Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/29

 York the very first year! I was so triumphant, so gay—and it was then that I offered to go back and live with my people. Think of what it must have cost to make the offer, for I was sure—oh, so sure!—they would want me, and I didn't—I couldn't want to go!

"So when summer was over I went to New York, full of the part I was to sing, and so happy and eager to have people like me and be a success. And then troubles began. It seemed that nobody had a clear title to the new opera, and there were disputes and litigations, and finally the manager washed his hands of the whole thing and put on a play instead. But there was no part in it for me, and by that time winter was half over, and I could not get any work. I went from manager to manager, and the high and mighty ones I could not even get to see, and the others had no place for me, and I could not get any other kind of work to do that I could do. And I had no money—no money, nothing to pawn, no one to turn to. Do you know I thought, then, of