A company was accordingly organized, the day of departure fixed, the printing got out--and the printer "hung up." The vessel was anchored off Staten Island, and was provisioned with one keg of beer, a good-sized box of hardtack, a jar of Vesey Street pickles, a Washington Street ham, five large loaves and all the fishes in the bay. The company, after some preliminary preparations, boarded the _Gem of the Ocean_, for such was the pretentious name of the unpretentious craft that was to carry Caesar and his fortunes. Perhaps Handy's own description of the first night's adventure might prove more interesting than if given by another. CHAPTER II "What stories I'll tell when my sojerin is o'er." --LEVER. "Well, sir, you see," said Handy some weeks after in relating the adventure to a friend, "we had previously determined to start from Staten Island, when one of the company got it into his head that we might show on the island for 'one night only,' and make a little something into the bargain. Besides, he reasoned, all first-class companies nowadays adopt that plan of breaking in their people. Some cynical individuals describe this first night operation as 'trying it on the dog,' but as that is a vulgar way of putting it we'll let it pass. We turned the matter over in our minds, and almost unanimously agreed that it was too near the city to make the attempt, but the strong arguments of Smith prevailed--he was the one who first advocated it--and we therefore resolved to set up our tent and present 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' with an unparalleled cast from the California Theatre. "You must remember we desired to have the company hail from a point as far distant as possible from New York, and we could hardly have gone further or we would have slid right plumb off the continent. But we told no lie about the company being unparalleled. No, sir. You couldn't match it for money. It was what might be legitimately considered a 'star cast company.' "One of the company was a dwarf. That was lucky, or we would have been stuck for a _Little Eva_. So the dwarf was cast for _Eva_; and he doubled up and served as an ice floe, with a painted soap box on his back to represent a floating cake of ice in the flight scene. He played the ice floe much better than he did _Eva_. But that's neither here nor there now, as he got through with both. What's more, he's alive to-day to tell the tale. Between ourselves, he was the oddest looking _Eva_--and the toughest one, too, for that matter--you ever clapped eyes upon.