by nature a book-lover and acquisitive of information: he had access to several public libraries, but he craved ownership of books, and from time to time he earned a little money for the purchase of them by recitations, sometimes given in the homes of his friends, sometimes at church entertainments, sometimes at Irish-American Hall and other similar places. For each of such recitations he received two dollars, and on some nights he recited two, three, or four times. As he grew older, especially after 1868, his efforts to obtain employment at theatres grew more and more constant, and, as already said, they were occasionally successful. His activities, indeed, were such that it is a wonder his health was not permanently impaired,--but he was possessed of exceptional vitality, which happily has endured. Once he worked for a while as a chore-boy in a cigar store and factory, where he washed windows, scrubbed floors, and rendered whatever menial service was required, opening the place at morning and closing it at evening. That was a hard experience, but it led to something better, because the keeper of the cigar-shop, taking note of him and his ways, procured for him a better situation, which for some time he held, in a bookstore. There he had access to many books, and he eagerly improved every opportunity of reading. A chief recreation of his consisted in haunting the wharves, gazing at the ships, and musing and wondering about the strange tropical lands from which they came and to which presently they would sail away. THE SENTIMENTAL STOWAWAY. There was one singular consequence of Belasco’s interest in ships and his somewhat extravagant and sentimental fancy which is worth special record. The tragedian John McCullough used frequently to recite, with pathetic effect, a ballad, once widely known, by Arthur Matthison (1826-1883), called “The Little Hero,”--originally named “The Stowaway,” and first published in “Watson’s Art Journal,” New York. The earliest record I have been able to find of McCullough’s delivery of this ballad in San Francisco states that he recited it on the occasion of a performance given for the benefit of Lorraine Rogers, director of the California Theatre, on November 30, 1869. Then or, perhaps, earlier (since McCullough was in San Francisco as early as 1866) Belasco heard him, and his febrile fancy, already superheated by excessive reading of morbid sensation stories, was so fired by the recitation that he felt impelled to submit himself to a similar experience. In his “Story” he gives the following account of his adventure as a Stowaway: