request. The Doctor immediately took a chair in the office, and said
firmly: "I shall not leave this office, Mr. Secretary, until you write
out an order releasing my son."

The hour for luncheon came. The Secretary invited the Doctor to lunch
with him. "I shall not leave this office, Mr. Secretary, until I get
that order," was the Doctor's reply. The Secretary of the Navy left the
office; after an absence of an hour and a half, he returned and found
Dr. Talmage still sitting in the same place. The afternoon passed.
Dinner time came round. "Dr. Talmage, will you not honour me by coming
up to my house to dine, and staying with us over night?" asked the
Secretary. "I shall not leave this office until you write out that order
releasing my son, Mr. Secretary," was the calm, persistent reply. The
Secretary departed. The building was empty, save for a watchman, to whom
the Secretary said in passing, "There is a gentleman in my room. When he
wishes to leave let him out of the building."

About nine o'clock at night the Secretary became anxious. Telephones
were not common then, so he went down to the office to investigate; and
sitting there in the place where he had been all day was Dr. Talmage.
The order was written that night. This incident was told me by a friend
of the Doctor's. There can be no doubt that Dr. Talmage was justified in
this demand of paternal love and sympathy, since numbers of such
concessions had been made by the Secretary and his predecessors. His
daring and his pertinacity were overwhelming forces of his genius.

In the winter months of this year I enjoyed another lecturing tour with
him through Canada and the West. The lecture bureau that arranged his
tours must have counted on his herculean strength, for frequently he had
to travel twenty-four hours at a stretch to keep his engagements.
Occasionally he was paid in cash at the end of the lecture an amount
fixed by the lecture bureau. I have seen him with perhaps $2,000 in
bills and gold stuffed away carelessly in his pocket, as if money were
merely some curious specimen of no special value. Sometimes he would
receive his fee in a cheque, and, as happened once in a small Western
town, he would have very little money with him. I remember an occasion
of this kind, because it was amusing. The cheque had been given the
Doctor as usual at the end of his lecture. It was about eleven at night,
and we were compelled to take a midnight train out to reach his next