. Recollections of a player. as- 22 Recollections of a Player. sociation with minstrelsy lent it a dignity thatthis rapidly departing form of amusement has neverknown since. We remained in Chicago for two years, andthen returned to New York to play an engagementin Josh Harts Theatre Comique on and Hart were the principal membersof the company engaged there. About this time I made the acquaintance of aman who became an invaluable friend and mentorto me, John H. Mahony, who was then and isstill the principal of Trinity Chapel School in NewYork. I found not only a most congenial
. Recollections of a player. as- 22 Recollections of a Player. sociation with minstrelsy lent it a dignity thatthis rapidly departing form of amusement has neverknown since. We remained in Chicago for two years, andthen returned to New York to play an engagementin Josh Harts Theatre Comique on and Hart were the principal membersof the company engaged there. About this time I made the acquaintance of aman who became an invaluable friend and mentorto me, John H. Mahony, who was then and isstill the principal of Trinity Chapel School in NewYork. I found not only a most congenial com-panion, but an associate who opened up before meopportunities to continue an education that hadbeen interrupted by my infatuation for the became firm friends, and later we lived to-gether. He was a wonderful teacher, for notonly was he thoroughly and accurately informedin many branches of scholastic knowledge, buthe also possessed that which is so rare in teachers,the faculty of imparting his information in the. PROFESSOR J. HOWARD MAHONY. Recollectio7is of a Player. 23 simplest and most logical form. I had a greatdeal of leisure time, and became his pupil, con-tinuing under his instruction for several years. Previous to this, when in Chicago, I went to abusiness college to revive my dormant quite well known by that time as a min-strel performer, I purposely kept my identity a se-cret from both my tutors and my fellow scholars,not caring to be plied with questions and attentionson that account. But after a l&vi months it wasdiscovered that I was one of the Myerss OperaHouse comedians, and the obsequious manners ofmy associates in the class were so annoying that Ileft the school at once, but with very great regret,for I had much sport there in the construction ofcomic sentences for analysis by the scholars — anexercise provocative of much laughter. When theassociation with Mr. Mahony in New York beganI was eager enough to embrace this new chance tor
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