The Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. | Page 9

if I had not been a fool I would have understood
and heeded a statement so plain as this, made by an editor. But then, if I
hadn't been a fool, you know I should never have started on a lecture
tour at all. So, being a fool, I had bills printed, hired a hall (at ten
dollars), and was duly announced to lecture in Tyre on the coming
Tuesday evening. The same afternoon, The Tyre Times appeared, and
its editorial column contained the following notice, which I read with
great interest, it being my first appearance in any periodical:--
LECTURE AT GRECIAN HALL.--We take pleasure in announcing
that Prof. GREEN D. BROWN, of New York city, will favor the
citizens of Tyre with a lecture on Tuesday evening next. From what we
know of the gentleman, we are satisfied our citizens will not regret

attending the lecture. We trust he may not be met with an audience so
small as lectures have heretofore drawn out in Tyre. The apathy of our
citizens in these matters, we have before stated, is disgraceful. Let there
be a good turn-out.
But there was not a good turn-out. The receipts were two dollars and a
half. The proprietor of the hall consented to take the receipts for his pay,
and I returned to the hotel to muse over my unhappy fortunes.
The landlord took occasion the next morning, as I was passing out of
the house, to remind me that my baggage had not arrived.
'No,' said I, 'but, as I soon leave Tyre, I shan't need it.'
The landlord looked at my dirty collar and bosom as if he doubted
either my sanity or my decency, and remarked that perhaps I knew his
rules compelled him to present the bills of strangers semi-weekly.
'O, yes! that's all right,' said I; 'I'll see you when I come back from the
printing-office.'
I noticed that mine host stood watching to see that I entered the
printing-office safely.
The editor remarked, after I had told him all the experience narrated
here, commencing with the washing-machines,--
'It's a bad case, and I don't admire your experience at all, to speak
candidly; but I have a little idea of my own to work out, and you can
help me do it, perhaps. In the first place, though, I want to know
whether you intend to continue in this line of business,--eh?'
'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to those
who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for me,
more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'
'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you
what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't

afford to pay much for it, but I'll agree to settle your hotel bill if you'll
part with it. Not that I think it's worth it, but you need to be helped
somehow right away.'
I jumped at the chance, and thanked my friend heartily. He asked if I
would please go and send the landlord to him, and I retired to perform
that errand.
I was punctual to my appointment in the evening, and listened to the
project my editorial angel had in view; a plan by which he proposed to
inflict a lesson on the negligent Tyrians, and at the same time replenish
my purse. He explained to me the part I was to perform in this
enterprise, and I found I could enter heartily into the spirit of it. We
shook hands in the best of humors, and parted that evening
understanding each other perfectly.
III.--HE MAKES A HIT IN TYRE.
The next day, the entire jobbing facilities of the Times office were
brought into requisition, and toward evening a mammoth bill was
posted around the town, which read as follows:--
MONS. BELITZ'S CELEBRATED AND MAGNIFICENT
EXHIBITION, THE GREAT TRAVELING HUMBURG! The most
wonderful entertainment, whether CAININE, PRISTINE, OR
QUININE, ever brought before the astonished Public's visual organs!!!
* * * * *
The avant courier of this monster troupe has the honor of announcing
to the ladies and gentlemen of Tyre, that Mons. BELITZ, accompanied
by his entire retinue of attachés and supes, Female Dancers and Dogs,
Operatic Vocalists and Vixens, Royal Musicians and Monsters, Bengal
Tigers and Time-servers, Magicians and Madmen, Flying Birds,
Swimming Fishes, Walking Cats and Dogs, Crawling Reptiles, and
various other extraordinary and impossible arrangements, the like of
which never before appeared in Bog county, until the arrival of the
present occasion, to wit:--

AT GRECIAN HALL, TYRE,
On Saturday Evening, December 22, 1859.
* * * * *
---> LOOK AT THE ARRAY OF TALENT! <---
* * * * *
MONS. BELITZ,