This might well have daunted the chairman, for the seating accommodation stretching blankly away before him was for 800. But it did not in the least that I could see. He took up his parable, and performed his duties with just the same air of ponderous gravity as he might have assumed in addressing an audience of thousands. And I could do no less than follow his good example, though I did feel glad when the lights went out, and enabled me to forget that great empty space. After the tedious formality of votes of thanks had been performed to the bitter end, I eagerly sought the secretary for an explanation. He told me that it was quite a frequent experience, because the lectures were well endowed and absolutely free, repeating the axiom which I have quoted above. I unburdened myself to him, for he was exceedingly sympathetic, and said that while I didn’t mind a small audience, there were limits, and I earnestly hoped that I might never have that night’s experience again.
Vain hope. The following night I went to another large neighbouring town, the white weather still continuing, and again I faced an audience of fourteen, all told—no committee this time—and again a pleasant secretary told me the same disheartening tale. He, however, was more of a philosopher than my friend of the previous night, for he said that as long as our salaries were paid, and we did our best, the meagre attendance ought not to affect our happiness in any way. I agreed that it ought not, and yet—hang it all!—I couldn’t help feeling somehow morally to blame. Utterly foolish, I know, but there it was.
It was some years before I visited those two places again, and when I did I had a vivid recollection of my previous experience. So that as soon as I met the secretary of the first place I said that I approached the lecture with considerable reluctance, feeling that it was like taking money under false pretences. He laughed cheerily and said:
“You’ll be all right to-night. The hall is already full, and it wants a quarter of an hour yet to eight o’clock. And we shall be turning people away the whole fifteen minutes.”
I stared at him amazed, and as soon as I got my breath demanded an explanation of this extraordinary phenomenon. Very quietly he assured me that the sole reason for it was that a charge of 2s. 6d. was now made for tickets for the whole course of eight lectures, with the gratifying result that the hall was now much too small to accommodate the crowds that besieged its doors every lecture night. And we shook hands over this patent endorsement of the theories we had both enunciated. Next day I went on to the other town, full of curiosity and eager hope that all would be well there too. So hopeful was I that the fact that the town was in the furious throes of a by-election did not trouble me at all. Yet we all know that if there is one thing more than another that can bring all a secretary’s hopes and plans to the ground, it is to have a by-election clash with a lecture. It even affects the female part of his audience.
When, therefore, I met the secretary, and saw that his face wore its usual unperturbed expression, I ventured to say something in a commiserating tone about the by-election. He smiled gravely and replied:
“I don’t think you’ll find it make much difference to the meeting.”
I did not like to ask him whether that would be because the attendance was so meagre, for I feared it would be, or might be personal, so I said nothing more upon the subject. But when the time arrived, and I made my way towards the hall, I was very much struck by the number and excitement of the people in the streets, who all seemed to be going my way. And when I reached the hall I was a bit excited myself to find the entrance, which was a long corridor, filled with loudly talking people, who did not in the least resemble a lecture audience. So much did this impress me that before I had got very far through the crowd I asked one of my neighbours why there was all this excitement about the lecture. He promptly informed me that this was a political meeting, and that the lecture hall was next door!
So I lost no time in changing my direction, finding, to my intense delight, that my audience was complete, and though sedate, evidently highly expectant. Every seat was occupied, and there were over a hundred standing. I afterwards learned that the reason for this change was the same as at the neighbouring town, the change from a perfectly free lecture to one for which a small charge was made. Still, I never before had such a gratifying experience as to find that the attraction of a political meeting next door was not sufficiently potent to attract my audience away from me. And I felt, I must admit, proportionately elated.
I think that by this time it must be sufficiently clear that my opening remarks about secretaries were quite justified, that I have little to say about them because I have found them so uniformly good. It is really the case. I do not in the least know what the agency’s experience of them may be, but I must speak as I found them. Three secretaries I have known who were ladies, and they were perfect in courtesy and business-like habits. We had in two cases some little hilarity, owing to my addressing a lady as “M. Jones, Esq.,” but then as I put it to them, if the word “Miss” is not put in brackets before the initial of a Christian name, no blame can be attached to a correspondent who assumes that the writer is of the male persuasion.