Beaconsfield, whom I have no doubt you will see upon the
sheet--("Wrap yourself up in yours, go home to bed, go home to bed")."
Cries of this sort went on; the gentleman struggled on for about a
quarter of an hour and then sat down. Well, I discovered afterwards that
he was a very ardent politician, not altogether in tone with the
audience, who were opposed to him in politics, and that he seized this
chance of repeating a political speech he had often given to others of a
different class. As a matter of fact my lecture that night had nothing
whatever to do with Parliament; it was purely art matter; and this
gentleman happened to be a great art collector and connoisseur, and in
returning thanks for me afterwards made a very graceful little speech
about art matters. If he had only asked me beforehand, of course it
would have been a very agreeable opening instead of rather an
unfortunate one. But it is quite as distressing to the lecturer to find
that a chairman knows too much about his subject as to find one who
knows nothing. If you happen to have delivered your lecture in another
hall, and someone present who has heard you is the chairman of an
evening when you are going to give it again, he will get up and inform
his audience, with the usual flattery of chairmen, that there is a great
treat in store for them, that he has had the pleasure of hearing you
before, and you are going to tell them this, and going to tell them
that, and in some cases he will even give a mangled version of some of
the stories--in fact, will take all the plums out of the pudding that
you have ready to tickle the appetites of your audience with.

Some chairmen impress their audience that they know far more about the
subject than the lecturer. But worst of all is the chairman who knows
absolutely nothing about the subject or about yourself. I remember one
evening some pompous chairman getting up and saying: "I have great
pleasure this evening in introducing to you Mr. Furniss. I know you have
all heard of Mr. Furniss, and anyone connected as I am with engineering
must look upon one of his great achievements with delight. All who have
been to the great Metropolis and travelled along the Thames
Embankment--a beautiful way that skirts the Thames--and have considered
that at one time what was a heap of mud is now one of the handsomest
thoroughfares in the world, must always consider that the work of the
gentleman in front of you in being the construct