There was no lack of excitement on this tour. The next day the doctor
was down for two entertainments in Pittsburg, besides a luncheon and a
dinner. We took an early morning train, reaching Pittsburg at noon,
where we were met by a delegation of ministers and business men, with
Andrew Carnegie at the head. They had planned a luncheon for Dr. Watson,
which was waiting, and then to lecture at two o’clock! I looked after
the business while the doctor was entertained by his friends. We were
getting nearly all we wanted of luncheons. One gentleman had assured Dr.
Watson that Major Pond had made a great mistake in placing a matinée
lecture, for the new Carnegie Hall could accommodate all the people, and
as there was not a soul to be seen when the doctor and Mr. Carnegie
drove up to the Opera House, the doctor said to me:
“Major, you have made a great mistake here. One reading is enough. You
have the obstinacy of a Scot.”
“Have I?” I replied. “Well, all you will have to do is to give your
‘small audience’ a better lecture this afternoon.”
When he got around on the stage and faced the crowd, he found the most
select audience Pittsburg could possibly muster. There was not a vacant
seat, and “Standing Room Only” was on the signs in the lobby. We took in
$1,800 that afternoon. He went to dinner with Mr. Carnegie, who
introduced him to another audience that evening of over three thousand
people.
At the eating station in Oil City, the next day, while on our way to
Jamestown, the doctor left his hat. I had to go into the baggage car and
get his hat box, and he went all the way into Jamestown and Buffalo
wearing his silk hat. We had one lecture at Jamestown, with no
particular incident except that the President of the Y. M. C. A. kept
the audience in agony fifteen minutes with his introductory speech.
The next day, in Buffalo, there were two lectures, a club luncheon, and
a supper, after which we went by trolley to Niagara Falls, where our
wives were soundly sleeping at 1:30 A.M. Sunday. I don’t believe Dr.
Watson had had ten spare minutes during the two weeks previous to that
time.
We saw the falls through disagreeable mist and cold drizzly rain. A more
uncomfortable day out of doors could not be, but Mr. Isaacs’s cosy
Prospect House was unalloyed comfort. Once Mr. Beecher wrote me from
this hotel: “Good room, good bed, good table, and good host. What a
cluster of blessings! Next to being at home is the blessedness of being
away from home in a good hotel.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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