"Ladies and Gentlemen," I continued, "of course you remember the
story of Abe Lincoln when he said, 'if you call a leg a tail, how
many tails has a dog?' 'Five,' you answer. Wrong; because, as Mr.
Lincoln said, calling a leg a tail...."

I still think it was a good beginning. But that was as far as I got.
Mrs. Hominy came out of her trance, hastened from the cage, and
grabbed my arm. She was quite red with anger.

"Really!" she said. "Well, really!... I must ask you to continue
this in some other place. We do not allow commercial travellers in
this house."

And within fifteen minutes they had hitched up Peg and asked me to
move on. Indeed I was so taken aback by my own zeal that I could
hardly protest. In a kind of daze I found myself at the Moose Hotel,
where they assured me that they catered to mercantile people. I went
straight to my room and fell asleep as soon as I reached the straw
mattress.

That was my first and only pubic speech.



CHAPTER TWELVE


The next day was Sunday, October sixth. I well remember the date.