ppealing to the members to induce their friends to join.

Then there is the chairman who does not know what you are going to talk
about, but thinks it his duty to give the audience a kind of summary of
what he imagines the lecture is going to be. He is terrible. But he is
nothing to the one who, when the lecture is over, will persist in
summing it up, and explaining your own jokes, especially the ones he has
not quite seen through. This is the dullest, the saddest chairman yet
invented.

Some modest chairmen apologize for standing between the lecturer and the
audience, and declare they cannot speak, but do. Others promise to speak
a minute only, but don't.

[Illustration: THE CHAIRMAN.]

"What shall I speak about?" said a chairman to me one day, after I had
been introduced to him in the little back room behind the platform.

"If you will oblige me, sir," I replied, "kindly speak about--one
minute."

Once I was introduced to the audience as the promoter of good feelings
between France and England.

"Sometimes," said the chairman, "we see clouds of misunderstanding arise
between the French--between the English--between the two. The lecturer
of this evening makes it his business to disperse these clouds--these
clouds--to--to---- But I will not detain you any longer. His name is
familiar to all of us. I'm sure he needs no introduction to this
audience. We all know him. I have much pleasure in introducing to you
Mr.--Mosshiay--Mr. ----" Then he looked at me in despair.

It was evident he had forgotten my name.

"Max O'Rell is, I believe, what you are driving at," I whispered to him.

* * * * *

The most objectionable chairmen in England are, perhaps, local men
holding civic honors. Accustomed to deliver themselves of a speech
whenever and wherever they get a chance, aldermen, town councilors,
members of local boards, and school boards, never miss an opportunity of
getting upon a platform to address a good crowd. Not long ago, I was
introduced to an audience in a large English city by a candidate for
civic honors. The election of the town council was to take place a
fortnight afterward, and this gentleman profited by the occasion to air
all his grievances against the sitting council, and to assure the
citizens that if they would only elect him, there were bright days in
store for them and their city. This was the gist of the matter. The
speech lasted twenty minutes.

[Illustration