week and then drop obscurely out of public memory. The best time to put out a fire is before it has got started.

My warm admirer on the floor below thought I was a foolish young fellow not to accept the Buffalo offer and then invade the East, especially as I could get two or three hundred dollars a week as easily as one, a price that even the educated donkeys commanded. His kindly nature was much exercised over this mistake of mine, and he no doubt accounted for my strange intractability as being one of the afflictions of genius. But, alas! I could not explain the facts to him. They were out of his line of thought, and he would not understand. I could not even tell the intelligent newspaper men; it would only start a new line of public gossip and make matters worse. The true reason, whatever I might pretend, was hidden away like a skeleton in a closet, which is to say, in the flap of my valise. In the valise was a copy of THE CENTURY for July, 1890, and in THE CENTURY was a contribution entitled “Reflections, by Charles D. Stewart." I had written them when I was nineteen, and after much casting about and final acceptance, and then a long, long wait, they at last came out in the magazine. And there were others yet to come.

Strange as it might seem, these two things, the museum and the magazine, would not get along together and agree. Mere facts in the family of truth, they persisted in giving each other the lie and pretending that there was no relationship. between them. The one, blazoned on a building and asserting itself stridently in the press, and the other, in vestal attire and mute reserve, did not want to be brother and sister. Whenever they met in my mind they passed each other by and refused to speak; and they seemed to look to me, whose name was stamped on both, to give an account of myself. It was evident that I could not be the father of two such fames. One or the other would disLittle sister regarded big brother as an outcast, and, to make matters worse, that lot of Covenanters, who

own me.

ought to be dead and safely buried, were always rising up and taking her side.

For my own part, I could see no occasion for any such trouble. I wished they would consent to be congruous. But they would n't; and every time that magazine came out of the valise there was trouble. Those "Reflections" were insistent thinkers and would not down.

In short, that contribution in the magazine represented my goal; the other, the way I was going. One whispered to me of the East, the fabled East of my fancy, the holy land of literature that lies up and down the Massachusetts coast. And the other!

Invade the East? Shades of Whittier and Longfellow, of Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell, who, by the way, were all living at that time, what was this thing that I should go and do it! The Hamlet of the situation regarded me with accusing eyes and said, "Look upon this picture and then on this." And then I would have to admit that one of them was a satyr.

The fact of the matter, dear reader, was that literature, at least in those days, moved in select company. She abjured slang and had ideals. This being the case, I had come to a pass where I had to choose a career. It was the forks of the road; the Judgment of Paris had to be performed. Thus it was that I cast in my lot with the fair lady who is content with poverty and high ideals, and I cast from me forever the dark lady who beckoned from Buffalo and coaxed me to come on.

One very practical and common-sense idea occurred to me, however. As I was already as notorious in this particular city as I could very well become, and as it would take no longer for two weeks to pass into oblivion than one, I decided to accept the manager's offer to stay another. week in Cincinnati. It was very flattering to be offered this extension; and besides, I needed the money.

And now I suppose the reader is asking, How about those words and sentences? Were there any failures in the two weeks?

Perhaps it will be pardonable to refer again to that mummified scrap-book, long deposited among the family relics with an uncle in Ohio and just recently resurrected. The final paragraph contains a record of how I was coming along. Not to include the first part would, I think, be a distinct loss to the literature of American showmanry.

"The mnemonic, orthographic, linguistic, phonetic wonder of the age," as the pressagent expresses it, is Mr. Charles D. Stewart, the accomplished young gentleman who gives an entertainment on the Bijou stage at Kohl and Middleton's Dime Museum this week. He is a shining example of what assiduous practice and close study of the science of mnemonics will enable a person to accomplish. He is known as "The Man Who Talks Backward." He invites any one in the audience to call out a word. It matters not how long or technical or difficult of pronunciation the word may be. With the rapidity of lightning he spells and pronounces it backward and then writes its definition upon the blackboard. He spells whole sentences backward, showing his wonderful

memory.

So far no one has given him a word he could not instantly and correctly spell backward and define. He will undoubtedly attract the attention of Cincinnati's educators, and he will deserve it.

As to this "science of mnemonics" and the "assiduous practice" it was news to me. But things have to be accounted for in some way, and as I was as unable to explain how I did it as any one else would be, I saw that I might as well let them have any theory that suited them. My business was to fill the blackboard as full as it would hold of anything the audience might suggest, turn my back to the board, and "rip it off" backward. And that 's all I knew about it.

In two weeks I missed one word. And that word was Oh, fatal grecque. grecque! When that word rapped on the tympanum there was no reply from Memory's halls. I stood and waited, but noth

ing came. It was a mere raucous sound. Finally the benevolent-looking gentleman in gold-rimmed glasses had to inform me that it was a part of a coffee-pot.

