The minstrels flourished for a few months. The public rebuked the unenviable notoriety of "Coal Oil Johnny." The minstrels steadily declined. "Coal Oil Johnny" went down with them. His money gone, he was made treasurer of the troupe his prodigality had ruined. When the ending came there was none so poor as he. Hotels where he had spent thousands, refused him even a night's lodging. He went back to the farm; the acres he had cultivated were covered with oil derricks; the friends he knew had departed; he was almost a stranger save for the notoriety he had acquired. Unabashed he seemed to take a pride in the spendthrift race he had run. He drove a baggage wagon; afterwards he became the baggage master at the depot in Rouseville.
There never was a full rehearsal of the minstrels ere they embarked for Parker's Landing on the good boat "Jim Rees." There was no railroad to the oil regions from Pittsburgh in those days. The Allegheny River was navigable to Venango, opposite the present Oil City.
Two members of the minstrels, song and dance men, took a dislike to Alfred. Others soon became intimate with him, they enjoyed his humorous narratives, particularly his experiences with Node Beckley and the panorama. The two members mentioned exhausted the new boy's patience and he invited both to fistic combat. His challenges were laughed at; the jibes and jokes became more and more insulting.
Jealousy, that canker that eats and festers at the hearts of actors as it does at those of no other humans, was the motive for their actions.
Alfred had introduced a bit of acrobatic comedy in the closing farce that was the laughing hit of the minstrels. Owing to the lack of acts, the stage manager ordered Alfred to put on a single turn. This act preceded the turn of the song and dance men. The singing of Alfred took with the oil men greatly. The two who followed were not even fair singers, their efforts fell flat; they had the stage manager change them on the bill. The change put them just before Alfred. When advised of the change he reminded the stage manager that he went on only for accommodation in the olio and flatly refused to follow the song and dance men. The angel ordered the two song and dance men on in their usual position, following Alfred. Alfred rehearsed a dance secretly. He finished his singing turn with this dance, introducing all his known acrobatic stunts. This rough dance simply set the oil men wild and the two worthies fell flatter at every performance.
No philanthropist of the "Coal Oil Johnny" sort had discovered the minstrels as yet, but the path of their travels was one of nightly carousals. The two dancers were assisting the manager-angel in scattering the money that came in. The people were hungry for amusements; hence the tour thus far had been one of profit.
The manager and his companions never went to bed when there was another place to go. It was one of the pass-times of the two dancers to enter Alfred's room noiselessly, pull him violently out of bed and steal out in the darkness. In one of their playful moods they carried Alfred's wearing apparel to another part of the hotel.
Alfred warned the stage manager that he intended to resent this treatment. However, there was no cessation to the indignities the two put upon the young minstrel.
But like all so-called ladders, they could not stand the gaff. After a particularly keen onslaught upon Alfred with their tongues, in which several of his weaknesses were commented upon, Alfred got back at them: "I don't have to cater to the manager to hold my job; I'm drawing my wages on my work, not on my cheek," was Alfred's retort.