It isn't necessary for me to tell how I drifted into the burnt-cork profession, but I tell you, after my preliminary experience of life without burnt cork, I was glad enough when I could march up to the manager's office and get my fifteen dollars a week for amusing my masters, the public. And I was always in such a hurry to get my money—we were paid Saturday night, after the performance—that I didn't wait to wash the burnt cork off before dropping in for the three five-dollar notes which I was certain to get; for old Sam Stacker, God bless him! was full of cranks, and always had a particular way of paying us.

Now I can't say I was a brilliant performer. I never reached the dignity of interlocutor, to say nothing of the envied height of Bones or the end man. I just stood a good way back, and pretended to play on the 'cello—I couldn't play a note, and was nothing but a dummy, but I could sing pretty well. I remember how when I came to the front I used to bring the house down with "The Nightingale." I was great on sentimental songs. Sam Stacker used to say I was a good all-round man. I was quick at figures—Sam wasn't—and I helped him out in his accounts. Then I could talk to the theatre managers and write them letters. I had had some education and bringing up in my pre-Sam Stacker days, and so somehow I stayed on with the company, and saw it expand from a small variety show into a first-class minstrel performance, and old Sam always said it never would have come to that if it hadn't been for me. Of course my salary was raised after a while, and I got to putting some of it away for a rainy day.

Well, as I said, except as a singer, I wasn't good for much at first, but after a while I got to singing first-rate. I took a few lessons now and then, and I learned to sing falsetto. I was boyish looking, although I was twenty-five years old, and I used to come out dressed in a low-necked pink silk gown, with my hair all curled up, and a bunch of puffs on the top of my head and a fan in my hand, and sing Il Bacio and the Magnetic Waltz, as well as plenty of women concert singers, so the people said. Those curls, though, on the top of my head, used to bother me dreadfully. It took Sam and me a good quarter of an hour to get them in place, and Sam invariably swore like a pirate during the operation. All the time I was singing I was thinking about my back hair.

For a long time a notion had been in my head to bring out something original in the show. All minstrel shows are alike, and I couldn't for the life of me hit on anything that Sam Stacker didn't say, "Oh, I seen that down in Tennessee in '58," or "That there thing was introduced in New Orleens along about '61," or something discouraging of the kind. At last I did hit upon something. It's old enough now, but it was new then.

The first thing I wanted to find was a fellow about my size and general appearance. He wasn't easy to find. Some of them were as tall as I, but too broad; some were just my shape, but too tall. At last I found him. He was pretty nearly my double by the time we had made up alike. He was exactly five feet seven—my height to a dot—and we were the same shape and size, and the calves of our legs looked as if we were twin brothers. This was a great point, because it was very important that our legs should resemble each other—and the resemblance was startling. Sometimes I could hardly tell which pair belonged to him and which to me, but it was all one, as they were both remarkably fine-looking pairs of legs, particularly in white silk tights and red silk stockings.

He was a pleasant fellow, too. His first name was Ted, and mine was Ned; our last names are unimportant—no matter about mine certainly—and we were advertised in the bills as

THE GREAT VALBELLA BROTHERS!!!
UnequaledGymnasts! ExquisiteClogDancers!

and a great deal else, which isn't worth putting down here. We certainly made a sensation the first night we appeared in our great specialty. It was in a big opera house, and every seat was filled; and immediately after the first part, "by the whole company," in which Ted and I had stood in the background, I sawing away on the big 'cello with a stop on it, and Ted making believe to blow the clarionet, both of us joining in the singing as occasion required, our turn came to appear.

We had rehearsed pretty well, and when the big curtain rolled up, and Ted and I bounded out on the stage dressed in a kind of jockey costume—white silk tights with red silk stockings, blue satin shirts with jockey caps of blue and red, and jockeys' whips in our hands—we both felt pretty cool. Then we began our clog dance. It was the finest kind of clog dancing, I will say, although I did part of it myself, and then we introduced a new feature, singing while the clogs rattled on the floor, and every muscle moving alike. Of course it took—the singing as much as the dancing—and the people hurrahed and clapped and shouted, and wouldn't leave off until we had gone over it three times, and the end man had come on the stage and asked permission for the other performers to go home and go to bed, as the audience seemed fully satisfied with the Valbella Brothers. Then they laughed, and we got back to our dressing-room, when old Sam Stacker stood ready to hug us both.

