I can hardly remember all the things that there were after that. I
recollect that it was always Mullins who arranged about renting the
hall and printing the tickets and all that sort of thing. His father,
you remember, had been at the Anglican college with Dean Drone, and
though the rector was thirty-seven years older than Mullins, he
leaned upon him, in matters of business, as upon a staff; and though
Mullins was thirty-seven years younger than the Dean, he leaned
against him, in matters of doctrine, as against a rock.

At one time they got the idea that what the public wanted was not
anything instructive but something light and amusing. Mullins said
that people loved to laugh. He said that if you get a lot of people
all together and get them laughing you can do anything you like with
them. Once they start to laugh they are lost. So they got Mr. Dreery,
the English Literature teacher at the high school, to give an evening
of readings from the Great Humorists from Chaucer to Adam Smith. They
came mighty near to making a barrel of money out of that. If the
people had once started laughing it would have been all over with
them. As it was I heard a lot of them say that they simply wanted to
scream with laughter: they said they just felt like bursting into
peals of laughter all the time. Even when, in the more subtle parts,
they didn't feel like bursting out laughing, they said they had all
they could do to keep from smiling. They said they never had such a
hard struggle in their lives not to smile.

In fact the chairman said when he put the vote of thanks that he was
sure if people had known what the lecture was to be like there would
have been a much better "turn-out." But you see all that the people
had to go on was just the announcement of the name of the lecturer,
Mr. Dreery, and that he would lecture on English Humour All Seats