e most difficult of all my work. One's memory is taxed far
beyond its capacity. To forget some things, and some people and some
kindnesses, are unforgivable sins. A new host every night, a new home,
a new city, a new audience, alone lead one into lamentable lapses. In
a car full of people a man asked me one day how I liked Toledo. I
replied that I had never been there. "Strange," he murmured, "because
you spent the night at my house!" On another occasion at a crowded
reception I was talking to a lady on one side and a gentleman on the
other. I had been introduced to them, but caught neither name. They
did not address each other, but only spoke to me. I felt that I must
remedy matters by making them acquainted with each other, and
therefore mumbled, "Pray let me present to you Mrs. M-m-m." "Oh! no
need, Doctor," he replied. "We've been married for thirty years."
Shortly after I noticed at a reception that every one wore his name
pinned onto his breast, and I wondered if there were any connection.

It is my invariable custom in the North to carry a water-tight box
with matches and a compass chained to my belt. One night, being tired,
I had turned into bed in a very large, strange room without noting the
bearings of the doors or electric switches. My faithful belt had been
abandoned for pyjama strings. It so happened that to catch a train I
had to rise before daylight, and all my possessions were in a
dressing-room. I soon gave up hunting for the electric light. It was
somewhere in the air, I knew, but beating the air in the dark with the
windows wide open in winter is no better fun in your nightclothes in
New York than in Labrador. A tour of inspection discovered no less
than five doors, none of which I felt entitled to enter in the dark in
_deshabille_. The humour of the situation is, of course, apparent now,
but even one's dog hates to be laughed at.

An independent life has somehow left me with an instinctive dislike
for asking casual acquaintances the way to any place that I am
seeking. The aversion is more or less justified by the fact that
outside the police force very exceptional persons can direct you,
especially if they know the way themselves. On my first visit to New
York I could see how easy a city it was to navigate, and returned to
my host's house near Eighth Street in good time to dress for dinner
after a long side trip near Columbia University and thence to the
Bellevue Hospital. "How did you find your wa