SPEARE'S PLAYS.

One night he approached his friend and announced that the die was cast,
and that he should become an actor. Nothing could be worse than he was
doing. Absolutely no business paid less than eight dollars per week,
unless it were his own itself which had paid him seven dollars. It was a
summer month. A theatre was empty. A dramatic agent had agreed to get up
a company and run the place a week. It would require only twenty-five
dollars from the young man. He would then be a sharer in the profits,
would be given a minor part in the cast of characters, and would
thereafter be secured

AN ENGAGEMENT WITH JOHN M'CULLOUGH

or John Raymond at about fifteen dollars a week. The dramatic agent was
to have ten dollars from the first week's salary of the regular
engagement. As he was working at absolutely bottom figures (board
usually costing at least six dollars a week) and as he was skillful at
his business, and could command work at all times if he were willing to
work for his board, the young man thought he was not very rash in making
an attempt, and yet it seemed to the friend of the young man like the
memorable jump of the fish out of the frying-pan. The difficulty of
going back to work after a failure was entirely overlooked. The young
man paid his twenty-five dollars, absolutely the frugal hoard of six
months of toil, got a leave of absence for three weeks, and studied all
one week, meanwhile eating five dollars' worth of very poor board.

HE "ACTED" THROUGH THE WEEK

up to Thursday, when the company failed to pay in advance for the gas,
and it was shut off. He spent the next two or three days preparing
himself for a part in "The Gilded Age." On the second night the "heavy
man," Raymond, became enraged at the manner in which this part was
borne, and demanded that the character be given into the hands of
another person. This was the finishing stroke. The young man stayed at
"home" for three days, and on Friday night went to see his more
fortunate associate. To his friend, who perhaps saw things in a
prejudiced light, it seemed like a conspiracy to make good the dramatic
agent's word of promise--to keep it to the ear and break it to the hope.

THE YOUNG MAN'S MONEY WAS GONE,

he was in debt for three weeks' board, and he had been ruthlessly and
ignominiously branded with failure. He reverted to Brutus at Philippi,
to Cato, and he was nearly on the verge of suicide. It may be that the
cheering words