Now it happened in the course of our wanderings that, from motives of curiosity, charity, and advertisement combined, we always visited the state-prisons which chanced to be in our route, and sang and played to the prisoners, generally while they were assembled at dinner. And I may add here, by way of parenthesis, that never elsewhere have I witnessed so wonderful an illustration of the power of music as greeted us on such occasions. Hundreds would change from laughter to tears, and from tears to laughter again, as the song or strain was merry or sad. Two or three weeks before the time of Mr. Booker’s story we had, he says, visited one of these prisons, and we had all become very much interested in the case of a handsome young fellow who had just been brought there for some crime committed while under the influence of liquor. As soon as I heard the young lady’s name, I remembered all about this unfortunate young fellow; and, especially, that he bore the same surname and came originally from that very town, although he had been convicted in another State. I found by inquiry that she, the handsome young lady, and life of the whole company, was the sister of the criminal. It was very plain that she had not yet heard of her brother’s misfortune. Then, according to Mr. Booker’s account, I obtained an introduction to her; and, boy-like, in the honest but inconsiderate delight of being the first to bear her news which she, doubtless, would want to hear, I said,--“Miss Brown, Miss Brown, your brother’s in the penitentiary!” The young lady swooned, of course, and was borne home by her friends. Mr. Booker always adds, at this place, that I ought to have been taken out and thrashed,--an opinion in which I should agree heartily if I did not doubt the truth of the whole story. CHAPTER VI. “THE MITCHELLS.” During the time I was waiting for another engagement I wandered to a large Western city, and took board in a respectable private family. There were three unmarried daughters in this household, the youngest of whom could not, I think, have been less than twenty-six years old. Notwithstanding the disparity of our ages, my memory is very much at fault if I was not in love with all three of these ladies at once. Nothing else, at least, could account to me now for the regularity with which I conducted this mature trio to theatres and concerts. From their readiness to go four and five evenings a week, I am also led to conclude that they individually and collectively encouraged my suit. What names these three weird sisters bore, and how they looked, are matters which have long since escaped me; but the alacrity with which they would go to ice-cream saloons in the afternoon, or to places of amusement in the evening, at my expense, made such an impression on my purse at the time that I have not forgotten it, as you see, to this day.