But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller’s lecture.  He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he had a gallant way of skirting the indecent which (in my case) produced physical nausea; and he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius.  I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with Pinkerton:  adventures of my own were here and there horridly misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I blushed to recognise them.  I will do Harry Miller justice:  he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable.  Nay, the monster had a certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages, which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if that were possible) the general effect.

By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been observed at the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent:  so Pinkerton delighted to describe himself.  Thence, like an ox to the slaughter, he led me to the hall, where I stood presently alone, confronting assembled San Francisco, with no better allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of manuscript and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.  I read the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash by heart—­read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame.  Now and then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some intelligence, now and then, in the manuscript, would stumble on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart would fail me, and I gabbled.  The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of “Speak up!” and “Nobody can hear!” I took to skipping, and being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic.  What struck me as extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh.  Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity, when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me strongly.  I could have laughed aloud; and being again summoned to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time with a smile.  “Very well,” I said, “I will try, though I don’t suppose anybody wants to hear, and I can’t see why anybody should.”  Audience and lecturer laughed together till the tears ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed my impromptu sally.  Another hit which I made but a little after, as I turned three pages of the copy:  “You see, I am leaving out as much as I possibly can,” increased the esteem with which my patrons had begun to regard me; and when I left the stage at last, my departing form was cheered with laughter, stamping, shouting, and the waving of hats.

Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his pocket-book.  As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare the tears were trickling on his cheeks.