llustration: GIVING MY "HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENT" TO THE NURSES.]

Some years later I had another experience of speaking from an impromptu
platform; perhaps the most unique audience I ever addressed. It was at
Merchant Taylors' Hall, when a reception was given to hospital nurses
from all over the kingdom. My pencil perhaps can give a better idea of
the sundry and various varieties of the "nursus hospitalicus" from the
different nurseries of the country. There was no proper platform or
stage, so the attendants had the task of moving all the heavy tables in
the splendid hall together, so as to form a substitute. This I thought
very efficient, but when I mounted it I found that I could much better
have given an exhibition of fancy sliding or skating than illustrations
of the pedestrian peculiarities of Members of Parliament. I was inwardly
pleased to think that my audience was entirely composed of skilled
nurses, who were close at hand should anything happen, for I had serious
misgivings about the slippery surface of my improvised stage. Visions of
myself with a broken arm or leg floated before me, and, indeed, I don't
think I should have been so very sorry had an accident occurred, so
enraptured was I by the sight of so much feminine beauty.

Those in front were all seated on the floor, while the rest were
standing in the huge hall, there being no seats. I noticed that the
prettiest dress was that worn by the nurses from the lunatic asylums. I
felt that I would eventually come under the supervision of these ladies,
for a military band, regardless of my performance, was playing a
selection from the "Gondoliers" just outside in the corridor, and if I
had not had it stopped, I would certainly have gone out of my mind. I
particularly noticed on this evening that various points were passed
over in silence by my audience which are invariably taken by others. In
the second part of my entertainment I make a speech in the character of
the "Member for Boredom," anent the use of black sticking-plaster in
public hospitals. This is intended by me to be more of a satire than a
humorous incident, and I am supposed to bore my audience as the
honourable gentleman is supposed to bore the House; but on this occasion
the nurses, who understood very little about politics, simply roared
with laughter at the mention of a subject with which they were so
familiar. Truth to tell, I was rather doubtful whether I had succeeded
in entertaining the charm