nty-five minutes. At the end of
it he remarks with charming simplicity, "Now I know that you are all
impatient to hear the lecturer...."

And everybody knows the chairman who comes to the meeting with a very
imperfect knowledge of who or what the lecturer is, and is driven to
introduce him by saying:

"Our lecturer of the evening is widely recognised as one of the greatest
authorities on; on,--on his subject in the world to-day. He comes to
us from; from a great distance and I can assure him that it is a
great pleasure to this audience to welcome a man who has done so much
to,--to,--to advance the interests of,--of; of everything as he has."

But this man, bad as he is, is not so bad as the chairman whose
preparation for introducing the speaker has obviously been made at the
eleventh hour. Just such a chairman it was my fate to strike in the
form of a local alderman, built like an ox, in one of those small
manufacturing places in the north of England where they grow men of this
type and elect them into office.

"I never saw the lecturer before," he said, "but I've read his book." (I
have written nineteen books.) "The committee was good enough to send me
over his book last night. I didn't read it all but I took a look at the
preface and I can assure him that he is very welcome. I understand he
comes from a college...." Then he turned directly towards me and said in
a loud voice, "What was the name of that college over there you said you
came from?"

"McGill," I answered equally loudly.

"He comes from McGill," the chairman boomed out. "I never heard of
McGill myself but I can assure him he's welcome. He's going to lecture
to us on,--what did you say it was to be about?"

"It's a humorous lecture," I said.

"Ay, it's to be a humorous lecture, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll
venture to say it will be a rare treat. I'm only sorry I can't stay for
it myself as I have to get back over to the Town Hall for a meeting. So
without more ado I'll get off the platform and let the lecturer go on
with his humour."

A still more terrible type of chairman is one whose mind is evidently
preoccupied and disturbed with some local happening and who comes on to
the platform with a face imprinted with distress. Before introducing the
lecturer he refers in moving tones to the local sorrow, whatever it is.
As a prelude to a humorous lecture this is not gay.

Such a chairman fell to my lot one night before a gloomy audience in
a Lond