The place stifled and depressed me. I longed for

59



The Confessions of

red blood and real life. There I was, acting as a
clerk on nothing a year, when uptown I was in the
centre of the whirlpool of existence. It was with
ill-concealed gratification that I used daily at one
o'clock to enter the library, bow to whatever mem-
ber of the firm happened to be there, remove a
book from the shelves and slip out of the door. A
horse-car dropped me in half an hour at a hotel
near my office. After I had snatched a sandwich
and cup of coffee in the cafe I would dash up to
my office — the door of which now bore the lettering:



ABRAHAM GOTTLIEB

ATTORNEY & COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
BRANCH OFFICE

SIDDONS KELLY, Manager



Siddons Kelly was the superannuated actor of
whom I have already spoken, and when he was
not, so to speak, in drink he was an invaluable per-
son. He had followed the stage all his life, but he
was of the sort that tear passion to tatters and he
had never risen above third-rate parts. In every
respect save declamation he had all the elegances
and charm of manner that the stage can give, and
he would receive and bow out a scrubwoman
who had fallen down a flight of back stairs and

60



Artemas Quibble

wanted to make the landlord pay for her broken
head with a grace truly Chesterfieldian. This
was all very fine until he had taken a drop too
much, when his vocabulary would swell to such
dimensions that the confused and embarrassed cli-
ent would flee in self-protection unless fortunate
enough to be rescued by Gottlieb or myself. Poor
Kelly! He was a fine old type. And many a
client then and later was attracted to my office by
his refined and intellectual old face with its locks
of silky gray. An old bachelor, he died alone one
night in his little boarding-house with a peaceful
smile on his wrinkled face. He lies in Greenwood
Cemetery. Over him is a simple stone — for which
I paid — bearing, as he had requested, only the
words:



SIDDONS KELLY

AN ACTOR



As may well be supposed, my professional career
uptown was vastly more entertaining than my ex-
periences at Haight & Foster's. 