Actors and actresses, while generous as a class, save their money, and very few are found loitering around New York "broke," during the vacation months. Still there are cases of poverty. I have known a former popular Irish comedian, who belongs to a family of popular and prosperous members of the profession, to walk the streets of a Western town many a day without a cent in his pockets and nothing to look up to at night for shelter but the stars high and pitiless over his bald head. Everybody has read about the English actor, who, driven to distress, and standing at the door of starvation, donned an old gray wig, and was found singing and begging around Union Square. It was only when a policeman in arresting him accidentally pulled off his wig that the actor's identity and condition were known. The former was carefully concealed and the latter cheerfully and liberally relieved. I was at a banquet given by the press of St. Louis to Thomas W. Keene, the tragedian, during his first starring season, when among the few guests who sat down to the table, between Billy Crane and Stuart Robson, was a short, stout, gray-headed, and long gray-bearded man, whom nobody knew. The night was bitterly cold, still the old fellow wore only a long, gray linen duster over a thin, red woollen shirt, with a very queer pair of pantaloons and rough brogans. His high, battered and wide-brimmed hat rested under his chair as if he was afraid some of the company would steal it. He swept clean every dish set before him, emptied every glass of wine, and with bent head, and knife and fork in hand, was waiting anxiously for each course when it came. As soon as he was noticed the question passed around, "Who is the old gray?" and fun was poked at him ruthlessly; but it rebounded lightly from the folds of his linen duster, and he heeded not the blows. When the toasts went around the old man was asked to respond to one, and got up and spoke charmingly for half an hour or more, introducing the Marseillaise, both as a martial hymn, and as a song and dance. Then he explained how the city editor of a local paper had sent him to report the banquet; how he came shivering to the marrow of his bones to the door of the Club House--the most fashionable in the city--and asked permission to go into the kitchen to warm himself previous to appearing at the banquet board, a permission which was granted. The old man spoke so eloquently in telling a pitiful story of his poverty, Pat Short, treasurer of the Olympic, at the instigation, I think, of Manager Norton of the Grand Opera House, picked up a hat and took up a collection from the ten newspaper men and ten actors present. The collection netted $39.75, which was poured in the old man's two hands, while his eyes were wet with tears. Then he was freely plied with wine, and danced, sang, and gave phrenological examinations for two hours, when the crowd dispersed in the greatest good humor. Stuart Robson told