All of the above-mentioned kind friends, and many others, repeatedly called to impress upon me the necessity of leaving my exhibition to my men, "to save my lungs--to save my life," as they said. Some snatched me away from the crowd, and in the purest kindness hurled me through the streets in their carriages, still _yelling_ answers to their numerous questions as we were passing over the noisy pavements; and then at their kind and festive boards, to which I had been brought as places of refuge and repose, I was, for an instance, presented as--"My dear, this is Mr. Catlin! (_Plate No. 3, next page._)--Mother, you have heard of Mr. Catlin?--Cousins Lucy and Fanny, here's the celebrated Mr. Catlin you have heard me speak of so often. Poor fellow! I have dragged him away from his exhibition, where they are talking him to death--he _must_ have _repose_--and here we can entertain and amuse him. Here, my little chicks--come here all of you--here's Mr. Catlin!--here's the man who has been so long among the wild Indians! he will tell you a great many curious stories about them. Where's sister Ellen, and Betty?" "Oh, they are in the garden with Mr. S. and his son, who has just returned from New Zealand." "Good, good; run for them, run for them, quick! Send the carriage for aunt W----n as swift as possible, and don't let her fail to stop on the way and bring Lady R----e: you know how fond she is of the Indian character--she was three years, you know, in Canada--and the poem she is now writing on the Indians! What a treat this will be to her! Won't it be delightful to see her and Mr. Catlin come together? She told me the other day she had a thousand questions she wished to put to Mr. Catlin--how interesting! Have the dinner up at _six_--no, say at _seven_; it will give us the more time for conversation, and for Professor D., the phrenologist, to get here, and whom I have invited--he's always behind the time--and this treat will be so rich to him--I would not miss him for anything in the world."
My lecturing lungs and stomach being under a running engagement for dinner at three o'clock, the sound of "_six_"--then, "no, _seven_," with the words "Indian poem," "phrenologist," &c., produced a most rebellious and faltering sensation in my chest; the one entirely exhausted from its customary exertions until three o'clock, and the other, at that moment, completely in a state of collapse. The difficult trials I had lived through with the latter, however, in my wild adventures in the Indian wilderness, and the more recent proofs in the Egyptian Hall, of the elasticity of the other, inspired me with courage to enter upon the ordeal that was before me, and (even in distress) justly to appreciate what was so kindly preparing for me.