his humour."

   A still more terrible type of chairman is one whose mind is evidently preoccupied and disturbed with some local happening and who comes on to the platform with a face imprinted with distress. Before introducing the lecturer he refers in moving tones to the local sorrow, whatever it is. As a prelude to a humorous lecture this is not gay.

   Such a chairman fell to my lot one night before a gloomy audience in a London suburb. "As I look about this hall to-night," he began in a doleful whine, "I see many empty seats." Here he stifled a sob. "Nor am I surprised that a great many of our people should prefer to-night to stay quietly at home—"

   I had no clue to what he meant. I merely gathered that some particular sorrow must have overwhelmed the town that day.

   "To many it may seem hardly fitting that after the loss our town has sustained we should come out here to listen to a humorous lecture,—", "What's the trouble?" I whispered to a citizen sitting beside me on the platform.

   "Our oldest resident"—he whispered back—"he died this morning."

   "How old?"

   "Ninety-four," he whispered.

   Meantime the chairman, with deep sobs in his voice, continued:

   "We debated in our committee whether or not we should have the lecture. Had it been a lecture of another character our position would have been less difficult,—", By this time I began to feel like a criminal. "The case would have been different had the lecture been one that contained information, or that was inspired by some serious purpose, or that could have been of any benefit. But this is not so. We understand that this lecture which Mr. Leacock has already given, I believe, twenty or thirty times in England,—"

   Here he turned to me with a look of mild reproval while the silent audience, deeply moved, all looked at me as at a man who went around the country insulting the memory of the dead by giving a lecture thirty times.

   "We understand, though this we shall have an opportunity of testing for ourselves presently, that Mr. Leacock's lecture is not of a character which,—has not, so to speak, the kind of value, in short, is not a lecture of that class."

   Here he paused and choked back a sob.

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