Tombstone epitaph., 1890-01-18
BILLED THE ToMBSToNEs.
An Advance Agent Secures a Lively Vel
 come for His Company.

An Advance Agent Secures a Lively Well come for His Company.
 ''It was neither more nor less than dramatic debauch."
 The disengaged Heavy Man buried his mustache in beer mug for moment, and then continued:
 "You are all familiar, of course, with tales Of people who go on tremendous sprees every few months. These sprees are lurid while they last, but once ended the drunkard resumes his normal condi- tion as a sober, respectable citizen. We'll, l have been out with a company whose manager is subject to periodicals not of intoxication, but of insane ambition to run show His name is F-, and he accumulates the money he squanders on the road as Philadelphia real-estate agent. Our party was got together in this city by an old actor. who had become the owner of a play re- sembling 20 20, the Magic Queen in It's details. Because of his long experience behind the footlightS the ancient Thes- plan, who was both star and proprietor, put his name in big letters on the bills and added this quotation: Tn my time I have done the State some service.' As result wherever we played during the first week out the audiences and the papers assumed that he was an ex-con- vict who blazoned his shame for adver- Using purposes. Business was very bad and when we opened on Saturday night at Nashua, N. H., only s17 had gone into the box office, We couldn't stay over Sunday, pay hotel bills and get back to New York on that and what little was left of the stars capital, tut our em- ployer was full of resource. He ordered every one to pack his luggage and be ready to leave on the nine p. m. train. Then he bought decayed fish and hired bootblack for quarter to take it into the gallery, and in the middle of the second act throw it at the leading lady. The fish was thrown, the curtain went down, and the star stepped out to pro- test against the outrage By the time he had quit talking we were in the de- pot. He joined us just as the train started. When the audience went away don't know.
 We'll, in New York our employer met F. and dumped the whole outfit on him contracts, scenery actors and drama. F-decided on Southern tour, and we gradually worked down to the Gulf, not playing to much business, but getting salaries regularly, for awhile at least. The crash came at a town about fifty miles from Mobile. We got off the train at three in the afternoon, and were met by delegation of citizens whose spokes- man told us the only thing undecided was whether we should be lynched or simply tarred and feathered. Kettles and ropes were both at hand, and, as our hosts all carried arms, the prospect was not pleasant one. To say we were astonished but feebly expresses the sit- nation. We had never been in the town before, and could imagine no way by which we could have incurred such de- monstrative ill will. F. managed to get in word or so and asked an ex- planation. Then it came out that our advance agent was running the jim-jams a close race, and that, not content with billing the town, he had gone out the previous evening and covered the tomb stones and monument in the Confederate soldiers cemetery with three-sheet posters. That was why thu people were mad. They awoke to find the records of their heroic dead plastered over with gaudy pictures of young women in tights, and they immediately knocked in the head of a tar barrel and waited for us. After deal of talking we got away, but they caught our advance agent that night"
 "What became of him?"
 'I don't know. We never stopped to inquire. The experience sobered us up, and F. took an account of stock. He figured that he had dropped S1,5OO and decided to quit managerial business for awhile. He bought us tickets to New York, sent us home and here we are."- N. Y. Sun.