'Well, ah! um! yes; that is, I intend to do so, but unforeseen
circumstances induced me to relinquish that purpose. Sidon is very
small.'

'Yes, sir, small place. Never heard of a lecture, or any kind of a
performance, there before. Fact is, they're a hard set over to Sidon,
and the place is better known by the name of Sodom around here.'

I felt much encouraged at hearing this; for, to tell the truth, my
cogitations as I tramped over the rough road between Tyre and Sidon had
been anything but cheerful. This was a realization of my fond dreams of
a ten-to-fifty-dollars-a-night lecture tour, such as I had hardly
anticipated, and as I drew nigh unto Tyre I had been thinking whether I
had not better try to get a situation as a farm-hand or dry-goods clerk
before my troubles should have crushed me and driven me to suicide.

But the landlord cheered me. Tyre was a model town. Tyre had a
newspaper, and Tyre patronized literary entertainments. There was a good
hall in Tyre, and the Tyrians had filled it to overflowing last winter
when Chapin spoke there. I went to bed under the benignant influence of
my cheerful host, and dreamed of lecturing to an audience of many
thousands in a hall a trifle larger than the Academy of Music, and with
every nook and corner crowded with enthusiastic listeners, whose joy
culminated with my peroration into such a tumult of delight that they
rushed upon the stage and hoisted me on their shoulders amid cheers so
boisterous that they awoke me. I found I had left my bed and mounted
into a window, with the intention, doubtless, of stepping into the
street and concluding my career at once, lest an anti-climax should be
my fate.