He liked his bills to be of all
denominations, and some so large as exquisitely to stagger
imagination, others charming by their number and crispness--the
dignified, orange paper of a man of assured position and
wealth-crackling greenbacks the design of which tinged the whole with
actuality. He was specially partial to engravings of President
Lincoln, the particular savior and patron of his race. This five
hundred dollars he was adding to an unreckoned sum of about two
thousand, merely as extra fortification against a growing sense of
gloom. He wished to brace his flagging spirits with the gay wine of
possession, and he was glad, when the money came, that it was in an
elastic-bound roll, so bulky that it was pleasantly uncomfortable in
his pocket as he left his manager.
As he turned into the brilliantly lighted street from the somber
alleyway of the stage entrance, he paused for a moment to glance at
his own name, in three-foot letters of red, before the doors of the
theater. He could read, and the large block type always pleased him.
"THIS WEEK: GIDEON." That was all. None of the fulsome praise, the
superlative, necessary definition given to lesser performers.
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