thing is better
than any silly old programme, let's have it out."

But the chairman, much against his inclination, for he was a fighter,
ruled otherwise. "The differences that separate us from one another here
to-night are not differences that can be settled by argument. They are
differences that are due partly to our history and partly to the ideals
which we cherish. We shall go on with the programme."

At first the people were in no mood for mere amusement. They had been
made to face for a brief moment the great and stern reality of war. The
words and more the manner of Jack Romayne had produced a deep sense in
their minds of the danger of a European conflagration, and the ominous
words of the young German spoken as from intimate knowledge only
served to deepen the impression made by Romayne. But the feeling
was transitory, and speedily the possibility of war was dismissed as
unthinkable. The bogey of a German war was familiar and therefore losing
its power to disturb them. So after two or three musical numbers had
been given the audience had settled back into its normal state of mind
which accepted peace as the natural and permanent condition for the
world.

The entertainment would have come to a perfectly proper and harmonious
close had it not been for the unrestrained exuberance of Sam's humorous
qualities on the one hand and the complete absence of sense of humour
in Ernest Switzer on the other. The final number on the programme,
which was to be a series of humorous character sketches, had been left
entirely in Sam's hands and consisted of a trilogy representing the
characteristics as popularly conceived of the French Canadian habitant,
the humorous Irishman and the obese Teuton. Sam's early association
with the vaudeville stage had given him a certain facility in the use
of stage properties and theatrical paraphernalia generally, and this
combined with a decided gift of mimicry enabled him to produce a
really humorous if somewhat broadly burlesqued reproduction of these
characters. In the presentation of his sketch Sam had reserved to the
close his representation of the obese Teuton. The doings of this Teuton,
while sending the audience into roars of laughter, had quite a different
effect upon Switzer, who after a few moments of wrathful endurance made
toward the rear of the audience.

Meantime the obese Teuton has appeared upon the stage in a famished
condition demanding vociferously and plaintively from th