“When the director made the announcement on the stage that I would be called to play the leading role and the entire company should stay for two rehearsals, Dollie ‘went up in the air.’ She flew into a rage, then into hysterics, for she was supposed to be the next girl up. “She left the theater in a rage; the next day at noon, I received a note from Prof. Riggles, telling me to come to a certain number on the south side. I went and was let into a handsomely furnished flat, by a colored maid. I found the Prof. in bed with a bullet hole in his arm. He explained to me how he had been held up the night before. It was a week before he could attend to his duties, meantime, I continued to take the leading role each day, not because I loved him, but from a point of appreciation I took many of the flowers which I received the night previous and arranged them in his room. One day I asked him where his wife was. “‘Oh, over on the west side,’ he said. “‘But had you not better go home?’ “‘No, not until the measly arm gets good. You see, Althy, I am in New York now, working on a new piece.’ “Presents of every form and description poured in upon me; I was wined and dined; poor little simpering fool, I thought it was life. Men insisted on paying my bills; I received money as tokens of kindness. “So great was the line of my gifts, that on each pay-day I was able to send my mother all my salary. Silk from the skin out, my head adorned with the most exquisite Parisian creations, and some blithering idiot always at my heels. Is it any wonder my head was turned? “When the Prof. recovered he told me that the apartment in which I had visited him was to be my home; my breath almost failed me, but the arrangements were quickly made, then there was a long series of late dinners in my flat; no home had more luxuries; I received many callers. It was not until this had been going on for three months that I was awakened, then I got a letter from Dollie. She was living in a house in a disreputable part of the city; she told me it was she who had shot the Prof., ‘and if you knew,’ she said, ‘that old Rig. gets from five to fifty dollars from every one he introduces to you, you would make him divide. You need not think he gets all he spends on you from his salary.’ “Of course I did not believe it. She closed by saying that the home I now occupied had once been her own, and of course, I, in time, must give up to some one else, ‘for you will grow tired of being his dog, and you had as well come where I am.’