Yet I had seen enough of the world to know that unless a man puts a high appraisal upon his attainments and ability no one else is likely to do so, and that the public takes one, nine times out of ten, at his own valuation. Coming on the clay itself: I wore my hair rather long, with an appreciable modicum of bear's grease well rubbed in, side whiskers and white beaver, and carried a carpet bag on which was embroidered a stag's head in yellow on a background of green worsted. And the principal fact to be observed in this connection is that, instead of creating a smile as I passed out of the Grand Central Station, I was probably regarded as a rather smart and stylishly dressed young man. I had a card to some young actors in the city, given me by my Thespian friends in Boston, and it proved but a short trip on the horse-cars down Fourth Avenue to the locality, near the Academy of Music, then as now frequented by the fraternity. I began my professional career, then, by taking lodgings in an actors' boarding- house, and I am free to confess that at the time I was undecided whether to follow the bar or the boards. I have since frequently observed that the same qualities make for success in both, and had it not been for the fact that I found my new friends somewhat down at the heels and their rate of emolument exceedingly low, as well as for a certain little incident to be recounted shortly, I might well have joined the group of future Booths and Forrests that loitered along the near-by Rialto, looking for jobs as Roman soldiers or footmen in some coming production. But the change from my well-appointed lodgings in Cambridge and my luxurious surroundings at the Cock and Spur to a distinctly shabby theatrical boarding-house, where the guests plainly exhibited traces of the lack of proper ablutional facilities and the hallways smelt of cabbage and onions, was a distinct shock to my highly sensitive tastes. However, my new acquaintances proved warm-hearted and hospitable and did everything in their power to make me feel at my ease, with the result that in spite of the cabbage and the wooden slats that served as springs in my bed--which nearly filled the rear hall bed-room I had hired for one week at four dollars and twenty-five cents--I resolved to postpone entering upon an active career until I should know the city better and have made a few friends.