fully into the matter. Slightly
shivering, I tried to recall the dry humour of those carefully prepared
opening sentences which shortly would prove to my audience that I had
their measure, and was at ease; would prove that my elevation on the
platform was not merely through four feet of deal planking, but was a
real overlooking. But those delicate sentences had broken somehow. They
were shards, and not a glitter of humour was sticking to the fragments.

I felt I would rather again approach one of those towns in France,
where it was likely you would run into the Uhlans, than go to that
lecture hall. No doubt, too, my friend had explained to them what a
clever fellow I was, in order to get some reflected glory out of it.
Then it would serve him right; there would be two of us.

The hall was nearly full. What surprises one is to find so many ladies
present. A most disquieting fact, entirely unforeseen. They sit in the
front rows and wait, evidently in a tranquil, alert, and mirthful mind,
for you to begin. I could hear their leisurely converse and occasional
subdued laughter (about what?) even where, in a sort of frozen, lucid
calm, indifferent to my fate, the mood of all Englishmen in moments of
extreme peril, I was handing my hat and coat to my friend in a room
behind the platform. All those people out there were waiting for me.

When we got on the platform the chairman told them something about me,
I don't know what, but when I looked up it was to find, like the soul
in torment, that a multitude of bodiless eyes had fixed me--eyes
intent, curious, passionless.

"I call upon--" said the chairman.

I stood up. The sound of my voice uplifted in that silence was the most
startling sound I have ever heard. Shortly after that there came the
paralysing discovery that it is a gift to be able to think while
hundreds wait patiently to see what the thought is like when it comes.
This made my brow hot. There was a boy in an Eton suit, sitting in
front with his legs wide apart, who was grinning at me through his
spectacles. How he got there I don't know. I think he was the gift of
the gods. His smile so annoyed me that I forgot myself, which saved me.
I just talked to that boy.

Once there was loud laughter. Why? It is inexplicable. I talked for
about an hour. About what? Heaven knows. The chairman kindly let me out
through a side entrance.

XVIII. A Division on the March

We passed a division on the march the other