The chairman made a visible effort towards firmness and control.

"But yet," he continued, "our committee felt that in another sense
it was our duty to go on with our arrangements. I think, ladies
and gentlemen, that the war has taught us all that it is always
our duty to 'carry on,' no matter how hard it may be, no matter
with what reluctance we do it, and whatever be the difficulties
and the dangers, we must carry on to the end: for after all there
is an end and by resolution and patience we can reach it.

"I will, therefore, invite Mr. Leacock to deliver to us his humorous
lecture, the title of which I have forgotten, but I understand it
to be the same lecture which he has already given thirty or forty
times in England."

But contrast with this melancholy man the genial and pleasing person
who introduced me, all upside down, to a metropolitan audience.

He was so brisk, so neat, so sure of himself that it didn't seem
possible that he could make any kind of a mistake. I thought it
unnecessary to coach him. He seemed absolutely all right.

"It is a great pleasure,"--he said, with a charming, easy appearance
of being entirely at home on the platform,--"to welcome here tonight
our distinguished Canadian fellow citizen, Mr. Learoyd"--he turned
half way towards me as he spoke with a sort of gesture of welcome,
admirably executed. If only my name had been Learoyd instead of
Leacock it would have been excellent.

"There are many of us," he continued, "who have awaited Mr. Learoyd's