"I found the building wholly dark."
"Well, would you mind telling me where they are?" I queried.
"That is the High School Auditorium up there," he said, pointing to the Egyptian darkness I had just left. "The other is three squares down, where you see all those electric lights."
Whether I thanked the gentleman or not I do not know. I hope I did; but in the hurry of my departure I fear I seemed discourteous. Another speedy dash, which left me completely winded, brought me to the other Auditorium, and there in the full glare of an electric spotlight, assisted in its quest of publicity by a hoarse-tongued barker with a megaphone, I was confronted by a highly colored lithograph, showing a very pink Mabel, Queen of the Movies, standing before a very blue American soldier tied to a tree, shielding him from the bullets of a line of very green Mexicans, under the command of a very red villain, holding a very mauve sword in his very yellow hand, and bidding them to "Fire!" If I was expected to take any part in the thrilling episode that appeared to be going on inside, there was nothing in the chromatic advertising outside to indicate the fact; though I confess I was becoming painfully conscious of certain strong resemblances between my very breathless self and that very blue American trooper tied to the tree.
"Excuse me," said I, addressing the barker, "but is there to be a lecture here to-night?"
"Not so's anybody'd notice it," said he. "These is the movies."
"Well—tell me—is there a lecture course of any kind in this town that you know of?" I asked.
"Sure!" said he. "Miss So-and-So down at the library is runnin' a lecture stunt of some kind this year. You'll find the library on Main Street, opposite the hotel."
Again, late as it was, the skies cleared, and I moved on to the library, completing the circuit of vast numbers of blocks to a point almost opposite the spot I had started from fifteen lifelong minutes before. I arrived in a state of active perspiration and suspended respiration that did not seem to promise much in the way of a successful delivery of my lecture that night. I hoped the Library Auditorium would not prove to be a large one; for in my disorganized condition I did not feel capable of projecting my voice even into the shallows, to say nothing of the sometimes unfathomable depths of endless tiers of seats. And my hope was realized; in fact it was more than realized, for there wasn't any Library Auditorium at all.