"Ah, but the sacrifices you are making."
"Am I?" said Celia, with interest.
"Of course you are. Consider. I ask a fee of ten guineas. They cannot possibly charge more than a shilling a head to listen to me. It would be robbery. So that if there is to be a profit at all, as presumably they anticipate, I shall have a gate of at least two hundred and fifty."
"I should hope so."
"Two hundred and fifty. And what does that mean? It means that at seven-thirty o'clock on the night of December the 8th two hundred and fifty residents of Blanktown will turn out the electric lights in their drawing-rooms … PERHAPS EVEN IN THEIR HALLS … and proceed to the lecture-room. True, the lecture-room will be lit up—a small compensation—but not for long. When the slides of Vesuvius are thrown upon the screen—"
Celia was going pale.
"But if it's not you," she faltered, "it will be somebody else."
"No; if I refuse, it will be too late then to get a substitute. Besides, they must have tried everybody else before they got down to me… Celia it is noble of you to sacrifice—"
"Don't go!" she cried in anguish.
I gave a deep sigh.