to come on to the platform. They trooped up in
large numbers and I held an informal reception which met with unexpected
success.

We drove in silence to the station. I had a conviction which my
secretary did not attempt to contradict that I had been a failure. Mr.
Horton said he feared the news of my curtailed lecture might reach the
influential press and prejudice those who might want to hear me in the
towns in which I was booked to speak. Knowing in my heart that I had on
every occasion received more praise than I deserved, and being of a
temperament that is not knocked out by failure, I tried to cheer him up
while the nigger was arranging my bed, but without the smallest success.

The trains, both in the States and in the Dominion, have every fault;
those in Canada being even worse than in the United States. If you
travel by day you are one of twenty-four men, women, and children who
sit on hard revolving chairs eyeing one another. You cannot stretch
your limbs, or smoke a cigarette, and while your ears are deafened by
shrieking babies, your legs are scorched by boiling pipes. If you are
rich enough, you may get a drawing room, but they do not have them on
every train. When you travel by night men and women are on top of one
another, buttoned behind an avenue of green cotton curtains. You cannot
get your hot water bottles filled, or have tea in the morning. While
staggering to your private berth between the leaps of the locomotive you
are lucky if you do not fall over the protruding feet of your fellow
travellers, or find yourself sitting on the face of a sleeping lady
lying _perdue_ behind the hangings. Privacy is unknown, and though I
have travelled for thousands of miles I have not yet met the train that,
unless you have the balance of a ballet girl, will not give you
concussion of the spine or brain.

After a sleepless night we arrived at Rochester where I seized the
morning papers. Thanks to a charming reporter, Mr. C. M. Vining, who
had come a long way to hear me speak at Pittsburgh, I had an excellent
review.

My stay was so short at Rochester, where I lectured under the auspices
of the Press Club, that I had no time to form any impressions of the
place, but the people were all very good to me.

On the 26th we met Mr. Horton's mother at Buffalo, a refined, charming,
old lady, who travelled in the train to Toronto with us.

Meeting Mr. Vining in the passage I thought if I brought him into our
drawing ro