he cobbler's son had left the town a few years
before he couldn't read his own name.

The Vicar presided. Ministers of other denominations were present. The
Young Men's Christian Association was very much in evidence at the
lecture. School teachers of the Sunday School where I taught, were
present. The class of little boys I had gathered off the streets was
there; but personally I had gone after the newsboys of the town, and I
had arranged that they should sit in a row of front seats. Indeed, I
bribed some of them to be present.

My lecture was on Gordon and Khartoum. I described our life on the
desert and told something of the war-game as I had seen it played. At
the close of the lecture, the usual perfunctory vote of thanks was
moved, and several prominent men of the town made the seconding of the
vote an excuse for a speech. Curiously enough, I had had an experience
with one of these men when I was a newsboy, and in my reply to this
vote of thanks I told the story:

"One winter's night when I was selling papers on these streets--I
think I was about twelve years of age--I knocked at a man's door and
asked if he wanted a paper. The streets were covered with snow and
slush, and I was shoeless and very cold. The man of the house opened
the door himself, and something must have disturbed him mentally, for
when he saw it was a newsboy, he took me by the collar and threw me
into the gutter. My papers were spoiled and my rags soaked with slush
and water.

"I picked myself up and came back to the window through which I saw a
bright fire on an open hearth, and around it the man's family. I don't
think I said any bad words, nor do I think I was very angry; but I
certainly was sad and I made up my mind at the window that that man
would some day be sorry for an unnecessary act of cruelty. I am glad
that the gentleman is present to-night"--a deep silence and
breathlessness pervaded the audience--"for I am sure that he is sorry.
But here are the newsboys of the town. They are my invited guests
to-night. I want to say to the townspeople that the only kindly hand
ever laid on my head was the Vicar's. It is too late now to help me--I
am beyond your reach: but these boys are here, and they are serving
you with papers and earning a few pennies to appease hunger or to
clothe their bodies, and I want you to be kind to them."

After the lecture the man who had thrown me in the gutter came to me.
Of course, he had forgotten it. He had