"I never saw the lecturer before," he said, "but I've read his book." (I have written nineteen books.) "The committee was good enough to send me over his book last night. I didn't read it all but I took a look at the preface and I can assure him that he is very welcome. I understand he comes from a college...." Then he turned directly towards me and said in a loud voice, "What was the name of that college over there you said you came from?"
"McGill," I answered equally loudly.
"He comes from McGill," the chairman boomed out. "I never heard of McGill myself but I can assure him he's welcome. He's going to lecture to us on,—what did you say it was to be about?"
"It's a humorous lecture," I said.
"Ay, it's to be a humorous lecture, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll venture to say it will be a rare treat. I'm only sorry I can't stay for it myself as I have to get back over to the Town Hall for a meeting. So without more ado I'll get off the platform and let the lecturer go on with 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."