ke advantage of his
opportunity. There was a negro in attendance at Griffith's Hotel, on
Wood Street, named Cuff,--an exquisite specimen of his sort,--who won a
precarious subsistence by letting his open mouth as a mark for boys to
pitch pennies into, at three paces, and by carrying the trunks of
passengers from the steamboats to the hotels. Cuff was precisely the
subject for Rice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him to accompany
the actor to the theatre, where he was led through the private entrance,
and quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the play, Rice, having
shaded his own countenance to the "contraband" hue, ordered Cuff to
disrobe, and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off apparel. When
the arrangements were complete, the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an
old coat forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes composed equally of
patches and places for patches on his feet, and wearing a coarse straw
hat in a melancholy condition of rent and collapse over a dense black
wig of matted moss, waddled into view. The extraordinary apparition
produced an instant effect. The crash of peanuts ceased in the pit, and
through the circles passed a murmur and a bustle of liveliest
expectation. The orchestra opened with a short prelude, and to its
accompaniment Rice began to sing, delivering the first line by way of
introductory recitative:--

"O, Jim Crow's come to town, as you all must know,
An' he wheel about, he turn about, he do jis so,
An' ebery time he wheel about he jump Jim Crow."

The effect was electric. Such a thunder of applause as followed was
never heard before within the shell of that old theatre. With each
succeeding couplet and refrain the uproar was renewed, until presently,
when the performer, gathering courage from the favorable temper of his
audience, ventured to improvise matter for his distiches from familiarly
known local incidents, the demonstrations were deafening.

Now it happened that Cuff, who meanwhile was crouching in dishabille
under concealment of a projecting _flat_ behind the performer, by some
means received intelligence, at this point, of the near approach of a
steamer to the Monongahela Wharf. Between himself and others of his
color in the same line of business, and especially as regarded a certain
formidable competitor called Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in
the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of
an undisputed descen