Celia helpfully. "But I don't quite understand. Where is it, and why?"

"The Blanktown Literary and Philosophical Society ask me to lecture to them at Blanktown. The man who was coming is ill."

"But why you particularly?"

"One comes down to me in the end," I said modestly.

"I expect it's because of my electric lights. Do they give you any money for it?"

"They ask me to name my fee."

"Then say a thousand pounds, and lecture on the need for more electric light. Fancy if I got six per cent.!"

"This is a very sordid conversation," I said. "If I agree to lecture at all, it will be simply because I feel that I have a message to deliver... I will now retire into the library and consider what that message is to be."

I placed the Encyclopædia handy and sat down at my desk. I had already grasped the fact that the title of my discourse was the important thing. In the list of the Society's lectures sent to me there was hardly one whose title did not impress the imagination in advance. I must be equally impressive....

After a little thought I began to write.

"Wasps and Their Young.

"Lecture delivered before the Blanktown Literary and Philosophical Society, Tuesday, December 8th.

"Ladies and Gentlemen——"

"Well," said Celia, drifting in, "how's it going?"

I showed her how far I had got.

"I thought you always began, 'My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,'" she said.

"Only if the Lord Mayor's there."

"But how will you know?"

"Yes, that's rather awkward. I shall have to ask the Secretary beforehand."

I began again.

"Wasps and their Young.

"Lecture delivered, etc. ...

"My Lord Mayor, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen——"

It looked much better.

"What about Baronets?" said Celia. "There's sure to be lots."

"Yes, this is going to be difficult. I shall have to have a long talk with the Secretary.... How's this?—'My Lord Mayor, Lords, Baronets, Ladies and Gentlemen and Sundries.' That's got in everybody."

"That's all right. And I wanted to ask you: Have you got any lantern slides?"

"They're not necessary."

"But they're much more fun. Perhaps they'll have some old ones of Vesuvius you can work in. Well, goodbye." And she drifted out.

I went on thinking.

"No," I said to myself, "I'm on the wrong tack." So I began again:—

"Some Yorkshire Pot-Holes.

"Lecture delivered before the Blanktown Literary and Philosophical Society, Tuesday, December 8th.

"My Lord Mayor, my Lords——"

"I don't want to interrupt," said Celia coming in suddenly, "but—oh, what's a pot-hole?"

"A curious underground cavern sometimes found in the North."

"Aren't caverns always underground? But you're busy. Will you be in for lunch?"

"I shall be writing my lecture all day," I said busily.

At lunch I decided to have a little financial talk with Celia.

"What I feel is this," I said. "At most I can ask ten guineas for my lecture. Now my expenses all the way to the North, with a night at an hotel, will be at least five pounds."

"Five-pounds-ten profit," said Celia. "Not bad."

"Ah, but wait. I have never spoken in public before. In an immense hall, whose acoustics——"

"Who are they?"

"Well, never mind. What I mean is that I shall want some elocution lessons. Say five, at a guinea each."

"That still leaves five shillings."

"If only it left that, it might be worth it. But there's the new white waistcoat. An audience soon gets tired of a lecture, and then there's nothing for the wakeful ones to concentrate on but the white waistcoat of the lecturer. It must be of a virgin whiteness. Say thirty-five shillings. So I lose thirty shillings by it. Can I afford so much?"

"But you gain the acoustics and the waistcoat."

"True. Of course, if you insist——"

"Oh, you must," said Celia.

So I returned to the library. By tea-time I had got as far as this:—

"Adventures with a Camera in Somaliland.

"Lecture delivered before the Blanktown Literary and Philo—— "

And then I had an idea. This time a brilliant one.

"Celia," I said at tea, "I have been wondering whether I ought to take advantage of your generosity."

"What generosity?"

"In letting me deliver this lecture."

"It isn't generosity, it's swank. I want to be able to tell everybody."

"Ah, but the sacrifices you are making."

"Am I?" said Celia, with interest.

"Of course you are. Consider. I ask a fee of ten guineas. They cannot possibly charge more than a shilling a head to listen to me. It would be robbery. So that if there is to be a profit at all, as presumably they anticipate, I shall have a gate of at least two hundred and fifty."

"I should hope so."

"Two hundred and fifty. And what does that mean? It means that at seven-thirty o'clock on the night of December the 8th two hundred and fifty residents of Blanktown will turn out the electric lights in their drawing-rooms ... PERHAPS EVEN IN THEIR HALLS ... and proceed to the lecture-room. True, the lecture-room will be lit up—a small compensation—but not for long. When the slides of Vesuvius are thrown upon the screen——"

Celia was going pale.

"But if it's not you," she faltered, "it will be somebody else."

"No; if I refuse, it will be too late then to get a substitute. Besides they must have tried everybody else before they got down to me.... Celia, already the Zeppelin scare has shaken your stock severely; this will be the final blow. It is noble of you to sacrifice——"

"Don't go!" she cried in anguish.

I gave a deep sigh.

"For your sake," I said, "I won't."

So that settles it. If my lecture on "First Principles in Homeopathy" is ever to be delivered, it must be delivered elsewhere.

A. A. M.

HERO-WORSHIP.

Slightly soiled Urchin, "Please, Mr. General, if yer wouldn't mind bendin' dahn a bit, me an' Emma'd like to give yer a kiss."

À LA RUSSE.

Every November, just as I am beginning to look sadly down the long vista of apple—apple-tart, apple-pudding, stewed apple and custard, apple-charlotte and apple-dumpling—that stretches all the way from now to rhubarb, come cranberries.

I had forgotten them, as I do every year, and the pinky-red that tinged the knife yesterday, as soon as it entered what I feared was an apple-tart, ran right up my arm and spread in a glow to my face. Dear cranberries!

And doubly dear just now. How did you manage it? All the way from Archangel, was it—threading your way through mines and submarines, and not a keg broken, not a cranberry exploded? Thank you, Jellicoe.

Or are you a Southern Slav, a Crim-Tartar? And did you dare the Dardanelles, give the Goeben the slip, and disappoint the German ganders of their sauce? Artful ally!

Where is your home, bright berry? What are your habits? Do you push through the snow on the steppes? Do you flower in the first thaw of spring, set in full summer and ripen when the snow falls again? I think so; you have the savour of snow. I hope so; I picture the snowfields stained with your blood when you burst.

We've known too little of you, but we shall want to know more now. The Vicar said the war would do good in more ways than one. It does it