veled in the triumphs of a platform tour, though at no
time did he regard it as a pleasure excursion. During those early weeks
the proofs of his new book, chasing him from place to place, did not add
to his comfort. Still, with large, substantial rewards in hand and in
prospect, one could endure much.

In the neighborhood of Boston there were other compensations. He could
spend a good part of his days at the Lyceum headquarters, in School
Street, where there was always congenial fellowship--Nasby, Josh
Billings, and the rest of the peripatetic group that about the end of the
year collected there. Their lectures were never tried immediately in
Boston, but in the outlying towns; tried and perfected--or discarded.
When the provincial audiences were finally satisfied, then the final.
test in the Boston Music Hall was made, and if this proved successful the
rest of the season was safe. Redpath's lecturers put up at Young's
Hotel, and spent their days at the bureau, smoking and spinning yarns, or
talking shop. Early in the evening they scattered to the outlying towns,
Lowell, Lexington, Concord, New Bedford. There is no such a condition
to-day: lecturers are few, lecture bureaus obscure; there are no great
reputations made on the platform.

Neither is there any such distinct group of humorists as the one just
mentioned. Humor has become universal since then. Few writers of this
age would confess to taking their work so seriously as to be at all times
unsmiling in it; only about as many, in fact, as in that day would
confess to taking their work so lightly that they could regard life's
sterner phases and philosophies with a smile.

Josh Billings was one of the gentlest and loveliest of our pioneers of
laughter. The present generation is not overfamiliar even with his name,
but both the name and sayings of that quaint soul were on everybody's
lips at the time of which we are writing. His true name was Henry W.
Shaw, and he was a genuine, smiling philosopher, who might have built up
a more permanent and serious reputation had he not been induced to
disfigure his maxims with ridiculous spelling in order to popularize them
and make them bring a living price. It did not matter much with Nasby's
work. An assumed illiteracy belonged with the side of life which he
presented; but it is pathetic now to consider some of the really masterly
sayings of Josh Billings presented in that uncouth form which was
regarded as a part of humor a g