and swaying thousands of hearers year after year.  But I pledged my word then to the Cause I loved that no effort on my part should be wanting to render myself worthy of the privilege of service which I took; that I would read, and study, and would train every faculty that I had; that I would polish my language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; and this, at least, I may say, that if I have written and spoken much I have studied and thought more, and that at least I have not given to my mistress, Liberty, that “which hath cost me nothing”.

A queer incident occurred on February 17th.  I had been invited by the Dialectical Society to read a paper, and selected for subject “The existence of God”.  The Dialectical Society had for some years held their meetings in a room in Adam Street rented from the Social Science Association.  When the members gathered as usual on this 17th February, the door was found closed, and they were informed that Ajax’s paper had been too much for the Social Science nerves, and that entrance to the ordinary meeting-place was henceforth denied.  We found refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel, where we speculated merrily on the eccentricities of religious charity.

On February 12th, I started on my first lecturing tour in the provinces.  After lecturing at Birkenhead on the evening of that day, I started by the night mail for Glasgow.  Some races—­dog races, I think—­had been going on, and very unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting on the platform.  Some Birkenhead friends had secured me a compartment, and watched over me till the train began to move.  Then, after we had fairly started, the door was flung open by a porter and a man was thrust in who half tumbled on to the seat.  As he slowly recovered, he stood up, and as his money rolled out of his hand on to the floor and he gazed vaguely at it, I saw, to my horror, that he was drunk.  The position was pleasant, for the train was an express and was not timed to stop for a considerable time.  My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor hunting for his scattered coins.  Then he slowly gathered himself up, and presently became conscious of my presence.  He studied me for some time and then proposed to shut the window.  I assented quietly, not wanting to discuss a trifle, and feeling in deadly terror.  Alone at night in an express, with a man not drunk enough to be helpless but too drunk to be controlled.  Never, before or since, have I felt so thoroughly frightened, but I sat there quiet and unmoved, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose.  The man had risen again to his feet and had come over to me, when a jarring noise was heard and the train began to slacken.

“What is that?” stammered my drunken companion.

“They are putting on the brakes to stop the train,” I said very slowly and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to say quietly the measured words.