And Phazma gaily caught up the refrain, while Straws beat time to the tinkling measures.
The last entry in the date-book, or diary, of Barnes seems curiously significant as indicating a knowledge that his end was near. For the first time in the volume he rambles on in a reminiscent mood about his boyhood days:
“The first bit of good fortune I ever enjoyed was 426 when as a lad in sweeping a crossing in the neighborhood of the Strand I found a bright, shining sovereign. How tightly I grasped it in my little fist that night when I slept in a doorway! I dared not trust it in my pocket. The next night I walked to the ticket-seller at Drury Lane, and demanded a seat down stairs. ‘Gallery seats sold around the corner,’ said this imposing gentleman with a prodigious frown, and, abashed, I slunk away. My dream of being near the grand people vanished and I climbed once more to my place directly under the roof.
“My next bit of good fortune happened in this wise. Sheridan, the playwright-orator, attracted my attention on Piccadilly one day, and, for the delight of gazing upon him, I followed. When he stopped, I stopped; when he advanced, I did likewise. I felt that I was treading in the footsteps of a king. Suddenly he paused, wheeled about and confronted me, a raw-boned, ragged, awkward lad of fourteen. ‘What one of my creditors has set you following me?’ he demanded. ‘None, sir,’ I stammered. ‘I only wanted to look at the author of “The Rivals.”’ He appeared much amused and said: ‘Egad! So you are a patron of the drama, my boy?’ I muttered something in the affirmative. He regarded my appearance critically. ‘I presume you would not be averse to genteel employment, my lad?’ he asked. With that he scribbled a moment and handed me a note to the property man of Drury Lane. My heart was too full; I had no words to thank him. The 427 tears were in my eyes, which, noting, he remarked, with an assumption of sternness: ‘Are you sure, boy, you are not a bailiff in disguise?’ At this I laughed and he left me. The note procured me an engagement as errand boy at the stage-door and later I rose to the dignity of scene-shifter. How truly typical of this man’s greatness, to help lift a homeless lad out of the gutters of London town!
“But I am rambling on as though writing an autobiography, to be read when I am gone––”
Here the entry ceases and the rest of the pages in the old date-book are blank.