introduced to the man who had arranged them. He was
brought down in a lift from his work, and after shaking him warmly by
the hand, I told him how proud I was to meet so great an artist.

Dr. Holland, my chairman of that night, was kind enough to give me the
rough copy of his introductory speech:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, neighbours, and friends," he said.

"Written history has been called a 'tissue of lies.' Most historians,
like portrait painters, feel it to be their duty to impart to the
characters whom they are describing a glamour, which in many cases is
more or less superhuman or super-diabolical as the case may be, and to
represent circumstances as they happened in the light of the
preternatural. Now and then there arises a writer who is gifted with the
quality to see things as they really are, and who, to use a current
phrase, 'calls a spade a spade.' In an age of pretence, it is to many
more or less shocking to have such persons take up the pen and, with
frankness born of native honesty, tell the truth as he or she may
distinctly perceive it. Society is so used to 'diplomatic courtesies'
that when the truth-teller arrives, society 'takes a fit,' seeing its
illusions vanish. Its would-be idols which have been proclaimed as made
of pure gold, are found to be gilded clay, its devils not so devilish
after all, and the daring act of the truth-teller is vigorously
denounced by an age which calls for nothing but compliments.

"We have all read, at least I have, with great appreciation, coupled
with no small degree of amusement, Mrs. Margot Asquith's
'Autobiography.' I particularly enjoyed it because it gave her
impressions of many people whom I have met and known.

"Mrs. Asquith is the wife of the great man who was the prime minister of
England at the outbreak of the World War. She is here to-day in a city
which bears the name of that prime minister of England who held the helm
of state during the Napoleonic wars.

"I have the honour of presenting Mrs. Margot Asquith, wife of the Right
Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith. She is one of the most famous women of
England."

* * * * *

Hampered by the knowledge that we were to catch the night train to
Rochester, and inexperienced in timing what I have to say, I found when
I sat down that I had cut my lecture short by half an hour. To make up
for this, and encouraged by people in the front row reaching up to shake
my hand, I invited them