To have missed that particular word was peculiarly irritating. When as a boy I lived a while with two lone and loving sisters in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the one a widow and the other she who had been in a convent (and to whom I have paid a fond debt in "Partners and Providence"), I often made and helped to make coffee in the Creole manner in a drip coffee-pot, and the little removable. strainer through which the coffee percolates is nothing more or less than the grecque. The realization that I had been for weeks right where that word was, that by some perversity of chance I had never happened to be on hand when it was spoken, probably bringing in coal or putting the blower on the grate, -and that all the time it was going to be the very word which I would need in Cincinnati to make my record clear, was exasperating. It stuck in my soul like a nettle, and it is still able to scratch after twentyseven years. It was unfair and unjust. A part of a coffee-pot, forsooth! Thus do we search far afield for knowledge the while its fragrant font is passing right under our nose.

Now that I had settled the question of my future I began to take a new enjoyment in my present situation, the more so as my uniform success, with the exception of this deplorable word, showed me that I had little to fear from the next performance. Not being obliged, like the other "curios," to sit on a platform all day and submit to the public gaze, or like the actors on the stage below to be confined to my dressing-room by a make-up, I was a peculiarly privileged member of the institution. As a citizen of two worlds I could mingle with the crowd in the menagerie and listen to people's comments as they took in the show, or I could go down behind the scenes and visit the infant donkey and his fond mama, that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Again, I could go down with the crowd

and see the show as often as I pleased, and instead of having to pay for a seat, like the rest of the world, I would receive an honored smile and a bow of acknowledgment as I passed scot-free. I could enjoy the comedian's newest joke about the "backward scholar" up-stairs; and tiring of that, I could retire to the sanctity of my own stage, a capacious private nook, and lose myself in some queer volume that I had picked up at the second-hand bookstore. Most flattering of all flatteries, however, and one not to be denied by any man even if he were President, was the tribute of the newsboy, who, as I appeared on the street, would put his hand to his mouth and say in a whisper that could be heard a block away, "Dere goes Stewart."

Preferably, however, I spent my idle hours watching Winsor McCay as he bodied forth pictorial promises for the week to come. All who are familiar with the altitudinous dreams of Little Nemo and the fine color world he lived in, may imagine what his creator was able to accomplish in those days when he had the real nightmares of nature to begin with.

The regulation museum of those days had three floors, the menagerie, the curio hall, and the auditorium; but some of them had a fourth floor, and this was entirely given over to the artist. Around its walls stood the sheeted stretchers newly sized with zinc white and waiting their turn with the artist. Every week the old pictures would be washed off with a sponge, and the surface would be given a new coat of white. The artist, in order to reach all parts of his picture conveniently, stood on a platform rigged with ropes and pulleys by which he could let himself up and down as on a big freightelevator; and at the back of this, like a long chicken-trough divided into many compartments, was his palette wherein the colors, beginning with white, ran the gamut of buffs and yellows and reds and blues and so on down to black.

In such a place an artist was in a heaven of his own. His Bohemian temperament was free from all commercial harassments, and each week his latest masterpieces were

hung where all could see. Expense did not bother him. He could buy carmine by the pound if he wished or indulge in solid masses of the most expensive blues; and as to the body and hang of his brushes, he could satisfy his most artistic whim. Naturally such retreats attracted men of considerable ambition, some of whom, when the museums were on the wane, continued their careers with credit. Of much fame in Chicago was Melville, whose tropical imagination had good draftsmanship behind it. Lithographic artists of the first class have been known to go to the museum every Monday morning to gather ideas from the latest combinations in color.

Not to be omitted from a record of those days is the freak boarding-house. If the circus or theater is a world unto itself, the dime museum was even more So. As these "curios," strange people

whom Nature had struck off in her most daring moods, could hardly sit around the table with the rest of the human family, -even the American boarding-house being too orthodox to take them in,-they had to have stopping-places of their own. In Chicago they all resorted to a place on West Madison Street where a motherly German woman received them as a matter of course, the fat lady, the living skeleton, the giant, and the midget,—and maintained a bounteous table. Here in a world that did not gaze at them they settled into homelike surroundings and were comfortable in the atmosphere of their own profession.

In Fort Wayne, where there was no such metropolitan specialization, they were boarded by the owner of the museum, and a true showman's wife made them feel at home. As I was then inexperienced in hotels and generally inclined to do as the Romans do, I always went along with them; and thus, from being invited to spend the evening in the room of the Chinese midget or the What-is-it, or from meeting them all in a social hour before going to bed, I became a member of their charmed circle.

In Fort Wayne it was the custom to

gather for a smoke and a talk in the room of Che Mah, the Chinese Midget, who spoke good English, and who, perched high on the edge of his trunk, led the conversation, as became a man of wide experience and a philosophic cast of mind. Che Mah was a pocket edition of a mandarin, perfect in every detail, and with his scanty black beard and diminutive stature he looked as if he had just stepped off a tea-caddy. From a wide experience with chairs he would have been entirely lost in a rocker and could hardly have sat on the edge without having it tip over on him he had forsworn all such contrivances and made a habit of sitting on his trunk, which was of the extra large variety and had a flat top. Once he had climbed up here and hung his feet over the edge, he was somewhat on a level with the rest of humanity and had the sort of seat that fits all sizes of men. In public exhibition he sat on a high dais and wore silken robes with the demeanor of a Chinese aristocrat; but in his room he took comfort in common clothes, an evening smoke, and the top of his trunk.

As the lecturer had disappeared that week, and I, as a man of words, was called upon to meet the emergency, -a responsibility I would have declined were. it not that Che Mah was the only one in the hall who really needed to be lectured upon,-it was I who ascended his throne, introduced him to the public, and pronounced the hourly eulogy upon his unparalleled littleness. From being his lecturer, I became uncommonly well acquainted with him, and as he was much older than I was and widely traveled, I was greatly edified by his words of wisdom. As to his size, the little girl of the household could have picked him up and carried him away, which would have been a most undignified proceeding in view of his grave and reverend countenance.

As my final Saturday night in Cincinnati drew near, and the falling curtain of that ten-o'clock performance which would forever shut me from the public gaze, I must admit that I felt a certain regret to leave it all behind. The excitement of

travel, the exhilaration of the crowd, and the electric thrill of meeting the instant situation at every performance were things well fitted to suit the spirit of youth. But in view of the fact that once I had gone back to the regular treadmill of life it was a thing to be carefully forgotten, I was already looking at it in retrospect. I have never left anything so utterly behind; for while it was yet to be dropped from the record, it was already erased from the future-a nudum pactum with oblivion.

I believe I could have been induced to keep on provided there had been a way of pursuing such a calling without attracting any attention. One thing and another, however, conspired from the first to push me forward. Particularly memorable is an incident which early in my experience selected me from among the veterans to make test of my "drawing power."

It was during a Saturday night jam at the West Side Museum in Chicago. Whenever the time approached for the hourly performance on the variety-stage, the people would, as usual, crowd and push toward the head of the stairs leading down to the auditorium in a general endeavor to get the best seats. Across the opening at the top of the stairs there was a strong wooden bar so arranged that it could be lifted the moment the auditorium was ready for the new crowd, and there was a man stationed here to wait for the word. On this Saturday night the pack of people was unusual. There were so many that they could not move about freely, and when the lecturer went his hourly round, instead of being followed by the usual crowd, there would simply be a jam in a different part of the mass as he called attention to the next curiosity. And, as usual, a large number had taken time by the forelock by getting places at the head of the stairs before the lecture was over.

When the people saw that the lecturer was nearing the end there was a general turning of attention toward the head of that coveted stairway, and all the pressure was brought to bear on the ones who were jammed up against the wooden bar.

As the theater below was just emptying, the man at the bar could not let it up in time to avoid this crush, because he would be turning one crowd down on top of another and there would be a dangerous jam on the stairs. On the other hand, if he lifted it now, provided he could have got it up at all, the people in front, being suddenly released, would be projected pell-mell down the stairs, with the others on top of them; and the ones behind could not be got to move back because they were held tightly in place by the crowd still farther back. Meantime the ones pinioned against the bar were undergoing a painful experience and becoming excited; a woman was becoming hysterical, and the man at the bar was trying to keep them quiet in order to avoid anything that would start a panic.

Sitting on my platform at the other end of the hall, I was unaware of the seriousness of the situation till suddenly the manager, a decisive little man who would have made a good mate on a steamboat, came running back on the platforms and jumped down in the clear space behind the crowd. I heard him say "Stewart," and as he caught my attention he snapped his fingers and said, "Start something." It did not take me long to gather that there was some reason for quick action. I jumped up and, to the best of my ability, started a sensation in the world. of words. While I announced in stentorian tones the wonders I was now going to perform, I called attention to the blackboard; and as there was no one to pro

pound words to me, I propounded a few to myself. The ones in the rear, thinking something unusual had been missed, began coming back; and as I kept up my sensa tional demonstrations to the crowd about me there was a general drift in my direction. The man at the head of the stairs took the opportunity to lift up the bar, and a large part had made their escape down the stairs before the rest had discovered the hoax.

In the Twin Cities I was not aware of achieving anything more than museum prominence, there being a great difference in cities in this respect. It was when I struck the intellectual belt at Fort Wayne, Indiana, that I began to feel myself spreading; and when it was seen that I was running in successful competition. with such an attraction as Che Mah, my fame preceded me to Cincinnati. And there I came into that prominence which, by making me take serious thought, drove me out of the business.

Yes, I can still talk backward. There have been few times, however, in the last quarter of a century when I have done it, which shows that I did not deserve the credit of "assiduous practice."

The friends of those days who knew that I did it are many of them dead, and the rest are scattered we know not where. The scrap-book is yellow with time, and the papers from which the clippings came were long ago buried deep under the daily snow of news. Time hath a wallet at his back, and in it is yesterday's newspaper.