The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-12-16
A LECTURE. 9
s'' s'1sAf%'a'1a'"''
|0z 0~zEEaNzE9S x E@ENzHM1 80 G
Greece Described to the Y
Inhabitants of Wa1Ia
Wa1Ia. a

The man who had been everything
but a barber and a policeman was
%narrating things.
When I first struck Walla Walla,
back in the autumn of So" he said,
Il found that town a whole heap
more prosperous than I was. After
I'd been there for a couple of weeks,
with nothing doing, I began to re-
fleet that If something didn't happen
pretty soon Id find myself begged or
vagged or something.
I'm a moment of confidential gloom
1 impaired my tale of woe to the
landlord of my hotel, with whom I
happened to be all square-yards, for
the reason that I'd had the prescience
and foresight to pay my board with
my last kale two weeks in advance
upon hitting the town.
"'Now you needn't be surprised a
whole lot I told the good natured
landlord, If l stick your night clerk
up n of these nights and take to the
chaparral with whatever small change
he happens to have in the till. I'm
all in, and I don't see anybody in
Walla Walla making feather beds
from the holdings of the angels
around here. How about a bell hops
billet, if you expect me to remain
honest, or a berth as head bootblack
of your doggoned old tavern?'
1T was at this stage of it that that
whole souled i%nnkeeper of Walla
Walla got busy in framing up a
scheme in my behest and behalf.
Never done no lecturin', have
you, buddy?' he asked me.
Seeing that he was taking an in
terest in me, I thought that I might
as we'll be on the level with him, and
so I told him, candidly, that, curl
ously enough, I had never been en-
gagged in the lecture field.
"'Well, that amt sayin' that you
couldn't spin 'em a talk, s'posin' the
chanst swung your way, suggested
the landlord. Now, I've got tucked
away in the cellar a lot O. lantern
slides-picters o. Greece, ancient an
modern, is what they're labelled
that was left here a couple O. years
ago by a lecturin' son of a skunk that
never got sober 'nough tn hull time
he vas in an around Walla Walla t
'onreel his talk, although he adver-
tised his lecture four or five times,
never pullin' it off. He was plumb
loco from booze all tn time he were
here, and he disappointed tn popu-
lation so often, after promisin' t.
oliver his lecture, that the las time
he falls down on 'em they gifts t'geth-
.er an runs him out O. camp, an he
never streaks back no more. Conse-
Quent, I'm tn heir an assign forever
@ these yere slides O. his'n that por-
tray all what is bout ancient and
modern Greece. Now, there's your
tip, hombrey, and you can work the
rest of it out FIR y'rself. You're well
come t use them slides if you want
to, an I'll guarantee you'll draw a
houseful with 'em, and that the boys
IL behave; they'll have to, cause
they'll be ladies present. I'll see that
everybody in Walla Walla what's
broke t. lectures II be on hand
II suppose maybe there wasn't
mamma in that kindly suggestion. 1
thanked the landlord, and he had the
bunch of slides brought up from the
cellar and busted off.
He not only had the slides, but he
had the recreant lecturers magic Ian
tern and all the vest of the gear, all
ready to be set up and put together
for the lecture. 1 looked the slides
over and found that they were a cork
ing fine lot of views.
Il got a property man from the
new Walla Walla op'rey haouse who
knew all about magic lantern gear to
assemble the stuff and try it out
against a screen in the hotel dining
room after the supper had been
cleared away, and it all worked on
tallowed skids.
Then with the landlord backing
me up I rented the op'rey haouse for
the following Saturday .evening-it
was then Tuesday-and inserted an
on tick ad. in the newspaper to the
effect that Euripides A%ristophanes
Athenesius, the famous traveller and
professor of the University of Athens,
would deliver his noted lecture on an
cient and modern Greece at the opera
house on the following Saturday eve
ming, with the finest set of views il
Illustrative Of his subject that had
ever been got together.
"The landlord, who was consider
able of a citizen in WSlla Walla, got
busy plugging for me, and when the
tickets were put on sale at the drug
store they went like hot wafies near
a city cab stand. The lantern was
set up and the slides were thrown on
the screen in a rotation rehearsal,
and Saturday morning it occurred to
me that it wouldn't be such a bad
idea for me to think up something to
say to go with the pictures.
Il had never been any nearer to
Greece than Sandy Hook, but l wasn't
bothered much by that consideration.
I didn't stand in much fear that the
Walla Walla folks would be sticklers
for the exact figures as to ancient
and modern Greece.
"And, as a matter of fact, they
wern't. The lecture I gave them was
all right and it went through with 5
clatter. I spread it on pretty thick
about the conQuering hosts of Alex