After paying my expenses, I had nearly a hundred dollars to return to school with.  When I returned I was able to dress very neatly indeed, and the young ladies received me very cordially on the green during social hour.  Before I taught school it was a common saying among the young ladies and young men “Latta”; but after I returned with a hundred dollars it was “Mr. Latta” all over the campus.  I would hear the young ladies saying among themselves, “I bet Mr. Latta will not go with you—­he will correspond with me this afternoon.”  I paid no attention to it.  I said to myself, “Don’t you see what a hundred dollars will do?”

In another place the Professor reveals how he came to write his book:  “Professor King, one of the teachers at Latta University said to me, ’If I had done what you have done I would have wrote a history of my life several years ago.’”

The best part of the book, however, gives us Latta’s account of his doings in London: 

Just before I left the city of London I was invited by a distinguished friend, a close relation to Queen Victoria, to make a speech.  He told me there would be a meeting in one of the large halls in that city.  I can’t just think of the name of the hall.  He invited me to be present.  The distinguished friend that I have just mentioned presided over the meeting.  There was an immense audience present.  If memory serves me right, I was the only Negro in the hall.  The gentleman came to me and asked if I would make a speech.  I told him I had already delivered one address, besides several sermons I had preached, and I thought that I would not speak again during my stay.  I accepted the invitation, however, and spoke.

The Professor then tells how he was introduced as one whose addresses were “among the ablest ever delivered in London.”  Also he gives his speech in full.  Great events followed.  His distinguished unnamed friend, the “close relation of the Queen,” came to him soon after, he says, and asked him if he had “ever been to the palace.”

Continues Latta: 

He said to me, “If you will come over before you leave the city, and call to see me, I will take you to the palace with me and introduce you to the Queen.”  I told him I would do so, that I had heard a good deal about the royal throne, and I would be very much interested to see the palace.  He said he thought I would, because the government was very different from ours.

I called at his residence as I had promised, and he went with me to the palace.  The Queen knew him, of course.  He was received very cordially.  Everything shined so much like gold in the palace that I had to stop and think where I was.  He introduced me to the Queen, and told her I was from North America.  He told her that I spoke at a meeting he presided over, and he enjoyed my speech very much.  He told her we had an immense audience, and all the people were well pleased with the speech.