this story to a Boston _Times_ man who made a two-column article out of it that travelled all over the country, and in which all the credit of the charity with the figures greatly increased was appropriated unjustly, by Messrs. Robson & Crane. But this is not what I started out about. [Illustration: MARY ANDERSON.] "While the actor seeks deep shadows under the far-reaching arms of huge trees," writes the New York _Dramatic Times_ man, "or leisurely smokes his pipe beneath heavy boughs, thick with scented buds and blossoms, some one is working out his programme for the next season. This 'some one' is often confounded with the actor himself, or is taken for the parasite who fosters and thrives on some indirect vein of the living and active theatrical body. The sturdy man of business, who by chance happens to pass the pavement between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, on the south side of Union Square, fancies that the crowd of well-dressed and, as a rule, quiet men, are idle professionals, lounging away a warm day between gossip and beer. He little knows that this is the theatrical exchange of the Western World, where business is carried on in the same honorable mode as at the Stock Exchange, without the Bedlam noises, and that the seeming drifters under the grateful shade of the Morton House are as shrewd in looking at the run of the theatrical market as any Wall Street broker. Every theatre or nomadic attraction throughout the United States has, at some time during the day, a 'some one' looking out for 'dates' and 'booking' memoranda for future contracts. Without any agreement to meet or transact business, the 'some one' appears with the June roses and makes it a point to pass the Rialto between the hours of ten A. M. and four P. M. The affairs of this exchange are gigantic (when for instance one manager gives _bona fide_ evidence that he has cleared $40,000 in the past season), and though it would be impossible to make an estimate of the total amount, it is safe to say that millions are the result of these seemingly casual meetings. "A guide published last year gives a total of about four thousand five hundred theatres, that kept open their doors for an average of forty weeks. Taking the poor attraction, with the star that fills the theatre to overflowing, the average receipts would be about $150 for each theatre, or $675,000 paid every night for amusements throughout the United States. This would make a total for one week, of $4,050,000, or, for the entire season of forty weeks, $162,000,000, not counting matinees. Taking, then, an industry that brings in over $160,000,000 in round numbers during the season, the neatly dressed men that are said to 'hang around the Square' are the men that control or pull the wires and set the machinery in motion. The figures above are, after all, but approximate, and neither include matinees, which in themselves would count one million, nor does it include the circus world, which is not represented on the Rialto.