I hid thy prophecy within my breast, And ever and anon its force recalling, Watched GOODWIN stride with speed that was appalling; Till now his very foes proclaim him best Amongst his votaries, thy very words forestalling. And I am glad to know, my spirit chum, That I long since let honest admiration Be leavened by a Friendship's adulation For him who in these decades hath become No artless clown, but that one genius of a nation. Drink deep with us, thou gentle Friendship's wraith;-- If thou hast aught to drink where thou'rt abiding, And Nat and I'll recall thy stalwart faith Which met my doubting with indignant chiding, That night when you a new star's orbit were deciding. "Come thou with me, tonight, and sit awhile, To see the Mummers (not at the Museum. 'Tis laughter's tomb; the Park's a dull Te Deum; The Globe's no more): for I would see thee smile, While thousands laud the star of thy loved Athenaeum!" After my run at the Howard Athenaeum Tony Pastor offered me an engagement at $50 a week to appear at his Variety theatre in New York. When I arrived I was terror stricken at the way in which he had announced me. I was advertised as "Actor, Author and Mimic." I remained with Tony several weeks and when I left Gotham my salary had grown to the sum of $500 a week, a tremendous salary in those days. Variety was hardly to my liking as it gave me too much time to myself and I regret to say that I saved but little from my season's work. Colonel Sinn of the Olympic Theatre, New York, made me alluring offers to continue on the variety stage, but I decided to enter the legitimate and accepted an engagement to appear as Captain Crosstree under the management of Matt Morgan, then the manager of the 14th Street Theatre in the burlesque of "Black-eyed Susan." It was there I met for the first time dainty little Minnie Palmer and we appeared together in two farces, "Sketches in India" and "The Little Rebel." After a few weeks at the Fourteenth Street house we accepted an engagement to return to the Howard Athenaeum and we opened there at a joint salary of $750 a week. I was very proud of this, as I had previously left that theatre, not particularly successful, at a salary of only $15 a week. _Chapter XIV_ ELIZA WEATHERSBY Minnie and I determined to remain together and continue in vaudeville through the following year and made our arrangements accordingly. But these were vetoed by her mother who decided that we had better earn our respective livings apart.