house, and is usually a jolly-featured, good-natured man who knows how to entertain his friends, to retain the good opinion of his manager, while filling up the ticket-box with passes, and who understands and appreciates the full value of the saying that a soft answer turneth aside wrath. His salary ranges from $25 to $50 a week, while a good ticket-seller, who frequently is made to do all the hard work, may be had for $12 or $15. A door-keeper is paid from $10 to $15 a week. [Illustration: MINNIE HAUK.] The great American type of youthful citizen, with all the manners and dignity of old age and the advisory qualities of a Nestor, is the theatrical usher--the young chap who takes your reserved seat ticket with a smile full of malignity and succeeds in getting you into the wrong chair and almost into a prize fight with every man who comes into the same row of seats. He does this graciously and with such an exhibition of carefulness in comparing the number on your coupon with the number of the chair, that you actually feel ashamed of yourself to have made a mistake after what appeared to you to be an honest, vigorous, and successful effort to show you what was right. The ushers in Western cities are mere boys in uniform; in the East they are young men, and at Haverly's, Wallack's, and other first-class New York establishments, you will find them in full evening dress with as large an exhibition of shirt front as the swellest of the society noodles who are among the patrons of the house. The usher gets $6 or $8 a week, but impresses the stranger as if he owned an interest in the theatre. He may sell calico or run a lemonade stand during the day, but at night he is master of all he surveys, talks of the actresses as familiarly as if he were a blood relation, tries to make you believe he has "a solid girl" in the ballet, and will offer you any favor, from an introduction to the star to a dozen matinee-passes or a game of seven-up with the manager. Like the claquers, he is a regular nuisance. After the first act he will sit or stand and give his opinion of the play, commenting upon the performers in such brief, half ejaculatory, half interrogatory way, as, "Ain't she a daisy, though?" or, "Ain't he a dandy, you bet?" He is expected to applaud even the vilest and least deserving things, and when the cue is given, works his hands and feet as vigorously as I have often seen Henry Mapleson in applauding Marie Roze, his wife, or a travelling manager in commending the efforts of his favorite among the females of his company.