placed directly beneath the platform, so close to it that we had to
incline our heads at an uncomfortable angle in order to see the reader's
face. Suddenly, before the reading had proceeded very far, the heavy
proscenium, which Dickens always carried about with him for the purpose
of his readings, fell with a crash over me and the three ladies on the
form. We were so near that the top of the proscenium happily fell beyond
us, and we escaped with a severe fright. Years afterwards I was amused to
read, in one of the published letters of Dickens to his sister-in-law, an
account of this accident, in which the novelist told how his gasman had
said afterwards: "The master stood it like a brick." But it was not upon
the master, but upon me and the three ladies that that terrible
proscenium suddenly descended.



CHAPTER IV.

FROM REPORTER TO EDITOR.

First Visit to London--The Capital in 1862--Acquaintance with
Sothern--Bursting of the Bradfield Reservoir--Attendance at Public
Executions and at Floggings--Assuming the Editorship of the _Preston
Guardian_--Political and Literary Influences--Great Speeches by
Gladstone and Bright--Bright's Contempt for Palmerston--Robertson
Gladstone Defends his Brother--Death of Abraham Lincoln--Meeting with his
Granddaughter.


My first visit to London was on the occasion of the opening of the
International Exhibition of 1862. The abominable system of Parliamentary