If it hadn't been Sunday night, I should have
thought we were going to the opera. 'What did I tell you?' says
Mustapha, taking me up to an open door with a gas star outside
and a bill of the performance. I had just time to notice that
I was going to one of a series of 'Sunday Evening Discourses on
the Pomps and Vanities of the World, by A Sinner Who Has Served
Them,' when Mustapha jogged my elbow, and whispered, 'Half a
crown is the fashionable tip.' I found myself between two demure
and silent gentlemen, with plates in their hands, uncommonly well
filled already with the fashionable tip. Mustapha patronized one
plate, and I the other. We passed through two doors into a long
room, crammed with people. And there, on a platform at the
further end, holding forth to the audience, was--not a man, as I
had expected-- but a Woman, and that woman, MOTHER OLDERSHAW! You
never listened to anything more eloquent in your life. As long as
I heard her she was never once at a loss for a word anywhere.
I shall think less of oratory as a human accomplishment, for the
rest of my days, after that Sunday evening. As for the matter of
the sermon, I may describe it as a narrative of Mrs.
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