hours, and I spoke well.

I did not push the lecture in front of me, nor did I drag it behind. I
got the chancery twist on it and carried it off big, as I do about one
time in ten. I finished in a whirlwind of applause, with the bishop
crying "Bravo!" and the fat lady with the fifty-dollar feather fan
beaming approbation.

Fass stood in the wings to congratulate me.

-------------------------------------

I shook hands with a hundred. The house slowly emptied. I bade the
genial Fass good-by. He took my hand in both of his. "You will come
back! You must come back!" he said.

He walked with me, bareheaded, to my carriage.

He again pressed my hand.

I rode to my hotel and went to bed, and to sleep.

I was awakened by a bright glare of light that filled my room.

I got up and looked at my watch. It was just midnight.

Off to the East I saw red tongues of angry flame streaking the sky
from horizon to zenith.

"It is the Jewish Club, all right," I said.

I pulled down the blind and went back to bed.

When I went down to breakfast at seven o'clock in the morning, I heard
the newsboys in the streets crying, "All about the fire!" I bought a
paper and read the headline, "Hubbard's Lecture Hot Stuff!"

I walked out Saint Charles Avenue and viewed the smoldering ruins
where only a few hours before I had spoken to more than two thousand
people--where the bishop in purple vestment had cried "Bravo!" and the
stout lady with feathered fan had beamed approval.

"Was anybody hurt?" I asked one of the policemen on guard.

"Only one man killed--Fass, the Secretary; I believe he lies somewhere
over there to the left, beneath that toppled wall."

-------------------------------------

The person who reasons from a false premise is
always funny--to other folks.

UNCLE JOE AND AUNT MELINDA

The opinion prevails all through the truly rural districts that the
big cities are for the most part given over to Confidence Men.

And the strange part is that the opinion is correct.

But it should not be assumed that all the people in, say, Buffalo, are
moral derelicts--there are many visitors there, most of the time, from
other sections.

And while at all times one should exercise caution, yet to assume that
the party who is "fresh" is intent on high crimes and misdemeanors may
be a rather hasty and unjust generalization.

For instance, there are Uncle