"You MUST have something for me, and I have got to have it," I replied.
"Well, call around and see me later," said he.
"I will do anything, and if I am not all right, and don't prove
satisfactory, it won't cost you a cent," I persisted.
"Well, you come around and see me to-morrow."
There was a little fat man sitting in the office--and he turned to me and
said:
"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?