LECTURE AT ST LOUIS. 369 



which I was to speak. While I was in an adjoining 

 room awaiting the hour of performance, I was surprised 

 by hearing a round of applause from the guests already 

 seated. This was occasioned by Druid, who rose from a 

 slumber in which he had previously been curled up, and, 

 with his long ears and sagacious face turned in surprise 

 to the body of the room, steadily regarded the ladies 

 and gentlemen. The gravity with which the old blood 

 hound did this, as well as his remarkable, and, in that 

 country, unusual appearance, I am told was irresistible, 

 and hence the burst of recognition. 



When the time came for my appearance, nothing could 

 be more flattering than my reception from more than a 

 thousand people I believe the room will hold seventeen 

 hundred ; but though the night was terribly wet and cold, 

 there was no such thing as a moderately- charged-for cab or 

 fly to be had, those vehicles, as I have before stated, re 

 sembling small Lord Mayor's coaches, and only to be hired 

 for a price utterly beyond the reach of any but a rich man. 

 In consequence of this, many ladies were kept away; but, 

 as it was, the gentlemen assured me that it was the largest 

 attendance that had ever patronised a lecture. In my 

 address I again spared neither fault nor foible that had 

 come within my notice while in the United States, nor 

 did I abstain from the gratification it afforded me of 

 bestowing ample praise on all that demanded such 

 acknowledgment. The entire lecture, lasting a little over 

 an hour, was well received, and at its conclusion a friend 

 of mine told me that a gallant but retired officer of the 

 United States army assured him that he went to hear the 

 lecture in such low spirits, and under such a melancholy 

 feeling from adverse circumstances, that at the time he 



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