Well! it came to pass that at this particular time I speak of the winter promised to be exceptionally severe, and we could not raise funds for our free teas. So, in a moment of inspiration, I suggested that if we could raise sufficient funds to have some lantern slides made from pictures which I would get, and take the Peckham Public Hall, I would give a lecture on the South Sea Whaling industry, of which I had never forgotten a detail. All the brethren entered into the proposal _con amore_, but I doubt if it would ever have matured but for a recent convert, a young clerk in a big manufacturing house, who drew out his savings and financed the affair. That difficulty over, we went ahead full speed and pestered everybody we knew to buy tickets, getting a guinea by the way from Sir John Blundell Maple, who probably thought it was worth that to shelve us when we applied to him for his patronage of the show. The great night arrived, and we had secured a popular local preacher to take the chair. His organist had promised to play an accompaniment for two sacred songs which I was to sing, and best of all, four hundred tickets were sold. Our popular preacher, however, very nearly ruined us, for, after introducing me in a very graceful speech, he said to my shame and indignation, "Will brother so-and-so lead us in prayer," naming a long-winded old donkey who would ramble you on for an indefinite length of time in a babblement that was anything but prayer, even if such a prologue was at all indicated on such an occasion. I verily believe that I lost a pint of sweat while that old idiot maundered on. I felt in every nerve the impatience and disgust of the mixed audience, and at last, in despair, I actually prayed myself that the Lord would stop his wretched twaddle, for it was nothing else. Apparently my prayer was answered, almost immediately, for he had a violent paroxysm of coughing which enabled us to go ahead. Of course I was not at all nervous, my long training in the open air prevented that, and equally of course (I suppose) the strangeness of the subject held the suburban folk enthralled. However that may have been, I know that presently seeing my last slides appearing and fearing that I was cutting the matter too short, I asked a friend of mine in front (in a stage whisper) the time. "Ten o'clock, Tom," he promptly replied, in a voice audible all over the hall. My, but there was nearly a panic. Some wise person turned the lights up, and in about two minutes nearly everybody had gone.