ing ladies, and was therefore particularly
gratified to receive the following note from Sir Henry Burdett:

"DEAR MR. FURNISS,--I hope you were satisfied with your audience
after all. They were quite delighted with your 'Humours of
Parliament,' and the fame of your handiwork will be carried all
over the United Kingdom and to the Colonies, for there were over
1,100 nurses present, and some from the Colonies. This is the
greatest gathering of nurses which has ever been held, and I was
much struck with the discipline they displayed in responding
cheerfully to the request that they would keep quiet and settle
down.

"If you were as pleased with the audience as they were with you,
the meeting ought indeed to be a happy one....

"With many thanks for your most excellent and successful
performance, which gave just _eclat_ to the gathering to-night,

"Believe me, faithfully yours,
"HENRY C. BURDETT."

The most difficult audience of all to address is a small audience. I
feel far more at home before an audience of three or four thousand than
I do before three or four hundred. But the most critical audience, I
think, is a boys' school. Not that they criticise you so much at the
moment, particularly if you appear as an antidote to Dryasdust. But
experience has shown me that something one may have said has opened a
fresh idea in the youthful mind, and the criticism, though frequently
belated, is more genuine than that of the matured members of the public
who simply wish to be amused for the passing hour.

[Illustration: SPEAKER BRAND, AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT HAMPDEN.]

Sometimes I have discovered in my audience public men I am "taking off"
in my entertainment. This more frequently happened in the "Humours of
Parliament," where the M.P. of the place in which I appeared came if I
was not too unkind to him. But it more often happened he sent a member
of the family in advance, to find out whether the great man was
lampooned or not.

A friend of mine on a visit to a country house informed me that his
hostess, seeing I was "billed" for two nights in the neighbourhood,
previous to arranging a house party to hear me, took the precaution to
send the Curate the first night to report. He came back and condemned me
and my show unmercifully; my manner, matter, and voice were all bad, and
I was certainly not worth hearing.