entertainments of a theatre, the public were informed, in the hugest
type that the printing-office could supply, that the manager had
been fortunate enough to accomplish an engagement with the
celebrated Story-Teller. He would make his first appearance that
evening, and recite his famous tale of Mr. Higginbotham's
Catastrophe, which had been received with rapturous applause by
audiences in all the principal cities. This outrageous flourish of
trumpets, be it known, was wholly unauthorized by me, who had merely
made an engagement for a single evening, without assuming any more
celebrity than the little I possessed. As for the tale, it could
hardly have been applauded by rapturous audiences, being as yet an
unfilled plot; nor even when I stepped upon the stage was it decided
whether Mr. Higginbotham should live or die.

In two or three places, underneath the flaming bills which announced
the Story-Teller, was pasted a small slip of paper, giving notice,
in tremulous characters, of a religious meeting to be held at the
school-house, where, with divine permission, Eliakim Abbott would
address sinners on the welfare of their immortal souls.

In the evening, after the commencement of the tragedy of Douglas, I
took a ramble through the town to quicken my ideas by active motion.
My spirits were good, with a certain glow of mind which I had
already learned to depend upon as the sure prognostic of success.
Passing a small and solitary school-house, where a light was burning
dimly and a few people were entering the door, I went in with them,
and saw my friend Eliakim at the desk. He had collected about
fifteen hearers, mostly females. Just as I entered he was beginning
to pray in accents so low and interrupted that he seemed to doubt
the reception of his efforts both with God and man. There was room