As I said, the minstrel boy is an irresistible "masher." His particular weakness is women, with wine often only a little behind. He lives at as rapid a rate as his salary will allow, and turns night into day by "taking in the town" after the performance. They frequently get into scandalous history owing to the promiscuousness with which they pick up with petticoats, and their amours get them into great trouble. Women seem to have a lavish fondness for the end-man, and many of them have left husband, children, and home to follow the fortunes of a fickle minstrel. The story of the Chicago gambler's wife who ran off with Billy Arlington is still fresh in the minds of the people of the city by the lake, and still fresher is that of the St. Louis _demi-mondaine_ who sold out her house to be always near her "Johnny," who, I think, was one of the Big Four. [Illustration: "YOU ARE THE SORT OF A MAN I LIKE."] A mash that created a sensation, though, was one that developed in a New York Bowery theatre, one night, when a young woman elegantly attired jumped out of a private box, and embracing a performer who was just finishing a banjo solo, shouted in a voice that was clear and loud, "You're the sort of a man I like!" The audience cheered lustily and the young woman accepted the applause with a courtesy, while the banjoist staggered into the wings, too much amazed to be flattered. A young man from whose side the lady had made her leap upon the stage, succeeded with some difficulty in coaxing her back into the box and the show went on. The pair had been dining and wining together, and the young gentleman had not been as attentive to his companion as she thought proper. So she had chosen the original method of at once rebuking and shaming him. She succeeded. He did not dare to look at another woman on or off the stage again until the curtain fell.