After Handy had complacently smoked a pipeful of Fogg's tobacco he laid the comforter aside and started in one of those characteristic chapters of incidents to be found scattered here and there on the pathway of nearly every player who amounts to anything either at home or abroad.

"You may remember that a few years ago I got together a company with a view to endeavor to enlighten as well as to instruct the public of the so-called wild and woolly West."

"Yes."

"Part of the company I picked up here, the remainder I managed to scrape together in Chicago. Times were not good; actors were easily had, and were willing to take long chances on the prospects of even getting bread and butter. Please don't take me too literally. They were well aware of the fact that if the money came in they would surely get their share. All who know me are pretty well satisfied on that score. Deal squarely with the people about you, is my maxim, and they will stand by you when the pinch comes. I have gone on that principle all through my varied career and I know the benefit of what I speak."

"Yes; all things considered," replied Fogg, "you have been on the Square."

"Good! You're improving! Well, as I was saying, I got my company together and set out. We opened in Denver. Did fairly well; pushed on still further. Struck bad business, and at the end of a couple of weeks landed high and dry on Saturday night in a far Western town—No need of mentioning names."

"As soon as that—two weeks?"

"Just two weeks. Oh, don't affect surprise. I've known companies to go where the woodbine twineth on the third night out. There is nothing new in that. Well, the night I have reference to was so bad, that is the receipts were so slender, that we didn't take in money enough to pay for the gas, and remember we were under contract to play the following Monday in a city not more than fifty miles or so away."

"Well, you had all Sunday and most of Monday to get there, and keep your date. There's nothing in that," remarked Fogg, with a smile.

"Very true; but, my optimistic friend, permit me to inform you that my company was not solely made up of pedestrians, and, moreover, walking in midwinter as a rule is not good. So you may readily recognize I was in a perplexing predicament. After I glanced over the box office statement I hardly knew where I was at. As I thought the situation over before me arose the stern reality of a large-sized board bill, for bear in mind I had guaranteed to pay the traveling and hotel bills of the company. Hotelkeepers are such matter-of-fact and precise individuals in their peculiar ways of dealings that it is difficult for those of empty pockets to get along pleasantly with them."

"Absurdly so," admitted Fogg.

"Pleased to hear you say so, but then, my boy, you never ran a hotel."

"No, but I kept the books of a traveling politician one season!"

"You did?"

"Fact."

"You weren't traveling with a show?"

"Nit, I was attending political conventions."

"Oh, that settles it. That was a dead easy job. The party put up the dough and the public in the end pays the score. That's another proposition altogether. But the poor player who—well, no matter. No use in becoming sentimental or spoony about it. Now, own up, my position was unpleasantly embarrassing, wasn't it?"

"It was not exhilarating."

"No. There was nothing cheering about it. However, I put on no long face, though between ourselves I wished some other fellow stood in my shoes."

"How considerate for the other fellow!"

"Well," continued Handy, "that's neither here nor there, but I made up my mind to get out of that town bag and baggage and keep my date Monday night, all the samee."

"I admire your pluck."

"Pluck? Nothing of the kind. Pluck had nothing to do with the case. It was tact and resource that came to my assistance. Season your admiration for a moment and I'll give you a wrinkle worth remembering. After a bite and a snack I went to bed, not to worry, but to sleep. Let me say, by way of comment, that a few hours' rest is a powerful rejuvenator. You can do much better work in the morning after a good night's sleep than if you had passed weary hours tossing and tumbling about in bemoaning your hard luck and picturing to yourself what might have been if you had done so and so. All rot. Let the other fellow do the worrying. Remember, my boy, the past is irreclaimable, the present the life we are struggling in, and the future what we make it, or rather try to make it."

"Handy, I had no idea you were such a philosopher!"

"Indeed! Well, experience teaches me to be practical," replied the veteran, "and I trust I may be able to prove to you the truth of what I say. As I told you, I retired to my bed to sleep, and sleep I did, as soundly as if I owned one-half the town and had a mortgage on the other half. Next morning I got up refreshed and with a good appetite for breakfast. After the morning's meal I settled myself down to the enjoyment of a cigar. At that stage of the game I could not afford to be seen smoking a pipe. Never give your poverty away to the world unless you can make final disposition of it. Then came the real task—the crisis."

"The tug of war, eh?"

"Just so. The tug of war, so to speak. I braced the landlord! I invited him to take a chair beside me and began the siege."

"Commenced operations. Fire away."

"I had already made a study of the man, and had well considered my plan of attack. I opened by telling him frankly I was in trouble. The week's business had been bad, receipts next door to nothing, my share slim. To make a long story short, I confessed I could not settle my bill."

"That must have been an interesting communication for mine host of the inn. How did he take it?"

