up the money
that I received by the average number of people present to hear me I
have calculated that they paid thirteen cents each. And my lectures are
evidently worth thirteen cents. But at home in Canada I have very often
tried the fatal experiment of lecturing for nothing: and in that case
the audience simply won't come. A man will turn out at night when he
knows he is going to hear a first class thirteen cent lecture; but when
the thing is given for nothing, why go to it?

The city in which I live is overrun with little societies, clubs and
associations, always wanting to be addressed. So at least it is in
appearance. In reality the societies are composed of presidents,
secretaries and officials, who want the conspicuousness of office, and a
large list of other members who won't come to the meetings. For such an
association, the invited speaker who is to lecture for nothing prepares
his lecture on "Indo-Germanic Factors in the Current of History." If he
is a professor, he takes all the winter at it. You may drop in at
his house at any time and his wife will tell you that he is "upstairs
working on his lecture." If he comes down at all it is in carpet
slippers and dressing gown. His mental vision of his meeting is that of
a huge gathering of keen people with Indo-Germanic faces, hanging upon
every word.

Then comes the fated night. There are seventeen people present. The
lecturer refuses to count them. He refers to them afterwards as "about a
hundred." To this group he reads his paper on the Indo-Germanic Factor.
It takes him two hours. When he is over the chairman invites discussion.
There is no discussion. The audience is willing to let the Indo-Germanic
factors go unchallenged. Then the chairman makes this speech. He says:

"I am very sorry indeed that we should have had such a very poor 'turn
out' to-night. I am sure that the members who were not here have missed
a real treat in the delightful paper that we have listened to. I want
to assure the lecturer that if he comes to the Owl's Club again we
can guarantee him next time a capacity audience. And will any members,
please, who haven't paid their dollar this winter, pay it either to me
or to Mr. Sibley as they pass out."

I have heard this speech (in the years when I have had to listen to it)
so many times that I know it by heart. I have made the acquaintance of
the Owl's Club under so many names that I recognise it at once. I am
aware that its members ref