for subject,
"The Existence of God." (It may be noted, in passing, that young
students and speakers always select the most tremendous subjects for
their discourses. One advances in modesty as one advances in
knowledge, and after eighteen years of platform work, I am far more
dubious than I was at their beginning as to my power of dealing in any
sense adequately with the problems of life.) The Dialectical Society
had for some years held their meetings in a room in Adam Street,
rented from the Social Science Association. When the members gathered
as usual on February 17th, the door was found to be locked, and they
had to gather on the stairs; they found that "Ajax's" as yet
undelivered paper was too much for Social Science nerves, and that
entrance to their ordinary meeting-room was then and thenceforth
denied them. So they, with "Ajax," found refuge at the Charing Cross
Hotel, and speculated merrily on the eccentricities of religious
bigotry.

On February 12th I started on my first provincial lecturing tour, and
after speaking at Birkenhead that evening went on by the night mail to
Glasgow. Some races--dog races--I think, had been going on, and very
unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting on the platform. Some
Birkenhead friends had secured me a compartment, and watched over me
till the train began to move. Then, after we had fairly started, the
door was flung open by a porter, and a man was thrust in who half
tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly recovered he stood up, and as his
money rolled out of his hand on to the floor, and he gazed vaguely at
it, I saw to my horror that he was drunk. The position was not
pleasant, for the train was an express, and was not timed to stop for
a considerable time. My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the
floor, hunting after his scattered coins; then he slowly gathered
himself up and presently became conscious of my presence. He studied
me for some time, and then proposed to shut the window. I assented
quietly, not wanting to discuss a trifle and feeling in deadly
terror--alone at night in an express with a man not drunk enough to be
helpless, but too drunk to be controlled. Never before nor since have
I felt so thoroughly frightened. I can see him still, swaying as he
stood, with eyes bleared and pendulous lips--but I sat there quiet and
outwardly unmoved, as is always my impulse in danger till I see some
way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a d