silence.) "He is a professor of political economy at--" Here he turns to
me and says, "Which college did you say?" I answer quite audibly in
the silence, "At McGill." "He is at McGill," says the chairman. (More
silence.) "I don't suppose, however, ladies and gentlemen, that he's
come here to talk about political economy." This is meant as a jest, but
the audience takes it as a threat. "However, ladies and gentlemen, you
haven't come here to listen to me" (this evokes applause, the first of
the evening), "so without more ado" (the man always has the impression
that there's been a lot of "ado," but I never see any of it) "I'll now
introduce Mr. Leacock." (Complete silence.)

Nothing of which means the least harm. It only implies that the
Philosophical Society are true philosophers in accepting nothing
unproved. They are like the man from Missouri. They want to be shown.
And undoubtedly it takes a little time, therefore, to rouse them. I
remember listening with great interest to Sir Michael Sadler, who is
possessed of a very neat wit, introducing me at Leeds. He threw three
jokes, one after the other, into the heart of a huge, silent audience
without effect. He might as well have thrown soap bubbles. But the
fourth joke broke fair and square like a bomb in the middle of the
Philosophical Society and exploded them into convulsions. The process is
very like what artillery men tell of "bracketing" the object fired at,
and then landing fairly on it.

In what I have just written about audiences I have purposely been using
the word English and not British, for it does not in the least apply to
the Scotch. There is, for a humorous lecturer, no better audience in
the world than a Scotch audience. The old standing joke about the Scotch
sense of humour is mere nonsense. Yet one finds it everywhere.

"So you're going to try to take humour up to Scotland," the most eminent
author in England said to me. "Well, the Lord help you. You'd better
take an axe with you to open their skulls; there is no other way." How
this legend started I don't know, but I think it is because the English
are jealous of the Scotch. They got into the Union with them in 1707
and they can't get out. The Scotch don't want Home Rule, or Swa Raj, or
Dominion status, or anything; they just want the English. When they want
money they go to London and make it; if they want literary fame they
sell their books to the English; and to prevent any kind of political
tro