: "HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE YOUR NAME?"]

Once the chair was taken by an alderman in a Lancashire city, and the
hall was crowded. "What a fine house!" I remarked to the chairman as we
sat down on the platform.

"Very fine indeed," he said; "everybody in the town knew I was going to
take the chair."

I was sorry I had spoken.

More than once, when announced to deliver a lecture on France and the
French, I have been introduced by a chairman who, having spent his
holidays in that country once or twice, opened the evening's proceedings
by himself delivering a lecture on France. I have felt very tempted to
imitate a _confrere_, and say to the audience: "Ladies and Gentlemen, as
one lecture on France is enough for an evening, perhaps you would rather
I spoke about something else now." The _confrere_ I have just mentioned
was to deliver a lecture on Charles Dickens one evening. The chairman
knew something of Charles Dickens and, for quite a quarter of an hour,
spoke on the great English novelist, giving anecdotes, extracts of his
writings, etc. When the lecturer rose, he said: "Ladies and Gentlemen,
two lectures on Charles Dickens are perhaps more than you expected to
hear to-night. You have just heard a lecture on Charles Dickens. I am
now going to give you one on Charles Kingsley."

Sometimes I get a little amusement, however (as in the country town of
X.), out of the usual proceedings of the society before whose members I
am engaged to appear. At X., the audience being assembled and the time
up, I was told to go on the platform alone and, being there, to
immediately sit down. So I went on, and sat down. Some one in the room
then rose and proposed that Mr. N. should take the chair. Mr. N., it
appeared, had been to Boulogne (_to B'long_), and was particularly
fitted to introduce a Frenchman. In a speech of about five minutes
duration, all Mr. N.'s qualifications for the post of chairman that
evening were duly set forth. Then some one else rose and seconded the
proposition, re-enumerating most of these qualifications. Mr. N. then
marched up the hall, ascended the platform, and proceeded to return
thanks for the kind manner in which he had been proposed for the chair
and for the enthusiasm (a few friends had applauded) with which the
audience had sanctioned the choice. He said it was true that he had been
in France, and that he greatly admired the country and the people, and
he was glad to have this opportunity to say so befor