have started on a lecture
tour at all. So, being a fool, I had bills printed, hired a hall (at ten
dollars), and was duly announced to lecture in Tyre on the coming
Tuesday evening. The same afternoon, _The Tyre Times_ appeared, and its
editorial column contained the following notice, which I read with great
interest, it being my first appearance in any periodical:--

LECTURE AT GRECIAN HALL.--We take pleasure in announcing that Prof.
GREEN D. BROWN, of New York city, will favor the citizens of Tyre
with a lecture on Tuesday evening next. From what we know of the
gentleman, we are satisfied our citizens will not regret attending
the lecture. We trust he may not be met with an audience so small
as lectures have heretofore drawn out in Tyre. The apathy of our
citizens in these matters, we have before stated, is disgraceful.
Let there be a good turn-out.

But there was not a good turn-out. The receipts were two dollars and a
half. The proprietor of the hall consented to take the receipts for his
pay, and I returned to the hotel to muse over my unhappy fortunes.

The landlord took occasion the next morning, as I was passing out of the
house, to remind me that my baggage had not arrived.

'No,' said I, 'but, as I soon leave Tyre, I shan't need it.'

The landlord looked at my dirty collar and bosom as if he doubted either
my sanity or my decency, and remarked that perhaps I knew his rules
compelled him to present the bills of strangers semi-weekly.

'O, yes! that's all right,' said I; 'I'll see you when I come back from
the printing-office.'

I noticed that mine host stood watching to see that I entered the
printing-office safely.

The editor remarked, after I had told him all the experience narrated
here, commencing with the washing-machines,--

'It's a bad case, and I don't admire your experience at all, to speak
candidly; but I have a little idea of my own to work out, and you can
help me do it, perhaps. In the first place, though, I want to know
whether you intend to continue in this line of business,--eh?'

'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to
those who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for
me, more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'

'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you
what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't
afford to pay much for i