Well, as I said, except as a singer, I wasn't good for much at first, but after a while I got to singing first-rate. I took a few lessons now and then, and I learned to sing falsetto. I was boyish looking, although I was twenty-five years old, and I used to come out dressed in a low-necked pink silk gown, with my hair all curled up, and a bunch of puffs on the top of my head and a fan in my hand, and sing Il Bacio and the Magnetic Waltz, as well as plenty of women concert singers, so the people said. Those curls, though, on the top of my head, used to bother me dreadfully. It took Sam and me a good quarter of an hour to get them in place, and Sam invariably swore like a pirate during the operation. All the time I was singing I was thinking about my back hair. For a long time a notion had been in my head to bring out something original in the show. All minstrel shows are alike, and I couldn't for the life of me hit on anything that Sam Stacker didn't say, "Oh, I seen that down in Tennessee in '58," or "That there thing was introduced in New Orleens along about '61," or something discouraging of the kind. At last I did hit upon something. It's old enough now, but it was new then. The first thing I wanted to find was a fellow about my size and general appearance. He wasn't easy to find. Some of them were as tall as I, but too broad; some were just my shape, but too tall. At last I found him. He was pretty nearly my double by the time we had made up alike. He was exactly five feet seven--my height to a dot--and we were the same shape and size, and the calves of our legs looked as if we were twin brothers. This was a great point, because it was very important that our legs should resemble each other--and the resemblance was startling. Sometimes I could hardly tell which pair belonged to him and which to me, but it was all one, as they were both remarkably fine-looking pairs of legs, particularly in white silk tights and red silk stockings. He was a pleasant fellow, too. His first name was Ted, and mine was Ned; our last names are unimportant--no matter about mine certainly--and we were advertised in the bills as THE GREAT VALBELLA BROTHERS!!! UNEQUALED GYMNASTS! EXQUISITE CLOG DANCERS! and a great deal else, which isn't worth putting down here. We certainly made a sensation the first night we appeared in our great specialty. It was in a big opera house, and every seat was filled; and immediately after the first part, "by the whole company," in which Ted and I had stood in the background, I sawing away on the big 'cello with a stop on it, and Ted making believe to blow the clarionet, both of us joining in the singing as occasion required, our turn came to appear.