on, picking up one
paper after another. "The Minister of Finance regrets that he will be
unable to come" (applause). "Mr. Rodolphe Lemieux (applause) will not
be here (great applause)--the Mayor of Toronto (applause) is detained
on business (wild applause)--the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese
(applause)--the Principal of the University College, Toronto (great
applause)--the Minister of Education (applause)--none of these are
coming." There is a great clapping of hands and enthusiasm, after which
the meeting is called to order with a very distinct and palpable feeling
that it is one of the most distinguished audiences ever gathered in the
hall.

Here is another experience of the same period while I was pursuing the
same exalted purpose: I arrived in a little town in Eastern Ontario,
and found to my horror that I was billed to "appear" in a church. I was
supposed to give readings from my works, and my books are supposed to be
of a humorous character. A church hardly seemed the right place to get
funny in. I explained my difficulty to the pastor of the church, a
very solemn looking man. He nodded his head, slowly and gravely, as he
grasped my difficulty. "I see," he said, "I see, but I think that I can
introduce you to our people in such a way as to make that right."

When the time came, he led me up on to the pulpit platform of the
church, just beside and below the pulpit itself, with a reading desk and
a big bible and a shaded light beside it. It was a big church, and the
audience, sitting in half darkness, as is customary during a sermon,
reached away back into the gloom. The place was packed full and
absolutely quiet. Then the chairman spoke:

"Dear friends," he said, "I want you to understand that it will be all
right to laugh tonight. Let me hear you laugh heartily, laugh right out,
just as much as ever you want to, because" (and here his voice assumed
the deep sepulchral tones of the preacher),-"when we think of the noble
object for which the professor appears to-night, we may be assured that
the Lord will forgive any one who will laugh at the professor."

I am sorry to say, however, that none of the audience, even with the
plenary absolution in advance, were inclined to take a chance on it.

I recall in this same connection the chairman of a meeting at a certain
town in Vermont. He represents the type of chairman who turns up so
late at the meeting that the committee have no time to explain to him
properly what