even that yielded $2500, the
largest house in the tour, on the other hand, netting as much as $6000
and upwards. Multiplying, therefore, the reasonably-mentioned average of
$3000 by seventy-six, as the aggregate number of the Readings, we arrive
at the astounding result that in this tour of less than five months the
Author-Reader netted altogether the enormous sum of $228,000. Supposing
gold to have been then at par, that lump sum would have represented
in our English currency what if spoken of even in a whisper would,
according to Hood's famous witticism, have represented something like
"the roar of a Forty Thousand Pounder!" Even as it was, then, gold
being at 39 1/2 per cent, premium, with 1/4 per cent, more deducted on
commission--virtually a drop of nearly 40 per cent, altogether!--the
result was the winning of a fortune in what, but for the fatigue
involved in it, might have been regarded as simply a holiday excursion.

The fatigue here referred to, however, must have been something very
considerable. Its influence was felt all the more, no doubt, by reason
of the Novelist having had to contend during upwards of four hard
winter months, as he himself laughingly remarked just before his return
homewards, with "what he had sometimes been quite admiringly assured,
was a true American catarrh!" Nevertheless, even with its depressing and
exhausting influence upon him, he not only contrived to carry out the
project upon which he had adventured, triumphantly to its appointed
close, but even upon one of the most inclement days of an unusually
inclement season, namely, on Saturday, the 29th of February, 1868, he
actually took part as one of the umpires in the good-humoured frolic of
a twelve-mile walking match, up hill and down dale, through the snow,
on the Milldam road, between Boston and Newton, doing every inch of the
way, heel and toe, as though he had been himself one of the competitors.
The first six miles having been accomplished by the successful
competitor in one hour and twenty-three minutes, and the return six
in one hour and twenty-five minutes, the Novelist--although, with his
light, springy step, he had observantly gone the whole distance himself,
as we have seen, in his capacity as umpire,--presided blithely, in
celebration of this winter day's frolic, at a sumptuous little banquet,
given by him at the Parker House, a banquet that Lucullus would hardly
have disdained. Having appeared before his last audience