The very same evening my attention was called by a young lady to a thinly-bearded, spectacled, sickly-looking middle-aged man who sat in the next seat to the lady, and who, she complained, had stepped on her foot several times and in other ways tried to attract her attention and get her into a conversation. I at once recognized the fellow as one of an unscrupulous set who pored over big ledgers in the Court-House, and gave the greater portion of their time to discussions concerning female friends of ill-repute, and to boasting of the ruin they had brought or were about to bring to some innocent young girl. The same man was in the habit of buying single seats in the dress circle and visited the theatre frequently. He represents a class of venerable, but iniquitous fellows who make a practice of mixing in among the ladies, in the hope of scraping an occasional acquaintance, and who have no good intention in desiring to extend the circle of their female friends. They should be kept out of every respectable place of amusement. [Illustration: SELINA DOLARO.] CHAPTER VI. BEHIND THE SCENES. My first experiences behind the scenes were in a small, dark cellar, owned by a man who is now a member of the Missouri Legislature, and where daily and nightly a select company of would-be Ethiopian comedians of tender age gave performances to small crowds of children each of whom had paid an admission fee in pins or corks--for we valued the corks highly as a necessary portion of our stock in trade; we charred many a one to blacken our faces and treasured them as if they were worth their weight in gold. Our stage was roughly constructed of boards laid upon barrels; bagging material hung around the rear and sides of the stage to shut in the mysteries of the remarkable dressing-room we had, and an old gray cloth and blanket formed the curtain which parted in the middle in the manner of the stage curtains of the Elizabethan age. Bits of candles were our foot-lights and the audience, made up of boys and girls, were satisfied to sit for hours on rude benches stretched across the width of the cellar. We played nothing but black-face pieces, and as they were not taken from books, but were the memories of sketches we had seen in some pretentious theatrical resort, they were, of course, short and entirely crude. No member of that little band has risen to greatness in the theatrical profession, but I think every one of them now living looks back fondly to the triumphs of our cellar career. To me that rude stage and its gunny-bag surroundings were more interesting and full of mystery than have been any of the wonderful and beautiful temples of Thespis which I have since entered; and I think when I played the part of _Ephraim_ in some ludicrous sketch, and in response to the old man's cries from the stage, "Ephraim! Ephraim! say boy, whar is you?" and I got up suddenly in the rear of the audience and shouted back, "Hyar I is, boss!"--when