There was the picture: couldn't I do without that?

Possibly. But that picture I had had--let me see--fifteen, yes, sixteen
years. That picture was a third prize for excellence in declamation,
presented me at the school exhibition in ---- Street, when I was twelve
years old. That was in 1843, and here, on the first of December, 1859, I
sat deliberately meditating its sale for paltry bread and butter!

No, no; I'd go hungry a little longer, before I'd part with that old
relic--remembrancer of the proudest day of my life. What a pity I hadn't
permitted that day to give a direction to my life, instead of turning my
attention to the paltry expedients for money-making followed by the
common herd! I might have been an accomplished orator by this time,
capable of drawing crowds and pocketing a thousand a month, or so. But
my tastes had run in other channels since the day when I took that
prize.

Still, when I thought of it deliberately, I made bold to believe there
was that yet in me which could meet the expectant eyes of audiences nor
quail before them.

A thought struck me! Was not here an 'opening' for an enterprising young
man? Was not the lecture-season at hand? Did not lecturers get from ten
to two hundred dollars per night? Couldn't I talk off a lecture with the
best of them, perhaps? Well, perhaps I could, and perhaps not, but if I
wouldn't try it on, I hoped I might be blessed--that--was all.

I thought proper, after having reached this conclusion, to calculate my
wealth in the way of preliminary requisites to success. By preliminary