His fears as to his welcome among Englishmen were proved to be groundless. In Australia, great as was his success as a lecturer, his personal success outweighed even that, and the market on his books was exhausted. We cannot follow him on this trip of mingled arduous labor and personal satisfaction. The humorous reactions of his homely vision upon the quaint, the bizarre, the pretentious, aspects of life in remote parts of the world may be read in his own record of this journey, Following the Equator. There are few things to record of this great effort to pay his debts.
In India he was taken ill, but the disease was not severe. In June, 1897, when he had circled the globe and had settled for a time in London, cablegrams came from that city announcing his mental and physical collapse. The English-speaking world was stricken with sympathy, and the New York Herald at once began a subscription fund for his relief. The report was contradicted at once, but admiration for the author's strenuous effort seemed to grow, and the Herald fund was assuming generous proportions when the following characteristic message declining to accept the relief came from the proposed beneficiary:
I was glad when you instituted that movement, for I was tired of the fact and worry of debt, but I recognized that it is not permissible for a man whose case is not hopeless to shift his burden to other men's shoulders.
In November of the same year a report was circulated that he was out of debt, but from Vienna, whither he had gone to live, came a laconic cablegram nailing the optimistic impeachment:
Lie. Wrote no such letters. Still deeply in debt.
Nearly half of the original indebtedness needed to be paid, and here, with scarcely an opposing voice in judgment, he might have waived the claim upon himself for his firm's responsibilities, but he avowed that he would pay dollar for dollar.
The time of accomplishment was not long in coming. When the undertaking was begun, it was with the resolution to clear up the debt in three years. Allowing for the unexpected, it was feared it would take four, then at the age of sixty-four a new start in life would be open to the author, who might point to a considerable occupancy of space on library shelves and regard a life work accomplished. It took but two years and a half to pay the debt. He began the effort the latter part of 1895 and finished it in the early part of 1898.
His return to America and his home in 1900 was, in the unromantic procedure of our self-conscious days, of the nature of a triumph. He was formally welcomed by the Lotus Club, and, of course, as delicately as might be, he was praised for his honesty. His reply to compliment was a generous recognition of social virtue, which renders easier such an effort as he made.
Said he:
Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was weighted with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I wanted. To speak of those debts—you all knew what he meant when he referred to it, and to the poor bankrupt firm of C.L. Webster and Company. No one has said a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six creditors in all, and not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of the ninety-six add to the burden of that time. They treated me well; they treated me handsomely. I never knew I owed them anything; not a sign came from them.