said:--

"He told me this was his workshop, and looked me in the face with a
merry twinkle in his eye to see whether I was surprised or pleased."

Then I asked the reporter to "sit down," which he promptly did. I was
closely watched to see how I opened my mail. Nothing startling happened.
I just opened "letter after letter." Some I laid aside for my secretary,
others I actually attended to myself.

A letter from a young lady in Georgia, asking me to send her what I
consider the most important word in my vocabulary, I answered
immediately. The ever-watchful reporter observes that to do this "I pick
up a pen and write on the margin of the girl's letter the word
'helpfulness.'" Then I sign it and stick it in an envelope. Then I "dash
off the address." Obviously I am not at all original at home. I replied
to a letter from the president of a theological seminary, asking me to
speak to his young men. I like young men so I agree to do so if I can. I
"startle" the reporter finally, by a sudden burst of unexpected hilarity
over a letter from a man in Pennsylvania who wants me to send him a
cheque by return mail for one hundred thousand dollars, on a sure thing
investment. The reporter says:--

"I am startled by a shrill peal of laughter, and the great preacher
leans back in his chair and shakes his sides."

The reporter looks over my shoulder and sees other letters.

"A young minister writes to say that his congregation is leaving him.
How shall he get his people back? An old sailor scrawls on a piece of
yellow paper that he is bound for the China seas and he wants a copy of
each of Dr. Talmage's sermons sent to his old wife in New Bedford,
Mass., while he is gone. Here is a letter in a schoolgirl's hand. She
has had a quarrel with her first lover and he has left her in a huff.
How can she get him back? Another letter is from the senior member of
one of the biggest commercial houses in Brooklyn. It is brief, but it
gives the good doctor pleasure. The writer tells him how thoroughly he
enjoyed the sermon last Sunday. The next letter is from the driver of a
horse car. He has been discharged. His children go to Dr. Talmage's
Sunday School. Is that not enough to show that the father is reliable
and steady, and will not the preacher go at once to the superintendent
of the car line and have him reinstated. Here is a perfumed note from a
young mother who wants her child baptised. There are invitations to go
here and there, and to