away at him day after day to no more purpose
than if I had been trying to drive a nail through
a brick. Sir, I found I had made the mistake
that is often made in education. I hadn't
sufficiently studied the direction of the lad's
talent. I found it out at last quite by accident.
You must know, sir, there is a beer-shop two
or three doors from us; and one afternoon, when
I was sitting in the shop, I hears a stamping of
feet to the tune of a tin whistle, and people
laughing and crying "Bravo." I goes to the
door, and what do you think is the sight that
meets my eyes? Why, Sam dancing an Irish
jig on the cellar-flap outside the beer-shop, and
a regular crowd round him applauding.

"Come here, my dear, and see this," I says
to my wife; and when she sees Sam performing,
she looks at me and I looks at her, and from
that moment I know that I have been making a
grand mistake about Sam, and hammering at the
wrong end of him.

So I resolved to let Sam's head alone, and
devote myself to the cultivation of his heels.
It's astonishing what a flow of aptitude a boy
discovers when you once tap him in the right
place. I showed Sam all the first steps, which,
as you know, are the necessary foundation of all
good dancing, and he picked them up in no
time. I was thinking of him for a harlequin,
when my old friend, Jemmy Jorum, who at that
time took the chair at the Polyhopticon Music
Hall, came in one afternoon and saw Sam dance
a jig.

"Jemmy," I said, "I was thinking of the
boy for a harlequin."

"Harlequin be hanged," he said; "you ought
to know better, having been in the line yourself,
and knowing what it is to be out for nine months
out of the twelve, unless you have an academy
and a connection. You've been out of the world,
Alf, since you gave up the profession."

"Since the profession gave me up, Jemmy,"
I said.

"Well, it's all the same thing. What I
mean is, that since your connection with the
stage terminated, you've been out of the
theatrical world, and don't know what's going
on. Why, there's a score of music halls sprung
up since then, where talent like that your boy
possesses is in constant request. It's becoming
a better game than the stage, I can tell you.
Four turns a night, thirty pound a week if you're
tip-top, and a brougham to drive you from one
hall to the other. Lor' bless you, there's many
a walking gentleman who, a few years ago,
couldn't earn two pound a week at the theatres,
who's now getting his ten and fifteen at the
music halls, and driving his own trap. You
bring that boy of yours down to the Polyhopticon
some night, and I'll see what I can do for
him."

I took Jemmy at his word, and walked down
with Sam one evening before the performance
commenced. The proprietor saw him dance,
and said he would do with a little practice, but
thought it would be better if he had a girl with
him, to make a duet of it.

"Have you a girl to match?" he said.

Had he asked me if I had one shilling to
clink against another, I should have been
obliged to answer in the negative; but as to
girls to match Sam, I had plenty, and to
spare.

"I have four of them, sir," I said.

"Very good," he said. "If there is one as
good as this boy, teach them to do a song and
a dance together, and I'll give them a turn."

I had never thought of Jemima for anything
of the sort, until this put it in my head; and
when I went home, and spoke about the matter,
the girl was mad for it. Well, sir, I paid a
popular author half-a-crown to write a duet for
them, and I took a great deal of pains to teach
it them, along with an Irish jig, and Sam and
Jemima came out at the Polyhopticon as
"Patrick and Shelah, the Jocular Juveniles of
the Green Isle," and made a tremendous hit.
It wasn't long before they got other
engagements, and had three turns a night, and it took
all my time of an evening to go round with
them and look after their wardrobe.

Ah! that wardrobe! what a job it was to get
it together!. The missus, with her clever
managing ways, dodged up a very pretty dress
for Jemima out of her own old bits of finery that
were no use for anything else; but Sam's frieze
bob-tailed coat and corduroy smalls, which fell
to my share, were only to be got for money, and
I can tell you, the tailor's bill came a good deal
heavier than the author's. Sam's dancing-shoes
I managed myself, by nailing two or three bits
of hard wood on to the soles of an old pair of
his mother's. The bits of wood, you know, were
to make the klippety-klop noise, without which
a jig or a break-down goes for nothing. Perhaps
you wouldn't think it, now, but the old caved-in
hat without a crown or a brim was a difficulty.
I cut off the brim and knocked out the crown of
an old one of my own, but the thing was to get
it into that limp state which the correct Irish
costume requires. If you had seen us all taking
turns in dancing upon that hat you would have
thought we were mad. It's easy, I know, to
make old port and old pictures; but it's not so
easy to give the requisite degree of age to a
characteristic Irish hat.

The first week, sir, Sam and Jemima came
home with thirty shillings between them. They
came straight home with it, and never spent a
penny, and the first thing they did when they
entered the little parlour was to run up to their
mother, put their arms round her neck and kiss
her, and pour the money into her lap all in
shillings. Providence is kind that way, sir, as
in many other ways. If He doesn't give a
creature much of a head, He makes up for it
in heart. Sam is not bright except in his heels,
but he is good to his father and mother, and so
is Jemima. And that's what stings me when I
think of those harsh words that I said to their
mother about them when they were a burden to
us. I thought them a curse then, but they are
a blessing now. Two of the other girls have
grown up and taken to the business, and no