his manner, determined in his purposes, honest in his point of view.
He is a brute, almost a savage, but he is a thoroughly good brute and
a pretty decent savage.

At the time of the opening of this play, he and LAURA MURDOCK have
been friends for two years. He knows exactly what she is and what she
has been, and their relations are those of pals. She has finished her
season in Denver, and he has come out there to accompany her home.
He has always told her, whenever she felt it inconsistent with her
happiness to continue her relations with him, it is her privilege to
quit, and he has reserved the same condition.

JIM WESTON, between forty-five and fifty years of age, is the type
of the semi-broken-down showman. In the evolution of the theatrical
business in America, the old circus and minstrel men have gradually
been pushed aside, while younger men, with more advanced methods, have
taken their place. The character is best realized by the way it is
drawn in the play.

ANNIE. The only particular attention that should be called to the
character of the negress, ANNIE, who is the servant of LAURA, is the
fact that she must not in any way represent the traditional smiling
coloured girl or "mammy" of the South. She is the cunning, crafty,
heartless, surly, sullen Northern negress, who, to the number of
thousands, are servants of women of easy morals, and who infest a
district of New York in which white and black people of the lower
classes mingle indiscriminately, and which is one of the most criminal
sections of the city. The actress who plays this part must keep in
mind its innate and brutal selfishness.