“I can’t do it. I can’t stand it, and must give the whole thing up unless I can have at least $250 a lecture.” “That’s all I get for the first ten lectures, and by that time we don’t know whether they will be worth any more. Let’s try under our contract and see if it is as great as your prediction. I am ready to do the fair thing. I certainly will make no new contract until we see if the one in existence is any good.” “Very well; stop it all. I will take Mrs. Talmage and Jessie and go to Paris and get rest, which I need and must have.” So we sat on the steps of Westminster Abbey until 2 o’clock Monday morning and the Doctor was booked to lecture in Nottingham that night. When we separated he asked me what hour he had better start for Nottingham, if he went. I told him 9:30. “I’ll see you at breakfast at 8 and tell you finally,” he said. When he and Mrs. Talmage came down to breakfast in their travelling clothes I knew he was going to Nottingham. I felt so, any way. Applications were pouring in, and I saw that I could obtain certainties of from £100 to £200 a lecture after the ten Leeds lectures had been given, so I was prepared to make concessions to the Doctor, if he showed any disposition to be fair. As we sat down to the table the Doctor handed me a note written by his own hand on a narrow strip of paper. It read as follows: “Pay me $200 a lecture and my expenses, not those of my family, and I will go on for one hundred lectures. Put this note in your pocket.” I read and replied: “All right, Dr. Talmage. I accept. Mrs. Talmage, do you know about this?” “Yes, Major Pond. I am so glad you and the Doctor have come to an agreement.” So we started for Nottingham. Mr. Thorn met us at the station there and drove the Talmages to some gentleman’s house where, they were entertained. Mr. Thorn returned and dined with me at my hotel. I asked him how the bookings were. He replied that everything was full. I asked if he sold reserved seats. He said: “No; the people had filled the house early that afternoon and not another person could be got in. He and his committee had been all the afternoon collecting the entrance fee from the crowd now in their seats. He was ready for Dr. Talmage to go on at any time.” When he went to the hall there were thousands of the same human strata that had been seen the Sunday before, waiting to set eyes on Dr. Talmage, and they were enthusiastic to the verge of insanity. The police had protected a back entrance, so that the chairman, mayor, and speaker could get in. I was obliged to stand until I could bear it no longer, and went out.