Here, then, was an opportunity. Some one should go out and beg. Father Ignatius was commissioned to write letters, but though the first was answered by a cheque for £100, with a promise of more, there was not enough forthcoming to enable them to build. Could he not do two things at once? Could he not ask for prayers as well as alms? Did not the very plea of begging give him a right to go to different places, even from parish to parish, and speak publicly and privately? It did. And he was forthwith sent out to carry into execution the dreams of half a life, which he scarcely ever expected to realize. He first began this peculiar mission of his by going through the towns with a guide, like ordinary questers: in a few years the plan developed itself into the "little missions." {371} His first begging tour was through Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham, Oscott, Leamington, and Wolverhampton. In a few months he sallies forth again, and Liverpool is the theatre of his labours. Many and rude were the trials he had to endure in this humiliating work. He thus playfully alludes to some of them: "I am on a begging mission here at Liverpool, in which I find rough and smooth, ups and downs, every day. The general result is very fair. I have been here since Monday, the 8th of May" (he writes on the 20th), "and have got more than £100, but with hard walking. I am, however, quite well, and the inflammation of my eye quite gone--nothing left but a little haziness. It lasted five weeks without relenting at all. If it had gone on, I must have stayed at home; but it just began to improve before I started, and has got well, _tout en marchant_. My present life is very pleasant when money comes kindly; but when I get refused, or walk a long way and find every one out, it is a bit mortifying. That is best gain for me, I suppose, though not what I am travelling for. .... I should not have had the time this morning to write to you, had it not been for a disappointment in meeting a young man, who was to have been my begging-guide for part of the day; and so I had to come home, and stay till it is time to go and try my fortune in the enormous market-house, where there are innumerable stalls with poultry, eggs, fruit, meat, &c., kept in great part by Irish men and women, on whom I have to-day, presently, to go and dance attendance, as this is the great market-day. I feel, when going out for a job like this, as a poor child going in a bathing machine to be dipped in the sea, _frisonnant_; but the Irish are so good-natured and generous that they generally make the work among them full of pleasure, when once I am in it."