But it was at the last scene that our really great performance came off. I had a pretty hard time making Sam Stacker agree to the expense for this act, but as we were playing a two weeks' engagement, I finally bullied him into it. It required cutting away some of the flies temporarily, and putting in a twenty-foot-square skylight over the stage. This skylight opened in two sections, and after our second appearance, more clog dancing and more scientific ground-tumbling, a big red balloon descended slowly from the roof. At the bottom of this was a double trapeze, and as soon as the balloon came within reach the Valbella Brothers sprang up—we had to get rid of some weights pretty cleverly to make the balloon rise, because we couldn't manage the sand-bags commonly used—grabbed at the trapeze, and performed the double-trapeze act while the great illuminated balloon rose slowly in the air up—up, up, through the roof. Of course on the outside two or three fellows stood on the roof, and we threw them a rope with which they held on to the balloon while we jumped off; and then the gas was let out, and the balloon folded up and laid away for the next day, because after the first night we had to give two performances—one in the afternoon and one in the evening—to satisfy the people, and then the "standing-room only" sign was out before the doors were opened.

Nothing like the applause on that first night was ever known before. The people yelled and stamped and shouted, and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs. After a considerable time had passed, Sam Stacker came to the foot-lights and made a speech. Sam never lost a chance of making a speech. He said the balloon couldn't rise more than six miles in the air, and neither one of the Valbella brothers could swim a stroke, and if we were killed he intended to support our wives and children during the rest of his natural life. We didn't either of us have a wife and children, but Sam didn't stick at a little thing like that. "Anything to advertise," was Sam's motto. "I'd let them durned newspapers say I choked my mother, beat the ladies in the company every time I got drunk, gambled on a coffin, and stole the cents off a dead man's eyes, just to get the 'ad.'" As Sam was the kindest, gentlest, softest-hearted old ruffian that ever lived, there was, unfortunately, no chance of any of this sort of thing being printed about him, and this grieved him sincerely. Meanwhile Ted and I were drinking ginger-pop behind the scenes, and hearing every word Sam was saying. Then Sam made his bow, and retired to find our mangled remains, according to his alleged anticipations; and finding us whole and sound, punishing the ginger beer, he led us before the curtain, and we received what the newspapers the next day called "a magnificent ovation." And old Sam Stacker almost cried with pleasure when he counted up the box receipts and took us up to his hotel and gave us champagne as if it was Apollinaris water.

I haven't said anything all this time about Jenny Hobbs, but she was a person of great importance to me just then. She was a dancer—we had quite a respectable ballet troupe with us that year. She wasn't the premiÈre danseuse, but she stood in the front row, and figured in the bills as Mlle. Celestine Buzac de la Montigny. Sam Stacker himself invented that name. He said it sounded fine. It certainly did. She had come to him one morning just before we started on the road and had asked for work. She was a modest little thing, like a plenty of other ballet girls I know; and I found out afterward she supported her bedridden sister and took care of her little brother out of her small wages. Sam was in a hurry, and told her I was his representative—a great way he had when he didn't want to be troubled with people; so I put Miss Jenny Hobbs through her paces, and saw she was a pretty good little dancer. We had as the premiÈre danseuse Mlle. Dagmar—I don't know what her name in private life was. She was a fine dancer, but a stupid creature, without any invention, and couldn't do anything she hadn't been taught; and in a company like ours, we wanted somebody who was equal to emergencies, which Dag—we called her that for short—wasn't. Jenny Hobbs was just that. She turned out a trump. Of course we couldn't bring her forward over Dag's nose, nor have her name very prominently billed; but she didn't seem to mind that, so long as she got an increase of wages, and something for her little brother to do along with the company; and she was worth all she got, and more too. She never put herself forward, but when Dagmar was ill, which at first was about twice a week regularly, she took her place, and did almost as well—so well in fact that it acted on Dag as the advertisements say Hop Bitters acts—it cured her right off of several chronic complaints of long standing, and from being ill half her time (though nobody would have suspected it from her robust appearance) she got able to dance six nights and two afternoons in the week the whole season, and never gave Jenny Hobbs another chance to take her place. Then Jenny used to suggest little alterations and improvements in the performance that Dagmar listened to readily enough, as it always brought her bouquets and applause, and Jenny actually made her think that Dagmar originated them herself.

Well, the night of our first ascent—it wasn't more than thirty-five feet—after the fellows who managed the balloon had got it anchored to the roof, and we had climbed down and had got back in the theatre and made our appearance before the foot-lights, and the curtain had been rung up and down half a dozen times, and at last the audience had dispersed, somebody inquired for Jenny—for, of course, nobody in the company ever thought of calling her by that ridiculous name Sam had given her. Just then her brother, little Jack Hobbs, tore upon the stage, yelling for somebody to go to Jenny. Of course there was a rush for her dressing-room, headed by Sam Stacker and Dag, with Ted and me following close behind. There lay Jenny on the floor in her tights and spangles, her head resting uncomfortably on a chair, and apparently in a dead faint. Nobody knew how long she had been there, as Jack, who always came to take his sister home after the performance, couldn't explain anything for sobbing and crying, except that after the balloon went up, and Sam Stacker came before the curtain and told that astounding lie about the balloon being six miles in the air, and made his magnificent offer to take care of our wives and children that didn't exist, Jenny had tumbled over, screaming, "Oh, Ted," or "Oh, Ned," Jack couldn't remember which. He hadn't been able to bring her to since. Sam slapped her hands, Dag loosened her dress, and I produced a brandy flask, which Ted was about to take out of my hand and put to her lips, but I preferred doing that myself, and quietly pushed him away while I supported her head and got a few drops of brandy between her teeth. In a few minutes of this vigorous treatment she recovered, did like all people coming out of a fainting fit—sat up, wondered where she was, had it all come back to her in a moment, and seizing Jack, began to cry hysterically. Jack yelled too, so we had a devil of a commotion for a while; but Sam, who had sublime common sense, put an end to it by calling a carriage, packing Dag and Jack and Jenny in it, and sending them off to Jenny's lodgings. Then we went to Sam's hotel and got the champagne before mentioned.

But somehow, although Sam and the other fellows—we got together a lot of them—toasted us as the Valbella Brothers, and commended forever our fraternal alliance, we didn't feel like brothers. We had been the best of friends, but that little blubbering rascal Jack Hobbs had planted something in our hearts that grew like Jonah's gourd. Which was it, Ted or Ned, that Jenny Hobbs had fainted about when we went through the roof hanging on to each other by our teeth, our legs, and everything except our hands, and doing the double-trapeze act like daisies? There was the trouble. Was it Ted or was it Ned? I had had a soft place for Jenny in my heart for a considerable time, but I had determined to wait until I found out whether I had any chance or not, and then Ted—Valbella I'll him for want of something better—had come along, and seemed to like her too. But I had not paid much attention to it until that night. Ted was good-looking—I almost groaned when I saw how good-looking he was—and a sober, honest, industrious fellow to boot.

Somehow Sam and the other fellows seemed to realize that we weren't quite so brotherly as we had been, and consequently they enlarged upon our fraternal feelings, and represented us as being much more deeply attached to each other than we ever could have been; but at last it was all over, and we started to walk home—we had lodgings together. As we came out into the quiet moonlit streets I noticed Ted seemed to expect me to speak.

"Now see here," said I, turning to him; "you know what that little rascal said to-night?"

"Yes, I know," said Ted doggedly; "and I know what Jenny Hobbs said too."

"It's more than anybody else does," said I, feeling as if I wanted to choke him. "We'd better not discuss that now," said I, presently; "we've both had some champagne, and I want to think things over, and so do you, perhaps; so we'll let it rest until to-morrow."

"Just as you like," said Ted sulkily.

