drum,--or the cymbals, was his specialty.