‘Several weeks elapsed before I got another engagement. Two gymnasts can do so much more showy and sensational a performance than one can, that a single slang doesn’t go near so well as a double one, and it is, in consequence, only those who produce something novel, such as Jean Price’s long flight and Avolo’s performance on two bars, who can procure single-handed engagements. Knowing this to be the case, I looked about for a new partner, and found that the Brothers Athos had separated, and that one of them was in just the same fix as myself. When we met, and talked the matter over, however, a difficulty arose in the fact that we had both worked as bearers,—that is, we had supported our respective partners in the double tricks, that require one man to bear the entire weight of the other, as in the drop, or when one, hanging by the hocks, holds a single trapeze for the other to do a trick or two upon beneath him. Our respective necessities might have urged us to overcome this difficulty if Christmas had not been approaching, at which season unemployed gymnasts and acrobats often obtain engagements at the theatres, as demons and sprites. Athos got an engagement to sprite at the East London, and I was left out in the cold. ‘Newsome’s circus had moved, in the mean time, from Scarborough to Middlesborough, where some changes were made in the company. Burgess and two or three more left, and my late partner was among them. I heard afterwards one of the many stories that are current in circuses of the devices resorted to by circus men in difficulties to evade arrest. A friend of one of the parties who had ceased to belong to Newsome’s company called at the house where he had lodged, and found that he had left, and that his landlady didn’t know where he had gone to. ‘“But I am sure to see him again,” said she, “for he has left a large box, so heavy that I can’t move it.” ‘“Then you can have good security for what he owes you,” observed the friend. “I suppose he owes you something?” ‘“Well, yes,” rejoined the woman, “he does owe me something for board and lodging.” ‘Her lodger never returned, however, and his friend meeting him some time afterwards in York, alluded to the manner in which he had “mysteriously dried up,” as his friend called it. ‘“Ah, I was under a heavy cloud!” observed the defaulter. “What did the old lady say about me?” ‘“That she was sure to see you again, because you had left a heavy box in the room you occupied,” replied his friend. ‘“I should think it was heavy,” said the other. “Couldn’t move it, could she?” ‘His friend replied in the negative, and he laughed so heartily that he spilled some of the ale he was drinking. ‘“What is the joke?” inquired his friend. ‘“Why, you see, the box was once full of togs,” replied the mysterious lodger, “but when I left Middlesborough such of them as were not adorning the person of this swell were hypothecated.”