We went home and went to bed, both rather worn out with excitement. Next morning, just as we were dressed and going to get some breakfast, Sam Stacker came in, boiling. I don't know who could have told him, or whether he guessed at it from the way we looked the night before, but he evidently knew that something was up between us. So he sat right down and gave us a talking to. "Now, boys," says he, very earnestly, "you see how it is. You've made a tremendous hit with that there balloon feature. Last night when I came out and told that there whopper about the balloon bein' six miles in the air, and broached that benevolent scheme about your families, you ought to have heard the women scream; it done my heart good to hear 'em; two of 'em had to be carried out in convulsions, and it would be worth five thousand dollars' advertising if one of 'em was to die. Of course if you fellows quarrel, we'll have to drop the Valbella Brothers altogether, and that'll make a difference in your salaries. Besides, if you both get to making love to Jenny Hobbs, it will upset the whole business, and I'll just have to pay her the penalty in her contract, and get somebody else in her place. That'll be hard on her, poor girl, as she'll lose the best chance she's had yet of getting introduced to the public. I really had hoped you two fellows would have kept out of difficulties with each other," continued Sam, groaning. "I swear there's but one thing worse than quarreling in a theatrical company, and that is love-making. Blamed if I don't post a fine for any man in the company that's caught looking at a woman. Love, anyhow, is the durndest, foolishest business on top of the earth—no money in it and lots of trouble—and here you are two fellows actually risking a cut of twenty dollars a week for the sake of a petticoat! It's wicked, I say, and blasphemous, and it'll ruin the show business. And here you've gone and brought the whole infernal bother on my head, and I've been a good friend to you both; and—and it's a shame—and—"

Sam stopped, almost crying. Neither one of us fully believed his threat about parting with Jenny, but it would clearly lead to trouble and loss of money on all sides if the Valbella Brothers came to grief. So it was tacitly understood that for the remainder of the season neither one of us should say a word to Jenny, and should go on as usual; and afterward each would try his luck with the pretty little dancer. Sam Stacker had intimated privately to me that if we left off our trapeze performance he and the rest of the company would construe it that I was afraid to risk it with Ted, considering the feeling between us, and I think he also managed to convey the same idea to Ted, and it had its effect on each. Sam swore that he intended to advise Jenny to marry the trombone, who had three wives in various stages of divorce, seven small children, and who alternated between the show business and that of a professional revivalist.

After that we went along as usual, and except that we were more than commonly polite to each other, nobody would have suspected anything was the matter. While we had been friends we often had little tiffs; but after we became enemies—for that was what we inevitably became—we were politer than French dancing masters to each other. We didn't do the balloon-trapeze act everywhere. If we only made one-night stands, or if the stage was too small, or if the lessee of the house objected to it, we didn't have it, but still we had five or six weeks of it before Christmas, and Jenny never would witness it, but went and hid her face when it came off—so that only made it plainer that she liked one of us, but which one nobody could guess. It often occurred to me when we were rising slowly on that trapeze in front of the foot-lights, doing all kinds of monkey tricks while the people yelled and shouted, and the balloon was going up into the flies, that Ted could do me a mischief that nobody would know anything about after I was mashed and bruised out of shape by the fall, and I dare say he thought the same of me. Nothing happened, however, until one night—it was the very night before Christmas. Now, excepting the bad blood between the Valbella Brothers, I don't believe there was a man or a woman in that company who wasn't at peace and in good-will with the others that blessed Christmas Eve. Sam Stacker was such a kind, honest, soft-hearted but hard-headed old customer that he made quarreling unpopular and almost impossible. He had given us all something that day, and Jenny Hobbs's present was the best of any. I wanted to give Jenny something too, but I hardly thought it fair to my understanding with Ted. But just before the performance began, Jenny came to me, smiling and blushing very much, and said:

"I've—I've got a Christmas gift for you."

"Have you?" cried I, delighted.

"You've been so k—k—kind to me," she stammered, "getting Mr. Stacker to give me an engagement, and taking Jack along too, and—and—all—that. I want you to wear this in memory of a friend." And she held out to me a little ring with a coral set in it, and inside, sure enough, was, "In memory of a friend." Of course I was delighted, and I must say I tried to kiss her, but she slapped my face, and I went back where Dag and a lot of fellows were and showed my Christmas gift, and they all laughed and wanted to know when it was coming off. I dare say now it wasn't very generous to show it and boast of it but the temptation was irresistible, and, besides, it was no breach of our engagement. I had made no advances to Jenny, and perhaps, as I thought a little dispiritedly, the mere friendliness of my behavior may have been the reason she gave me the ring. But you may be sure I kept that impression to myself, and was willing to let the rest of the people think the whole thing was settled.

