memories.

Meanwhile the Old Gag was sitting in his corner of the dressing-room,
his head bowed on his breast, his gruel untasted on the tray before him.
The other Gags came and went, but he heeded them not. His thoughts were
far away. He was dreaming of old days, of his early struggles for fame,
and of his friends and companions of years ago. "Where are they now?" he
asked himself, sadly. "Some are wanderers on the face of the earth, in
comic operas. Two of them found ignoble graves in the 'Tourists''
company. Others are sleeping beneath the daisies in Harper's 'Editor's
Drawer.'"

"You're called, sir!"

The Old Gag awoke from his reverie, started to his feet, and, throwing
aside his heavy ulster, staggered to the entrance and stood there
patiently waiting for his cue.

"You're hardly strong enough to go on to-night," said a Merry Jest,
touching him kindly on the arm; but the gray-bearded one shook him off,
saying hoarsely:

"Let be! Let be! I must read those old lines once more--it may be for
the last time."

And now a solemn hush fell upon the vast audience as a sad-faced
minstrel uttered in tear-compelling accents the most pathetic words in
all the literature of minstrelsy:

"And so you say, Mr. Johnson, that all the people on the ship were