o go to the hotel. Three dollars for
a mile and a half. A mere trifle.

[Illustration: EVERY ONE HAS THE GRIPPE.]

It was pouring with rain. New York on a Sunday is never very gay. To-day
the city seemed to me horrible: dull, dirty, and dreary. It is not the
fault of New York altogether. I have the spleen. A horribly stormy
passage, the stomach upside down, the heart up in the throat, the
thought that my dear ones are three thousand miles away, all these
things help to make everything look black. It would have needed a
radiant sun in one of those pure blue skies that North America is so
rich in to make life look agreeable and New York passable to-day.

In ten minutes cabby set me down at the Everett House. After having
signed the register, I went and looked up my manager, whose bureau is on
the ground floor of the hotel.

The spectacle which awaited me was appalling.

There sat the unhappy Major Pond in his office, his head bowed upon his
chest, his arms hanging limp, the very picture of despair.

The country is seized with a panic. Everybody has the influenza. Every
one does not die of it, but every one is having it. The malady is not
called influenza over here, as it is in Europe. It is called "Grippe."
No American escapes it. Some have _la grippe_, others have _the grippe_,
a few, even, have _the la grippe_. Others, again, the lucky ones, think
they have it. Those who have not had it, or do not think they have it
yet, are expecting it. The nation is in a complete state of
demoralization. Theaters are empty, business almost suspended, doctors
on their backs or run off their legs.

At twelve a telegram is handed to me. It is from my friend, Wilson
Barrett, who is playing in Philadelphia. "Hearty greetings, dear friend.
Five grains of quinine and two tablets of antipyrine a day, or you get
_grippe_." Then came many letters by every post. "Impossible to go and
welcome you in person. I have _la grippe_. Take every precaution." Such
is the tenor of them all.

The outlook is not bright. What to do? For a moment I have half a mind
to call a cab and get on board the first boat bound for Europe.

I go to my room, the windows of which overlook Union Square. The sky is
somber, the street is black and deserted, the air is suffocatingly
warm, and a very heavy rain is beating against the windows.

Shade of Columbus, how I wish I were home again!

* * * * *

Cheer up, boy, the hand-grasps