s, of dances, receptions, private concerts and such things
are best dealt with by accepting their invitations and then consulting
one's own convenience. That is what I thought people were doing to me.

I had no reason to expect any other treatment. I was not offering food
or wine in large quantities or of fine kind. I was not a prominent
figure in London society. My party was of no importance from a political
or a financial point of view and I could scarcely expect the scientific
world to take a cinematograph seriously. Yet I found myself the host of
a number of very distinguished guests, many of whom I did not even know
by sight.

Three Cabinet Ministers arrived, looking, as men immersed in great
affairs ought to look, slightly absent-minded and rather surprised to
find themselves where they were. They were Cabinet Ministers of a minor
kind, not men in the first flight. I owed their presence to Gorman's
exertions in the House of Commons. He told me that he intended to
interest the Government in Tim's invention on the ground that it
promised an opportunity of popularising and improving national
education. I had a seat kept for Ascher beside the Cabinet Ministers. I
did not suppose that he would particularly want to talk to them, but I
was sure that they would like to spend the evening in the company of one
of our greatest financiers.

No less than five members of the Royal Society came, bringing their
wives and a numerous flock of daughters. They were men of high
scientific attainments. One of them was engaged in some experiments with
pigs, experiments which were supposed to lead to important discoveries
in the science of eugenics. I cannot even imagine why he came to see
a cinematograph. Another of them had written a book to expound a new
theory of crystallisation. I have never studied crystallisation, but I
believe it is a process by which particles of solid matter, temporarily
separated by some liquid medium, draw together and coalesce. My
scientists and their families afforded a good example of the process.
They arrived at different times, went at first to different parts of the
hall, got mixed up with all sorts of other people, but long before the
entertainment began they had drawn together and formed a solid block
among my guests.

Two Royal Academicians, one of them a well-known portrait painter,
arrived a little late. They were men whom I knew pretty well and liked.
They have urbane and pleasant manners, and