“Hurrah!” shouted the gallery; and the house generally applauded Mr. Irving’s prompt and gratifying repartee.
“I would have liked,” said Irving, pulling his “Louis XI.” robes around him, “to have travelled right through the Dominion, and have shaken hands with your neighbors of Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa. That, however, is only a pleasure deferred. In the Indian language, I am told, Toronto means ‘The place of meeting.’ To you and me, ladies and gentlemen, brother and sister subjects of the English throne”—
A burst of applause compelled the speaker to pause for some seconds.
“To us, ladies and gentlemen, to you before the curtain, to us behind it, I hope Toronto may mean ‘The place of meeting again and again.’”
His last words of thanks were drowned in applause. The students tried to recall him again, even after he had spoken. The band struck up “God save the Queen,” and a few minutes later the audience was on its way home, and Irving was conducting a rehearsal of scenes in “Much Ado,” and “The Merchant of Venice,” rendered necessary by the illnesses which are referred to in another chapter.
III.
Two hours after midnight we were once more on the cars, bound for Boston.[52]
“These long journeys,” said Irving, “are most distressing. I wonder what sort of a trip this will be. We ought to arrive at Boston, on Sunday, at about six, they say.”
“The agent of the road,” replied Mr. Palser, “tells me he hopes to make good time. But I told him that the only occasion when we have done a long journey on time has been when we had no railroad agent to take care of us. They are very good fellows, and anxious to help us, but they have been unfortunate. Our flat baggage car is a trouble. You will remember that the Erie could not take it, and some of the other companies consider it an extra risk. It affords an excuse for not exceeding a certain speed. Besides this, we have not had so much snow in America for over twenty years as this winter. Our trains have been snowed up, and this has occasioned all sorts of delays, as you know. But I hope we will get through to Boston in good time.”