down of the curtain, for there
was no manuscript to guide him.

Truly it had been a most humiliating spectacle. Many weeks later, when
stoves were going up, the men discovered that someone had torn away the
tin protector from the stove-pipe hole in Mr. Ellsler's room, and when
they were replacing it they found, crammed tightly into a narrow space
between the lath and plastering of the two rooms, the velvet garments of
_Louis XI._, even to the cap with the leaden images. How he had
discovered the place no one knows, and when his rage had passed he could
not remember what he had done, but he could play _Louis_ no more that
season.

We were always pleased when Mr. Couldock was accompanied by his daughter.
Eliza Couldock, bearing an absurdly marked resemblance to her father, of
course could not be pretty. The thin, curly hair, the fixed frown, the
deep lines of nose and mouth, the square, flat figure, all made of her a
slightly softened _replica_ of the old gentleman. Her teeth were pretty,
though, and her hazel eyes were very brilliant. She was well read,
clever, and witty, and her affectionate devotion to her father knew no
bounds; yet as she had a keen sense of the ridiculous, no eccentricity,
no _grotesquerie_ of his escaped her laughing, hawk-keen eye, and
sometimes when talking to old friends, like Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler, she
would tell tales of "poor pa" that were exceedingly funny.

They went to California--a great undertaking then, as the Pacific
Railroad was not completed, and they were most unsuccessful during their
entire stay here. Eliza told one day of how a certain school-principal in
'Frisco had met her father after a performance to a miserable house, and
with frightful bad taste had asked Mr. Couldock how he accounted for the
failure of his engagement, and that gentleman snarled out: "I don't try
to account for it at all! I leave that work for the people who ask fool
questions. If I only have one d----n cent in my pocket I don't try to
account for not having another d----n cent to rub against it!" And Eliza
added, in pained tones: "that principal had meant to ask 'poor pa' to
come and speak to the dear little boys in his school, but after that he
didn't--wasn't it odd?"

As Mr. Couldock was heard approaching that morning, his daughter quickly
whispered to Mrs. Ellsler: "Ask pa how he liked California?"

And after "good-mornings" were exchanged, the question was put, and
incidentally the red rag brought t