hemselves
thenceforth the whole financial responsibility of the Readings in the
Metropolis and throughout the United Kingdom. According to the proposal
originally submitted to the Novelist by the Messrs. Chappell, and at
once frankly accepted by him, a splendid sum was guaranteed to him
in remuneration. Twice afterwards those terms were considerably
increased,--and upon each occasion, it should be added, quite
spontaneously.

Another inducement was held out to the Reader besides that of his being
relieved from all further sense of responsibility in the undertaking as
a merely speculative enterprise. It related to the chance of his finding
himself released also from any further sense of solicitude as to the
conduct of the general business management. The inducement, here,
however, was of course in no way instantly recognizable. Experience
alone could show the fitness for his post of the Messrs. Chappell's
representative. As good fortune would have it, nevertheless, here
precisely was an instance in which Mr. Layard's famous phrase about the
right man in the right place, was directly applicable. As a thoroughly
competent business manager, and as one whose companionship of itself had
a heartening influence in the midst of enormous toil, Mr. Dolby speedily
came to be recognised as the very man for the position, as the very one
who in all essential respects it was most desirable should have been
selected.

A series of Thirty Readings was at once planned under his supervision.
It consisted for the first time of a tour through England and Scotland,
interspersed with Readings every now and then in the Metropolis. The
Reader's course in this way seemed to be erratic, but the whole scheme
was admirably well arranged beforehand, and once entered upon, was
carried out with the precision of clockwork. These thirty Readings,
in 1866, began and ended at St. James's Hall, Piccadilly. The opening
night was that of Tuesday, the 10th of April, the closing night that
of Tuesday, the 12th of June. Between those dates half-a-dozen other
Readings were given from the same central platform in London, the
indefatigable author making his appearance meanwhile alternately in the
principal cities of the United Kingdom. Besides revisiting in this way
(some of these places repeatedly) in the north, Edinburgh and Glasgow
and Aberdeen, in the south and south-west, Clifton and Portsmouth, as
well as Liverpool and Manchester intermediately--Charles Dick