"Well, his reception of the information somewhat surprised me. I anticipated a storm; but no. He was perfectly calm. I waited for a reply, but he simply remarked, 'Well?' I then enlarged on my ill-luck, bad business, terrible weather, and wound up with a pathetic story of our situation. 'Well,' he again exclaimed, 'I will hold the baggage and stuff until you can settle up.'"

"The old, old story," plaintively exclaimed Fogg.

"I felt that was coming, but I also judged from the manner of that decision, cold as it was in all the integrity of its meaning, that I had a practical man to deal with. Take my word for it, Fogg, it is always better to have business dealings with a man of that type than with one who, while he loads you up with sympathy to beat the band, doesn't mean a word of it. To settle there and then for board and get our things out of quarantine was out of the question; to attempt to play our next stand without our 'props' and things was equally difficult."

"Of course, but then," said Fogg, "hotelkeepers never take these things into consideration."

"No, never. 'Mr. Breadland'—that was his name—'I have a proposition to make,' said I, 'and as you seem to be a practical man, you will, I have an idea, recognize its practicability. The situation is this: I owe you money. The amount I am unable to pay just now. You say you propose to hold on to the baggage belonging to the company as security for the debt.'

"'You state the case precisely,' said he.

"'Now, then,' I continued, 'the stuff you propose to seize you don't want, and you only mean to hold the things as security for the payment of the board bill—an honest debt.' He nodded his head while he scrutinized me closely. 'Now, what would you say if I could point out a way to you by which you could still have security for the indebtedness, I could have the baggage and things, and you get the money owing to you?'

"'My friend,' said he, 'I don't want to hold your stuff. It's no earthly use to me. I only want the coin that's due me. If you can show or point out to me any feasible plan by which that end may be reached, I rather think you and I may come to terms.'

"'I guess I can. To be sure it may cause you personally some little inconvenience for a few days, but the scheme will work out all right.'

"'Let me hear it,' says he, looking me squarely in the face.

"It is this: We are billed to play Monday night in Bungtown. The chances are we will have a big house for the opening. We stay there three nights. Now, then, my proposition is that you send your clerk along with the company; I will place him in the box office, where he will have control of the receipts, and each night after the show is over he can take for you a percentage of the share coming to me, and continue to do so at each performance until your bill is all paid. How does it strike you?' Well, sir, it set that countryman a-thinking and pulling his whiskers so vigorously that I feared his goatee would give way. I knew almost to a dead certainty that I had won. The man, Fogg, who hesitates gives way in the end, always.

"Breadland reflected a minute, then spoke out: 'I'll do it,' he said. ''Tis about the easiest and safest way of getting hunk.'

"'One thing more, Mr. Breadland,' I added, when I felt satisfied that luck was running my way.

"'What is it?' he inquired.

"'The hotel bill, as you are aware, is made out to cover all charges up to and including lunch to-day. After the train which leaves here at three this afternoon there is none other until to-morrow forenoon, and as the company has done a deal of traveling and the people are pretty well tuckered out, a day's rest and a good night's sleep would not be amiss, and it would enable us to give a rattling good performance to-morrow night.'

"'I agree with you,' he replied.

"I thought so, but perhaps I didn't make myself as clear as I might. Your good nature, however, emboldens me to respectfully suggest'—and this I said in the most tender and convincing manner I could employ—'that for the sake of art and good fellowship, for this little extra hospitality you make no addition to the hotel bill. Let it stand as it is.'"

"What!" exclaimed Fogg, in open-mouthed wonder. "Did he show you the door?"

"Not a bit of it. I told you he was a plain, practical kind of cuss, with a tender spot in his heart. He looked at me with a calm, queer, but not mischievous twinkle in his eye. I stood the gaze with the most innocent assumption of impudence, waiting for the verdict. It came in a moment, accompanied with a hearty laugh as he said: 'By jingo, you deserve to get ahead! You won't fail for want of nerve. It's your long suit. I'll have to go you,' or words to that effect. 'Come,' he said, rising from his chair, 'I'll blow you off,' and he led the way to the bar."

"You don't mean to say he stood treat into the bargain?" asked Fogg, in surprise.

"Sure; like a prince, he did; and what's more, he made the remainder of the day as pleasant as if every member of the company was a first-floorer, paying bridal-party rates.

"That little episode made me very solid with my company. They knew the actual condition of the exchequer, for obvious reasons, and wondered how I was able to make things all right without the necessary wherewithal. That's management, my boy. They never considered for the life of them, that three-fourths or more of the business of the world is managed and conducted on credit and promises to pay. I was merely working out the principle in my own little bit of a way. So the day passed agreeably. The people knew that everything in the hotel was all right and that I had the railroad fares snugly stowed away in my inside pocket."