ture or art, and willing to appreciate excellence, without any reference to local origin.

In the spring of 1837 he embarked for home, leaving Liverpool in the packet ship "United States.

Soon after his arrival in New York he was engaged at the Park theatre. He made his debut as Hiram Dodge, in the Yankee Pedlar. This engagement was eminently successful, at the close of which he visited the south and west-playing at the principal theatres of the different cities pleasant and profitable engagements.

CHAPTER XIV.

"There is no speculation in those eyos,"

"Trade-d-n trade !"

I RESOLVE to devote a few pages of my life to my speculations. I do not mean theatrical ones, for, with all my versatility in financial matters, I can truly say that a serious idea of management never entered into my money-making calculations. I never had any particular desire to speculate in the management of a theatre. I have often given entertainments, concerts, lectures,&c., and engaged assistants. Sometimes the operation resulted in a loss.

But I have engaged in land speculations and in water speculations. I have paid money, and given obligations to pay more, for property upon which I was to realize some day enormous profits. It is needless to add, perhaps, that I never realized anything-principal invested, interest, or property in any of these moneymaking sehemes.

I think actors in general are bad financiers, and, according to my retrospective views in this relation, I must have been one of the worst among the bad. When I have had in my possession any considerable sum of money, I was ready to purchase anything that was of fered to my notice. Some persons, whose business it was to take advantage of the stranger, learning my weakness, have profited more than once by their know

ledge. In this way I have had possession of property for which I had no use whatever, and have been obliged to dispose of it at great sacrifices, often to the original

owner.

My speculations in Rochester, before my marriage, were of this kind. I remember buying a cow and calf, said to be of a high order of cattle. I gave a watch and ten dollars-all the money I had in the world-for the two specimens of horned cattle.

The man of whom I purchased these brutes was the most deaconish looking individual I ever saw. On a Saturday night the man asked me, want a good cow and calf?"

"If I didn't

I enquired his price for them. He said, "Thirty dollars, but they were worth forty if they were worth a cent," according to his estimate and story. I had no more notion of the value of a cow and calf, or the marks of a good milker, than I had of calculating eclipses. But the Yankee drover succeeded in getting my watch. and money, leaving the cattle in the road, under my direction-the ownership thereof vested in me.

For a short time I was elated with my cow and calf. I had no place to keep them, and I did not really know what to do. I, however, obtained permission of a neighbor to put them in his yard until Monday, when I was to sell them and double my money, according to the drover's story. He said he could do it, but he had received news that his wife was sick, and he could not stay long enough to sell them, on that account.

I believed his story, wife and all. That night my visions were stored with droves of cattle, pastures, money, farms, and all the items of agricultural life. On