aniel and his friends were fairer and fatter than
the children who ate their portion of meat was that they ate only pulse
(Daniel i. 12-15). These are all of his Scriptural arguments which I now
recall; but I thought them very ingenious at the time.

The argument took some time. Then he recited one or two pieces bearing
on the same subject, closing with Byron's Lines to his Newfoundland Dog.

"In connection with that poem," he continued, "a singular event once
happened to me. I was acting in Petersburg, Virginia. My theatrical
engagement was just concluded, and I dined with a party of friends
one afternoon before going away. We sat after dinner, singing songs,
reciting poetry, and relating anecdotes. At last I recited those lines
of Byron on his dog. I was sitting by the fireplace, my feet resting
against the jamb, and a single candle was burning on the mantel. It had
become dark. Just as I came to the end of the poem,--

"'To mark a friend's remains these stones arise,
I never knew but one, and here he lies,'--

"my foot slipped down the jamb, and struck a _dog_, who was lying
beneath. The dog sprang up, howled, and ran out of the room, and at the
same moment the candle went out. I asked whose dog it was. No one knew.
No one had seen the dog till that moment. Perhaps you will smile at me,
Sir, and think me superstitious,--but I could not but think that the
animal was brought there by _occult sympathy_."

Having uttered these oracular words in a very solemn tone, Booth rose,
and, taking one of the candles, said to me, "Would you like to look at
the remains?"

I assented. Asking our silent friend to excuse us, he led me into an
adjoining chamber. I looked toward a bed in the corner of the room,
expecting to see a corpse. There was none there. But Booth went to
another corner of the room, where, spread out upon a large sheet, I
saw--what do you suppose, dear reader?

_About a bushel of Wild Pigeons!_

Booth knelt down by the side of the birds, and with every evidence of
sincere affliction began to mourn over them. He took them up in his
hands tenderly, and pressed them to his heart. For a few moments he
seemed to forget my presence. For this I was glad, for it gave me a
little time to recover from my astonishment, and to consider rapidly
what it might mean. As I look back now, and think of the oddity of
the situation, I rather wonder at my own self-possession. It was a
sufficiently trying position. At first I