Page:When the movies were young - Arvidson - 1925.djvu/20

 page, until in his last days knickerbockers with fancy buckles adorned his shrinking limbs, and the powdered hair became a periwig. He became known as "The Last Leaf."

A bachelor, he could indulge in what hobbies he liked. He got much out of life. He had a cool cellar built for the claret, and a sun room for the Madeira. In his impressive reception room he gathered his cronies, opened up his claret and Madeira, the while he matched his game-cocks, and the bets were high. Even when the master became very old and ill, and was alone in his mansion with his faithful old servant, Scipio, there were still the rooster fights. But now they were held upstairs in the master's bedroom. Scipio was allowed to bet a quarter against the old man's twenty-dollar note, and no matter how high the stakes piled, or who won, the pot in these last days always went to Scipio.

And so "The Last Leaf" lived and died.

Then in due time the old brownstone became the home of another picturesque character, Colonel Rush C. Hawkins of the Hawkins Zouaves of the Civil War.

Dignified days, when the family learned the world's news from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper and the New York Tribune, and had Peter Goelet and Moses Taylor for millionaire neighbors. For their entertainment they went to Laura Keene's New Theatre, saw Joe Jefferson, and Lotta; went to the Academy of Music, heard Patti and Clara Louise Kellogg; heard Emma Abbott in concert; and rode on horseback up Fifth Avenue to the Park.

Of an evening, in the spacious ballroom whose doors have since opened to Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, and Mack Sennett, the youths, maidens and young matrons in the soft, flickering light of the astral lamp and snowy candle, danced the modest cotillon and stately quadrille, the