Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/47

Rh me last," he answered, pointing to his legs. It was the fireman of the Mobile and Ohio passenger train, a son of the dead engineer.

I was back on Broadway at twenty-three, my patrimony gone. There still was ample time for a glorious career at law, which should have by this time, let us hope, made me Mr. Justice Hopper. My friends and relatives pointed out the follies of my ways, even mapped them with the care of a topographical engineer. Had I been in a mood to listen, which I was not, of course, my empty pockets would have spoken forcefully enough without any supporting arguments. A young man may have some doubts of his fitness for running a restaurant, for example, after four losing years and bankruptcy, but no succession of disasters in the theater has yet given one actor or actress pause for thought. And if one is to lose a fortune, there is no better age than twenty-three.

So the next season found me in the Harrigan and Hart Company at their theater at Eighth and Broadway, playing the young hero in "The Blackbird." This engagement had no significance in itself, but it marked the forking of the roads for me. Annie Louise Cary, then one of the finest contralto voices in America, was