"Wait a minute."
Then he went over and had a talk with Mr. Williams.
Mr. Williams came out and said: "Mr. Hitchcock, this is Mr. Fred Miller, the composer of 'The Golden Wedding.'"
Mr. Miller then asked me if I could play the part of an English lord, and I said I did not know any one in the whole world who could play it any better than I could.
It was a little after twelve o'clock. Mr. Miller looked at his watch and said: "Can you catch the one o'clock train?"
"If it is necessary, I can catch the twelve o'clock train," I replied.
He then gave me a ticket to Boston, and a ten-dollar bill. It was so long since I had seen a ten-dollar bill I had to ask what it was. I caught the one o'clock train, and in two days was playing the part of Sir Tobin Tobax in "The Golden Wedding" before an enthusiastic audience in Worcester, Massachusetts, and from that time to the present day I have not asked for an engagement.
It is true I have been without ten-dollar bills—in fact, have been without most everything—except an engagement. I was a poor boy, and started out in life at three dollars per week in a shoe store. The first one-hundred-dollar-a-week engagement I ever had seemed like millions of money to me, so I never saved a cent.
I soon found out that I had to learn the value of money, and how true the old adage: "Any fool can make money, but it takes a wise man to save it." I wonder if I am growing wise?