At the end of the first week I paid Dr. Parker for five lectures, which included the Beecher eulogy. I made no objections to this. In fact, I knew I had a perfect right to do so. Nothing was said about it in settlement. The Doctor delivered five lectures and I had paid him. The net proceeds of the first lecture I had donated to the Beecher Statue Fund. I should have sent in a check as the net receipts of the lecture, with no further explanation, and then everything would have been all right and no questions asked; but as many thought the net receipts--about $1,100--looked small for so large a house, and did not take into consideration the expense of the Academy of Music rental, advertising, etc., I made a confidential statement to a member of the Statue Committee of all items, including the fee of the speaker. The secretary happened to be the very last man I should have trusted. He at once had an item for the newspapers, and rushed to the office, and that evening appeared in all the daily papers sensational headlines: “DR. PARKER TAKES PAY FOR EULOGIZING HIS FRIEND.” “MAJOR POND WITHHOLDS MONEY BELONGING TO THE BEECHER STATUE.” “DEACON WHITE DENOUNCES THE THIEF AND ACCOMPLICE, ETC.” It was exciting. Dr. Parker was on the road filling lecture engagements. Reporters and interviewers found him in Chicago and told him he was charged with refusing to deliver a eulogy on his friend for less than $250. Had he any money belonging to the Beecher Statue Fund? He declared he had none. The Doctor had been lecturing to crowded houses, but now the reporters completely demoralized him. He telegraphed me that he must stop. He was ill and could not go farther. He returned to New York. Reporters haunted him there. Every interview made matters worse. He engaged passage and sailed back home in a very few days. There was due to Dr. Parker $1,100 for lectures that he had delivered. Of course I had been making money on his lectures, and to stop and cancel was a financial loss to me; but as in all contracts, “illness or unavoidable circumstances render this agreement null and void,” I could only settle with Dr. Parker by paying what was due him. I made out the statement and accompanying check for $1,100. He sent for me the day before he sailed. As I came into his dignified and sombre presence the Doctor said: “Major Pond, I sail for my home to-morrow. My health is such that I cannot go on. The long voyages frighten me, and I am so completely collapsed when I arrive at the end of a day’s journey that I cannot address my audiences. Under these conditions, and with this certificate of one of your most eminent physicians, I am legally released from any obligation to you. You owe me $1,100 according to this statement. I propose to go away from America owing no one and having no one owe me, and you wish to pay me? You give me this check, which I suppose is good.”