by the
private door, at a little before seven o'clock, and laid my hat behind
the temporary curtain that had been erected for the accommodation of the
great Humbug Troupe. Applying my eye to a chink in the cloth, I
perceived that the hall was crowded to suffocation. My editorial friend
sat in a prominent position near the stage, and the audience was
manifesting those signs of impatience which seem to be equally orthodox
among the news-boys in the pit of the old Bowery Theatre and the coarse
young rustics who go to 'shows' in the back villages of ruraldom. I
tinkled a bell. The uproar grew quiet. I drew aside my curtain, and made
my bow, amid the silent wonderment of my auditors. Then I said:--

'Ladies and gentlemen: You now see before you the redoubtable Fantadimo
Fantodimus, master of ceremonies for the Great Humbug Troupe. You also
see before you, ladies and gentlemen, Mons. Belitz, the renowned
magician, Mademoiselle Heliotrope, the graceful danseuse, Signor
Strawstekowski, Herr Balamsass; and, in short, ladies and gentlemen, you
see before you the sum and substance of the Great Humbug Troupe, as it
exists in all its original splendor. We salute you!

'My friends, you were drawn here to-night by the extravagantly worded
and outlandish representations of a poster which promised you only one
single thing, namely, that you should behold a Great Traveling Humbug.
Nothing could be more honest, though some things might be more
straightforward. Force of circumstances compels me this evening to
represent the Great Traveling Humbug you came to see. I am this evening
the greatest of humbugs. I travel. A week ago, I traveled into this
village with the laudable intention of giving you a sensible lecture on
EURIPIDES, a historical personage of whom some of you may have heard. I
traveled over to this hall on the evening of my lecture, and spoke to a
beggarly array of empty seats. To-morrow morning, I intend to travel to
church in your beautiful village, repent of my sins, and on Monday
travel home to New York, where I shall at once take measures to rid
myself of the title I wear this evening, by earning my bread in the
old-fashioned way, by the sweat of my brow.

'Humbug, ladies and gentlemen, is a pill not at all disagreeable to
take, when gilded carefully. My pill has been prepared by the hand of a
novice, and you have swallowed it with your eyes open. May it benefit
you!'

Symptoms of a disturbance immediately became mani