THE LAST SKETCH-LECTURE. -j,;:j 



peroration with which he usually concluded. Yet those 

 who were present said that the lecture was as interesting 

 as ever, and the drawings as rapid and exact, although 

 the lecturer was obviously suffering much pain, and 

 clearly unfit to be lecturing at all. After the lecture the 

 drawing- frame was taken down and packed as usual, and 

 my father went to the house of some friends for the night. 



Here his appearance excited so much alarm that he 

 was entreated to see a doctor at once, and to relinquish 

 all idea of fulfilling his remaining engagements ; but he 

 still failed to realise his own- condition, and insisted on 

 starting early next morning for Coventry, where he was 

 to lecture on the following Monday. During the night 

 he became weaker, and there seemed a latent meaning 

 in the words with which he thanked his host for certain 

 arrangements made for his comfort during the journey 

 " You know I would have done as much for you" But he 

 took out his type-writer in the train, and attempted to 

 write an article, of which, however, he only completed 

 about half-a-dozen lines. 



Shortly before five o'clock in the afternoon he 

 arrived at Coventry, and drove at once from the railway 

 station to St. Mary's Hall, where the lecture was to be 

 delivered. There he left his apparatus, saying that 

 he would come on the Monday afternoon to put up the 

 screen. Thence he proceeded to the house of his old 

 friend, Mrs. Bray, with whom he had promised to stay 

 until the Tuesday morning, and who had been princi- 

 pally instrumental in arranging for his previous lectures 

 in the town. 