Ted had seen it all, and I knew he was a determined fellow, with a devilish temper when he was roused, and he had enough to rouse him that night. When we came on the stage together for our clog dancing he was apparently as cool and smiling as ever, but I saw danger in his eye. Mine didn't quail, I don't think; and as we stood side by side, our arms and shoulders touching, while the clogs clattered and we sang our best songs full of good hits, I knew that the final struggle was coming that night, and I knew, too, that it would be on the trapeze. Naturally I took fire too, and cared no more for breaking up the Valbella Brothers and interfering with Sam Stacker's plans, nor, indeed, for anything except that Ted should not get the better of me. The jealous devil possessed us both. The performance went off first-rate. The Dagmar was ill again for a wonder—this time a real bona fide illness—and Jenny had to take her place. She came out all in clouds of tulle, and danced a ballet divertissement called "La Marguerite," in which she pulled a daisy to pieces to see if she was loved. She danced it beautifully, and fairly brought the house down, and when she got through she had half a dozen bouquets of flowers, and a great big trapeze made of flowers was tilted over the heads of the orchestra to her. I had had nothing to do with it, but she thought I had, and turned to me as I stood in the wings and courtesied so prettily that it fairly maddened Ted, who saw it all, and thought, too, I had sent it to her, and thereby broken our agreement. I didn't choose to explain then and there how it was, and the next minute it was our turn to go on the stage.

We got through our part pretty well. Ted was cool, and so was I. The people applauded tremendously, and when the red balloon came slowly sailing down they almost went wild. As usual, when it came just above our heads, we jumped up, caught the trapeze, got rid of the weights by sleight-of-hand, and went up through the roof, vaulting and tumbling over each other.

In a minute or two we were through the big hole in the top. It was then the time for one of us to throw the rope to the fellows who stood about on the roof to catch it, and to haul the balloon back. But instead of throwing the rope—it was Ted's turn to throw it that night—he seized it, and gathered it up out of reach of the fellows on the roof grabbing for it, and—the balloon went flying up into the black sky!

It was a murky night, but the moon shone fitfully at intervals. As we shot up from the roof I heard a wild cry, and then another, louder and wilder, from the people in the street, who saw us darting upward to a hideous death. For my own part, I don't remember anything for a while, but I clung instinctively to the trapeze and braced myself against the horizontal bars. I could feel that we were rushing through currents of air, but the balloon was steady, and as soon as I recovered my senses at all I looked steadily upward. We were going through clouds, and I could feel that Ted was crawling toward me on the trapeze.

At last he got quite close to me. His white, desperate face was fearful in the ghastly uncertain glare. The moon shone out, and I saw that the small rope connecting with the safety-valve was fastened around his wrist. He held it up to me.

"You understand what this means?" he said. "If I go over, the valve comes open."

I understood well enough.

"Now," he said, "we can settle about Jenny Hobbs."

It was cold, and my teeth were chattering, but I managed to say: "It's all settled, it strikes me. We are both dead men."

"Not I," said he. "I have been studying up balloons on the sly. I know all about this one. I can manage her. Now tell me, will you give up Jenny Hobbs? If you don't—" He pointed to the clouds scurrying beneath us.

"You are a sneak and a coward," I said. "We've both got to die this Christmas Eve, but you'll meet your Maker a murderer and a suicide."

The balloon, it seemed to me, was stationary then. He crept closer and closer to me. I could see the whites of his eyes. I thought my time had come. I could not remember any words of prayer, but my soul uttered its inarticulate cry for mercy, which God can hear.

Suddenly the balloon gave a furious lurch, and before my very eyes I saw him jerked violently backward. I have no clear recollection of what happened next. I suppose, with an acrobat's instinct, he clutched the bar. But I felt the balloon descending with a horrible rush that no human being could describe. Then it slacked up, and I saw Ted clinging with both hands to the trapeze, but his legs were dangling frightfully in the air. The rope was still tied to his wrist, and the spring of the valve had closed.

It is easy enough for any active young fellow to climb on a bar if he has a good purchase with his hands; but the best acrobat in the world, suspended he knows not how far from the earth, in mortal danger and mortal terror, can't do it. I saw that Ted couldn't. I saw his terrified and distorted face turned up to mine. I won't describe what I felt in that moment. But in the half darkness I felt the rope that the balloon had been held by slap against my face. I reached up and caught it. Then I crawled along the bar to Ted. I wanted to save him; but I also knew, if he let go, the valve would come open, and we would both be dashed into limitless space. He saw me coming toward him. I suppose he thought I meant to push him off, for he uttered the first loud sound I had heard in that awful stillness—a piercing scream of anguish. I saw him clutch the bar with a wild determination that gave me courage to proceed. I made the rope into a big loop, and threw it around his body. It caught the first time, and I drew it up under his arms. Then he seemed to realize that I was trying to save him. I took the ends of the rope, and, holding on firmly to the bar, wrapped the ends securely around it, and tied them, hard and tight. Then I reached over and grasped the valve rope, and began to pull it gently.

I suppose the gas in the balloon had been considerably exhausted before, for as soon as I touched the valve we began to go down frightfully fast. I closed it up for a few moments, and noticed we were descending slowly. I opened the valve again the least in the world, and we began to go down pretty fast—not so alarmingly fast; but it had flashed through me that perhaps if we went too slowly in the beginning the gas would be exhausted before we reached the bottom and we would be dashed to pieces, and I didn't understand enough about balloons to know that the same quantity of gas would carry us the same distance fast or slow. Presently I saw a line of light which I took to be the river, then the masts of shipping in the harbor, then the church steeples, the houses, the street lamps. Oh, God! I heard the cries of human voices—so close, so close! and when we were only a few feet from the ground I got dizzy and fell—far, far into space—and went to sleep before I reached the bottom.

The next morning was Christmas morning. Ah, what a day! May be people think that professional acrobats haven't any religious instincts; but I know I went to church that day, and found Jenny there, and afterward we took a walk out into the country. It was a very happy walk, and it was God's day, and she had screamed "Oh, Ned!" after all, the night that Jack made the row. This gave me much solid satisfaction.

Before I got out of my bed that morning (I had had a regular fainting spell, and had tumbled off the trapeze about ten feet from the ground, but had been caught) I opened my eyes and saw Ted standing over me. He looked like a ghost.

"Ned," said he, "I can't talk about it. I can hardly think or feel yet; but you understand," he gasped out.

I thought I did understand, so I held out my hand. His hand felt like a lump of ice. Sam Stacker was a sight to see. He had the hang of the whole thing. Its value as an advertisement made him perfectly dizzy with delight, but he was wild with misery at the same time, because he hadn't the cheek—and Sam was a cheeky fellow too—to propose that the Valbella Brothers should continue their performances; and between admiration and chagrin he was almost crazy. All that day he was like a wild man, and finally, considering the Valbella Brothers would discontinue their performances immediately, as our reconciliation didn't go the length of acting together again, we concluded to appear before the curtain at the close of the Christmas performance that night, just to please Sam.

As soon as Sam found it out he got out the biggest posters to be had for love or money, saying we would appear on the stage that night, although we were both too disabled by the severe shock we had received to take any further part in the performances. We went, and when the curtain rose at the end of the last act, and we were bowing, one on each side of Sam, you never heard such a perfectly terrible commotion in your life; and the next instant a party of gentlemen rustled out of a box, headed by the mayor of the town, and, advancing to the stage, made a long address. I didn't take in what it was about, but at last it dawned upon my feeble intelligence that the mayor was commending my bravery for rescuing my comrade by tying him to the trapeze, and presenting me with a magnificent gold watch and chain. Of course I couldn't say a word, but Sam Stacker returned thanks for me. He said it was the greatest occasion of his life, and I believe it was. He spoke three quarters of an hour, in a voice like a steam calliope, and waving his arms up and down like a Dutch windmill. It makes my head swim now to think about that speech. After it was all over I took Sam aside.

"Sam," says I, "don't you know if I hadn't tied Ted to the trapeze he'd have fallen and dragged the valve open, and we'd both have been killed?"

"D'ye think I'm a durned fool?" said Sam quite fiercely. "Certainly I know it, but I ain't a-going to tell them blooming idiots and lunk-heads yonder that don't know beans from thunder."

These were the gentlemen whom Sam had just been apostrophizing as the noblest examples of human virtue and intelligence he had ever yet come across during a long experience with the greatest show on earth.

Well, there isn't much more to tell. The Valbella Brothers partnership was dissolved, but I stayed on with Sam, and am at present part proprietor of the show.

I forgot to say that Jenny and I were married just before the performance that Christmas night.