Dick and His Cat; or “Jack and the Beanstalk,” showing a golden-haired prince in blue tights and a cloud of a giant reaching out a huge paw to get the innocent youth and cram him down his cavernous maw. “’Ere you are, Ladies and Gents!” screamed the barker, pattering nervously and significantly on these pictures, “Only ’riginal ‘Dick Whittington and His Cat,’ Lord Mayor o’ Lunnon! Grown ups a penny, childer ’arf price! Step up all! The band will play! ’Ere you are, now! Tickets over there!” My tenth birthday marked the end of my boyish, merry play-life. Over its threshold I was to meet with and grasp the calloused hand of Labor. Not the labor which keeps a healthy lad from mischief or loafing, not the labor of mere thrift, but the more forbidding form of it; the labor from which strong men cringe in dread, the labor from which men often seek escape by self-inflicted death, the labor of sweat, of tears, of pitiless autocracy--the labor of Necessity! And necessity, which is not induced by reasonable and excusable circumstances, nor is the result of a mere mistaken judgment of events, such as comes through unskilled business acumen or an overconfidence in a friend’s advice, but the necessity which is rooted in carelessness, squandering, drunkenness. For in that tenth year of my life, what had appeared to be the strong walls of my uncle’s house collapsed utterly. The undermining had been unseen, unthought of. In that year the parlors of the “Linnet’s Nest” and “The Blue Sign” saw more of my uncle than they had previously. His piano-playing and his flute solos formed an almost continuous performance from early afternoon until late at night. When he started out to peddle his fish, he would stop Bob in front of the “Linnet’s Nest” and forget his customers until I went and reminded him. The public-house tills began to draw the money that came to uncle’s from his peddling, his shop, and the interest from his bank account. But the money loss was trivial in comparison with the loss of what little business initiative or inclination he had possessed. He soon became unfit to order fish from Manchester. His former customers could not depend upon him. Uncle Stanwood had become a confirmed drunkard. Previous to this, in spite of the incompatibility of temper between uncle and aunt, there had always been a little breath of peace around our fender, but now it fled, and the house was filled with nervous bickerings, hiccoughs, and piggish snortings. The temple of man that had been so imperfectly built was henceforth profaned. The fluent words passed, and an incoherent gurgle took their place. The intelligent gleam grew dim in those sad grey eyes. The firm strides which had indicated not a little pride became senile, tottering, childish. There was written over the lintels of our door: “Lost, A Man.”