y?" my friend asked. "Why,
there was sufficient sky visible to let me see the North Star," I
answered. I felt almost hurt when he laughed. It is natural for a
polar bear not to have to inquire the way home.

The aphorism attributed to Dr. John Watson, of "Beside the Bonnie
Briar Bush," suggests itself. "My fee is one hundred dollars if I go
to a hotel, two hundred if I am entertained, because in the latter
event one can only live half so long." I conclude that he made the
choice of Achilles, for he died on a lecture tour. So far fate has
been kinder to me.

The greatest danger is the reporter, especially the emotional
reporter, who has not attended your meeting. I owe such debts to the
press that this statement seems the blackest of ingratitude. On the
contrary, I must plead that doctors are privileged. My controversy
with this class of reporters is their generosity, which puts into
one's mouth statements that on final analysis may be cold facts, but
which, remembering that one is lecturing on work among people whom one
loves and respects, it would never occur to me to slur at a public
meeting. No one who tries to alter conditions which exist can expect
to escape making enemies. I have seen reports of what I have said at
advertised meetings, that were subsequently cancelled. I have followed
up rumours, and editors have expressed sorrow that they accepted them
from men who had been too busy to be present. But "qui s'excuse,
s'accuse"; and my conclusion is that the lecturer is practically
defenceless.

Since our marriage my wife has generously acted as my secretary,
having specially learned shorthand and typewriting in order to free me
from carrying such a burden, and has helped me enormously ever since
on this line. But lecture tours used to make me despair of keeping
abreast of correspondence. I sometimes was forced to treat letters as
Henry Drummond did--who allowed them to answer themselves--if I wished
free mornings in which to visit the hospitals, just at the time that
all their professional work was in progress. These clinics are
invaluable and almost unique experiences. They persuaded me more than
ever how much depends in surgery as well as in medicine on "the man
behind the gun"; and that mere mileage is not the real handicap on
members of our profession whose fields of work lie away from the
centres of learning. They also imbued me with the profoundest spirit
of respect for the leaders of the healing art.