ster of
France, for Charlie Chaplin, for Mrs. Asquith,--but stop, I may get into
a libel suit. All I mean is that without a chairman "we celebrities" get
terribly mixed up together.

To one experience of my tour as a lecturer I shall always be able to
look back with satisfaction. I nearly had the pleasure of killing a man
with laughing: and this in the most literal sense. American lecturers
have often dreamed of doing this. I nearly did it. The man in question
was a comfortable apoplectic-looking man with the kind of merry rubicund
face that is seen in countries where they don't have prohibition. He was
seated near the back of the hall and was laughing uproariously. All of
a sudden I realised that something was happening. The man had collapsed
sideways on to the floor; a little group of men gathered about him; they
lifted him up and I could see them carrying him out, a silent and inert
mass. As in duty bound I went right on with my lecture. But my heart
beat high with satisfaction. I was sure that I had killed him. The
reader may judge how high these hopes rose when a moment or two later a
note was handed to the chairman who then asked me to pause for a
moment in my lecture and stood up and asked, "Is there a doctor in the
audience?" A doctor rose and silently went out. The lecture continued;
but there was no more laughter; my aim had now become to kill another
of them and they knew it. They were aware that if they started laughing
they might die. In a few minutes a second note was handed to the
chairman. He announced very gravely, "A second doctor is wanted." The
lecture went on in deeper silence than ever. All the audience were
waiting for a third announcement. It came. A new message was handed to
the chairman. He rose and said, "If Mr. Murchison, the undertaker, is in
the audience, will he kindly step outside."

That man, I regret to say, got well.

Disappointing though it is to read it, he recovered. I sent back next
morning from London a telegram of enquiry (I did it in reality so as
to have a proper proof of his death) and received the answer, "Patient
doing well; is sitting up in bed and reading Lord Haldane's Relativity;
no danger of relapse."

X. Have the English any Sense of Humour?

It was understood that the main object of my trip to England was to find
out whether the British people have any sense of humour. No doubt the
Geographical Society had this investigation in mind in not paying
my expens