rer,
rendered them quite as popular, if not so instructive, as their modern
successors.

The success of a panorama, however, depended largely upon the person
who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the
good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well,
and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other
hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures,
the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate to express their
dissatisfaction, and the exhibition was apt to close with a riot.

All this was well known to Cap'n Cod; but twenty years of absence from
the stage had caused him to lose sight of his first and only
humiliating appearance before an audience, and had restored all his
youthful confidence in his own abilities. He was therefore to be the
lecturer of his own show, while Winn and Solon were to enter the
treadmill, and supply, as well as they could, the place of a mule in
furnishing power to move the heavy roll of paintings. Sabella was also
to remain out of sight, but was to grind out music from the hand-organ
whenever it might be needed. This was only a temporary position, and
would be filled by either Winn or Solon after a mule had been obtained
for the treadmill. Sabella's real duty was to dress Don Blossom, and
see that he went on the stage at the proper time.

The hour for giving these arrangements a public test finally arrived.
By eight o'clock the exhibition hall of the _Whatnot_ was packed with
an audience that contained a number of raftsmen and steamboat hands
from the water-front. These were good-naturedly noisy, and indulged in
cat-calls, stampings, and other manifestations of their impatience for
the curtain to rise. An occasional lull in the tumult allowed the
droning notes of the "Sweet By-and-By," then new and extremely popular,
to be heard, as they were slowly ground out from the hand-organ by the
invisible Sabella.

At length they ceased; the little drop-curtain was slowly rolled up so
as to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in all
the glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on the
stage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almost
painful in its contrast with the previous tumult.

Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared so
carefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He stepped
forward, and gazed ap