I mention this kindly old gentleman again in the present connection because he suffered a great deal from my early _penchant_ to perform the clog-dance on the thin deck above his state-room. It is unnecessary to repeat here the eager and emphatic remonstrances which the good captain would make when I had inadvertently seized the occasion of his “watch below” to shuffle him out of a profound sleep. But, I may remark in passing, I have never known any one who regarded everything about negro-minstrelsy with so little reverence or admiration. It could not have been long after my interview with Messrs. Ford and Kunkel when my landlady gave me warning to take myself and banjo and obstreperous feet out of her house. With some difficulty, however, I found another place to board, where the plastering of the apartment below mine was proof against the coppers on my heels and the complicated shuffles of “Juba.” For a month or two more I continued to go to school, devoting only my spare hours to minstrelsy. I should, no doubt, have abandoned my studies much sooner than I did, had it not been for a love-affair which for a while divided my attentions with my banjo. My Dulcinea was a red-cheeked little creature in a check apron. I had a rival, in the same school with us, whom I vanquished by an unfair and lavish expenditure of my superior wealth. I used to get up foot-races for pennies in which I contrived that her little brother should always beat and carry off the rewards. This was for a time effectual. My rival was completely ousted, and my two absorbing affections joined hands, as I may say figuratively, when the young lady and I met after school, in her father’s wood-shed, and I played “Jordan” for her on the banjo. She may have tired of my music, since that one tune executed mechanically was the alpha and omega of my repertory; or she may have tired of me,--I cannot speak definitely. If I had ever essayed to accompany the instrument with my voice, it would have been different. Then I never should have forgiven myself, and I could have forgiven her, after the _dénouement_ which closed her heart and her father’s wood-shed to me forever. For, in the course of a few brief weeks, a taller and much handsomer boy than either my former rival or myself took the little miss away from us both. * * * * * In my disgust, I left school and devoted all the energies of my blighted spirit to minstrelsy. I organized a band of boys into a troupe, styling them the “Young Metropolitans,” and appointing myself musical director, though I knew no more of music than of chemistry. I spent my money for instruments for the company, and for furniture to deck the room in which we met for rehearsal. The musical instruments, however, were the least of the expense, since these consisted, if I well recollect, of the banjo before mentioned, three sets of bones, a tambourine, a triangle, and an accordion.