Now I profess honesty, as an abstract principle--being, perhaps the
conscientious reader will think, more of a professor than a practicer
herein. But the truth is, in the present mendicant state of the word
'Professor,' I conceived I had a perfect right and title to it, by
virtue of my poverty, and so appropriated it for the behoof and
advantage of Number One. Which explanation, it is hoped, will do.

Friday passed in cultivating still farther the acquaintance of the
previous evening, and receiving the most cordial assurances of interest
on their part in my visit and its object. I was candidly (and I thought
kindly) informed by my good friends, not to get my expectations too
high, as a very large house could scarcely, they feared, be expected;
but I deemed an audience of even no more than fifty or seventy-five a
fair beginning,--a very fair beginning,--and had no fears.

I retired to my room at five o'clock, and remained locked in, with my
lecture before me, oblivious of all external affairs, until a few
minutes past seven, when I concluded my audience had gathered. I then
smoothed my hair, adjusted my spectacles, took my MS. in my hand, and
proceeded to the lecture-room. The doorkeeper was fast asleep, and the
long wicks of the tallow candles were flaring wildly and dimly on a
scene of emptiness. Not an auditor was present!

I descended to the bar-room. It was full of loungers, smoking, dozing,
and drinking. Without entering, I hastened across the way to the
post-office. There was the courteous postmaster, engaged in a sleepy
talk with Squire Johnson and Dr. Tomson and Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dobson
and Mr. Potkins, who sat precisely as they sat the evening previous.

I returned to the hotel and called out the landlord.