I arranged with Thorn to pay me for the two following lectures in Birmingham and Manchester, so I could return to London and proceed to fill the balance of the time, and he to look after the welfare of the “star” while I agreed to join them on the following Saturday in Liverpool. At my London hotel I found great stacks of letters, but as my time and route were all mapped out, they did not trouble me. Still all the letters must be opened in order to know which of them most needed attention. There were many applications with accompanying checks for from £20 to £40. It seemed incredible that there could be such a craze over a minister, and yet that it caused no comment whatever in the daily newspapers or the secular press in any way. I expected to read blazing headlines of the first great occasion in the London morning papers, but there was not a word. The London secular press seldom mentions religious doings. I then set to work to finish booking the time. There was much to do in arranging ninety one-night stands for a great attraction, and surely I had the greatest one I had ever known. I was working into midnight when a telegram came up. I would not have opened it had it been a seasonable hour. It was from the Doctor, and read: * * * * * “BIRMINGHAM, June 19, 1879. “J. B. POND, Westminster Palace Hotel, London. “Stop everything. To-night surpasses all. “Signed, “T. DEWITT TALMAGE.” * * * * * He was booked for Manchester the following evening, and a great audience was expected. I replied: “Must keep the Manchester engagement. Will meet you there to-morrow.” So I left London and arrived in Manchester about 5 o’clock the next afternoon. Passing the City Hall and public buildings my “cabby” drove into a dense crowd of thousands massed together. I never saw the like. I asked my driver what that crowd meant. He said a Yankee minister was to lecture there by the name of “Talm-o-d-ge.” I asked the name of the building. He said it was Free Trade Hall. I discharged the cab and tried to get into the outskirts of the crowd. I had a small handbag. The crowd was not noisy, but simply made a rush for the door, which had been burst open, and filled the hall with all that could get in. Every now and then I could hear some one say, “I _will_ see Talm-o-d-ge,” and then he would make a break, only to be crowded back. I slipped up to a policeman and asked what this all meant. He told me the same story, of a Yankee minister that was to lecture. He had never before heard of “Talm-o-d-ge,” but the crowd evidently had. I said to him, so as not to be overheard: “I am a Yankee. I am Dr. Talmage’s secretary.” He didn’t even wait to look at me, but with both hands in the air he shouted: