the
front of the house, but I would rather lay it at your feet here."

He then, to my great amazement, proceeded to spread out my satin
train for me with a dexterity so remarkable that I asked him where
he had served his apprenticeship. "Oh, at Court," said he, "at the
drawing-rooms, where I have spread out and gathered up oceans of
silk and satin, thousands of yards more than a counter-gentleman at
Swan and Edgar's." He certainly had learned his business very well.

After leaving Dublin I entered into an arrangement with my cousin,
Charles Mason, to become my agent, and make my engagements for me,
undertaking the necessary correspondence with the managers who
employed me, and looking after my money transactions with them for
me. I stood greatly in need of some such assistance, being quite
incompetent to the management of any business, and ignorant of all
the usual modes of proceeding in theatrical affairs, to a degree
that rendered it highly probable that my interests would suffer
severely from my ignorance. My cousin, however, only rendered me
this service for a very short time, as he left England for America
soon after he undertook it; after which I reverted to my former
condition of comparative helplessness, making my contracts with my
employers as well as I could, and protecting myself from loss, and
keeping out of troublesome complications and disputes, by the light
of what natural reason and rectitude I possessed; always making my
engagements by the night, and thus limiting any possible loss I
might sustain or inflict upon my employers, to my salary and their
receipts, for one performance. I also reduced my written
transactions to the very fewest and briefest communications
possible, with my various theatrical correspondents, and have more
than once had occasion to observe that precision, conciseness, and a
rigid adherence to mere statements of terms, times, and purely
indispensable details of business, were not the distinguishing
features of the letters of most of the men of business with whom I
corresponded.]

QUEEN'S HOTEL, BIRMINGHAM, Saturday, May 29th.
MY DEAR HAL,

How did you get through that dreary time after we parted? I did so
repent not having left some of my "good angels," my flowers, with you;
for though you do not care for them as I do, I lo