fest, when my editorial
angel arose and spread his wings over the troubled audience.

'People of Tyre,' said he, 'the exhibition of the Great Humbug Troupe
is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and least objectionable
that ever appeared in our village. It remains for us to make it
instructive. I propose that we give three cheers for our brave
entertainer,--hip, hip,

'_Hurrah!_ HURRAH! HURRAH!'

Like young thunder the last cheer arose; and my bacon was saved!

The receipts placed me in possession of fifty dollars, after defraying
all expenses in Tyre and settling my bill and recovering my satchel from
Sidon--which I did by a messenger the same evening after the lecture. My
editorial friend advised me now to stop at Sidon only long enough to
take the first train home, leaving the Sidonites to discover the sell
without expense. But I scouted the idea. I was flushed with the success
of the previous evening (a success mainly due, as the sagacious reader
knows, to the editor of the _Times_ and his _corps_ of confidants
distributed at intervals over the hall); I was chagrined at the turn my
original enterprise had taken, but determined to carry it out 'to the
death;' and, more than all, I was burning to revenge myself on the
perfidious postmaster of Sidon, and Dr. Tomson and Squire Johnson and
Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Potkins. And on Monday evening I
faced an audience in Jones's Hall, Sidon, prominent among whom I
noticed, the principal objects of my ire.

IV.--HE DON'T MAKE A HIT IN SIDON, THOUGH SOME PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE
DOES.

No time for contemplation was left on my hands, however; for as soon as
I had articulated the words 'ladies and gentlemen,' an offensive missile
hit me between my eyes, exploded, and deluged me with an odor in
comparison with which that of Limberger cheese would be mere geranium. I
was betrayed. Tyre had sent over a detachment of spies, and the
Sidonites were armed. I briskly dodged several companion eggs whose
foulness was permitted to adorn the walls of Jones's Hall behind me, and
then undertook to escape. Simultaneously with the explosion of the first
shot, a howl had burst from the audience, which boded no good for any
prospects of comfort and profit I might entertain. Escaping on my part
became no joke; and I beg the reader to believe that my chagrin was
quite overwhelmed in the all-impressive desire to protect myself from
total annihilation. In my subsequent gratit