If I remember rightly, the "Babes in the Wood" were never mentioned more than twice in the whole lecture. First, when the lecturer told his audience that the "Babes" were to constitute the subject of his discourse, and then digressed immediately to matters quite foreign to the story. Then again at the conclusion of the hour and twenty minutes of drollery, when he finished up in this way: "I now come to my subject 'The Babes in the Wood.'" Here he would take out his watch, look at it with affected surprise, put on an appearance of being greatly perplexed, and amidst roars of laughter from the people, very gravely continue, "But I find that I have exceeded my time, and will therefore merely remark that, so far as I know, they were very good babes--they were as good as ordinary babes. I really have not time to go into their history. You will find it all in the story-books. They died in the woods, listening to the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree. It was a sad fate for them, and I pity them. So, I hope, do you. Good night!" Artemus gave his first lecture at Norwich in Connecticut, and travelled over a considerable portion of the Eastern States before he ventured to give a sample of his droll oratory in the Western cities, wherein he had earned reputation as a journalist. Gradually his popularity became very great, and in place of letting himself out at so much per night to literary societies and athenaeums, he constituted himself his own showman, engaging that indispensable adjunct to all showmen in the United States, an agent to go ahead, engage halls, arrange for the sale of tickets, and engineer the success of the show. Newspapers had carried his name to every village of the Union, and his writings had been largely quoted in every journal. It required, therefore, comparatively little advertising to announce his visit to any place in which he had to lecture. But it was necessary that he should have a bill or poster of some kind. The one he adopted was simple, quaint, striking, and well adapted to the purpose. It was merely one large sheet, with a black ground, and the letters cut out in the block, so as to print white. The reading was "Artemus Ward will Speak a Piece." To the American mind this was intensely funny from its childish absurdity. It is customary in the States for children to speak or recite "a piece" at school at the annual examination, and the phrase is used just in the same sense as in England we say "a Christmas piece." The professed subject of the lecture being that of a story familiar to children, harmonised well with the droll placard which announced its delivery. The place and time were notified on a slip pasted beneath. To emerge from the dull depths of lyceum committees and launch out as a showman-lecturer on his own responsibility, was something both novel and bold for Artemus to do. In the majority of instances he or his agent met with speculators who were ready to