morning for Castlebar, whither he requested the company to follow him
without delay. Fancy my consternation at this unexpected announcement! I
mechanically thrust my hands into my pockets, but they were completely
untenanted. I rushed home to our lodgings, where I had left Ned Davis; he,
I knew, had received a guinea the day before, upon which I rested my hopes
of deliverance. I found him fencing with his walking-stick with an
imaginary antagonist, whom he had in his mind pinned against a
closet-door. I related to him the sudden move the manager had made, and
told him, in the most doleful voice conceivable, that I was not possessed
of a single penny. As soon as I had finished, he dropped into a chair, and
burst into a long-continued fit of laughter, and then looked in my face
with the most provoking mock gravity, and asked--

"What's to be done then? How are we to get out of this?"

"Why," said I, "that guinea which you got yesterday!"

"Ho! ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "The guinea is gone."

"Gone!" I exclaimed; and I felt my knees began to shake under me.
"Gone--where--how."

"I gave it to the wife of that poor devil of a scene-shifter who broke his
arm last week; he had four children, and they were starving. What could I
do but give it to them? Had it been ten times as much they should have had
it."

I don't know what reply I made, but it had the effect of producing another
fit of uncontrollable laughter.