“Then,” said Mr. Booth, “Kellar performed some miracles that surpassed all of those that had gone before. I asked him how he did them. ‘Mr. Booth,’ he said, ‘I could show you with ease, but these are professional secrets and my own personal property, the explanations of which I must divulge to none!’ On reflection, I decided that my former belief in such matters was harmful to my mind and I gave it up.” I can understand, if I had the will power, giving up any physical habit which I might feel was doing my body harm, but to have a mental disease, realize it, and cure it, is to me almost inconceivable. Booth was seemingly of a serene nature, but he was introspective, and underneath that outward calm must have been a deep passion and sense of his own being. He told me that he never stepped upon the stage for a first night that his knees did not knock together horribly, but once before the footlights, he forgot himself entirely. His sense of humor was deep, and although he was always the quiet one of the group, he was probably the most appreciative of a funny story or a witty remark. Even when he lay in bed with his last illness his thoughts were upon these things, for he was much disturbed because he could not remember the point of a clever story he had heard. For quite a while he had been failing. His legs had been giving out, so that he used the little trunk elevator to go up to his room; then he slowly grew feebler and feebler. I don’t doubt he suffered, but he never let us know it, and his death was merely a gentle going away. I remember the doctor coming downstairs and saying that he had just closed the eyes of a man more than seventy years old. Mr. Booth had crowded into fifty-nine years of life the experiences of an old man. The Players is changed to-day. Of course, all old things must give way to new; but there is a certain fine sentiment that remains. Perhaps the young man does not appreciate the ideas upon which the club was founded and the traditions which have kept it together, but something of the old spirit is bound to be communicated to him on Pipe Nights or Founders’ Night, or on those occasions when old Joe Holland is brought up in his big armchair. Then all gather around, a fire blazes in the great fireplace, Mr. Booth’s eyes gaze down serenely from the wall above, and each one vies with his neighbor in handing a drink or a smoke to Joe, or telling him the latest story. Then will come in some wit or jester of the gang, and jokes will be told that are as old as the hills, but ever new. There is always a visitor or recent member to be delighted at the old gag when Harry Dixey goes up to Joe and says: “Lend me five dollars, Joe.” “Go around to my good ear, Harry.” With great ceremony, Harry will walk around. “Lend me ten dollars, Joe.” “Go back to my five-dollar ear, Harry.” Chapter XIV: American Humor