"I see you're made out of the right kind of stuff," said George, "and I'll give you a first-class chance. You're ambitious and you're lean--lean enough to play Falstaff--and lean and ambitious people always make their mark. Have you ever heard of the lean and hungry Cassius?--I don't mean a depositor at the door of a busted bank, but the Cassius of 'Julius Cæsar.' I'll bet you feel just like him now; you look like him." The Cahokian candidate for Thespian honors blushed. "Well," the practical joker went on, "you can begin work this morning. The minstrels will be here in a few minutes for rehearsal, and they want a new box of gags. Go over to Harry Noxon, at the Comique, and ask him to give you a box of the best gags he's got. Tell him they're for me." With a face wreathed in smiles the Cahokian _Cassius_ stalked off towards the Comique while George went out and gathered in a few friends to enjoy the joke. The Cahokian went to the Comique, and Harry Noxon, understanding what was meant, gave the poor fellow a box half filled with bricks, and telling him that was all he had, directed him to go up to Pope's and ask for Ed. Zimmerman, who would fill the box for him. Shouldering the heavy load, the Cahokian moved bravely out towards Pope's, six and one-half blocks away. He was pretty tired when he got there. Ed. Zimmerman, in obedience to his request, sent the box around to the stage-door, where the carpenter removed the lid and added bricks enough to fill the receptacle. Nailing the lid on again the stage-struck youth was once more presented with it. It took a great deal of exertion for him to get the box to his shoulder, and when he had it there he staggered along under the load like a drunken man, to the Opera House seven blocks away. When he reached the Opera House, McManus said the Minstrels had changed their mind about using any new gags, and requested the Cahokian to carry them over to the Olympic. The Cahokian looked at McManus, then took a woeful and weary look at the box, and, wiping the perspiration from his high forehead and thin face, he swung his slouch hat over his brow and remarked that he was tired. "I say, Mister," he said, "if that's what a fellow's got to do to be a actor I'd sooner plow corn er run a thrashin'-masheen twenty-three hours out'n the twenty-four. I thought there was more fun in the business than carryin' around two or three hundred pounds of iron or somethin' like it, all day in the sun. I guess I'll throw up my engagement. Good-bye." And he strode out into the street, while George and his friends had a laugh that was as hearty as the lungs that led in the merriment were loud and strong. [Illustration: KITTY BLANCHARD.]