Part 10 (1/2)

Even so well known a man as Mr. Bryan has suffered from this, one enthusiastic admirer in New York having once, after a skysc.r.a.ping peroration, led up with climacteric force to the name of ”our Peerless Leader, _William J. Brennings_.”

In my own platform experience I have had chairmen come to me at the last moment and confess with most childlike frankness that they have never heard of me before, asking me to help them out because they really didn't know ”what in Tophet to say.” One individual out on the Pacific Coast approached me one night about ten minutes before the lecture was scheduled to begin, and revealed to me his terrible embarra.s.sment over this latter situation.

”I didn't know until half an hour ago that I was to present you to our people to-night,” said he, ”and to tell the honest truth, Mr. Bangs, _I never heard of you before_. Will you please tell me who you are, and _what_ you are, and _why_ you are? And is there anything pleasant I can say about you in introducing you to your audience?”

”Well,” said I, ”if I had known I was to have the privilege of preparing the obituary notice you are to deliver over my prostrate remains while I lie in state upon the platform to-night, I should have written out something that would have been mighty proud reading for the little Bangses when I sent marked copies of to-morrow morning's papers back East to show them what a great man their daddy is in the West. But I haven't time to tell you the whole story of my past life, and there are certain sections of it I wouldn't tell you if I had. I have been a Democrat in New York and a Republican in Maine.”

”You might at least make a suggestion or two to help me out, though,” he pleaded.

”Oh, yes,” said I, ”there are plenty of pleasant things you can say about me. In the first place, you can tell that audience that--”

”Hold on a moment, Mr. Bangs,” he interrupted, raising his hand to stop me. ”Just one minute, please! _You've got to remember that I am a clergyman and must speak the truth!_”

I resolved to let him go his own gait, and comforted him by telling him he could say whatever he pleased, and that I would ”stand for it.”

And I must confess he acquitted himself n.o.bly. In his hands I became one of the Princes of Letters, the t.i.tles of whose many books were too well known to need any enumeration of them there, and as for my name--why, it would be an impertinence for him even to mention it, ”because, my friends,” said he, ”I am perfectly well aware that that name is _as familiar to you as it is to me_.”

Another good gentleman in the South, summoned to do duty as chairman at the last moment, sought no aid either from myself or from ”Who's Who,”

trusting, like the good Christian he was, utterly to Holy Writ. He began most impressively with selections from the Book of Genesis. ”In the beginning G.o.d created the earth,” said he, and then he ran lightly over the sequences of created things until he had ushered the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea on to the stage, and thence with an easy jump he came to myself.

”And then, my friends,” he said, with an impressive pause, ”the Creator felt that He should create something to have dominion over all these things that He knew were good--a creature of heart, a creature of soul, a creature of in-till-ect, and so He made man. My friends, it is such a one that we have with us to-night who will speak to you upon his own subject as only he can do. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the speaker of the evening, who is too well known to you all to need any further eulogy on my part.”

The good gentleman then retired to a proscenium box at the right of the stage, where he at once proceeded to fall asleep, and snored so l.u.s.tily that everybody in the house was delighted, including myself--although, to tell the truth, I envied him his nap, for I was immortally tired.

One of the dearest of my chairmen was a fine old gentleman in West Virginia, to meet and know whom was truly an inspiration. He was a profound scholar, and had enjoyed the rare privilege in a long and useful life of knowing intimately some of the demiG.o.ds of American literature. His reminiscences of Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Longfellow, and Hawthorne, and others of our most brilliant literary epoch, were a delight to listen to, and I was sorry when the time came for us to go out upon the platform. It would have been a greater treat for that audience to listen to him than to me, and I heartily wished we might exchange places for the moment. Like a great many others of my chairmen, this gentleman experienced some difficulty in getting the t.i.tle of my lecture, ”Salubrities I Have Met,” straight in his mind.

More than once during our little chat together he would pause and say:

”What is the t.i.tle of your talk again? It has slipped my mind.”

”Sal-u-bri-ties I Have Met,” I would say.

”Tell me again--is it Salubrities or Celebrities?” he would ask.

”Salubrities,” I would reply. And then I would spell it out for him, ”S-A-L-U-B-R-I-T-I-E-S, Salubrities. Not in any case Celebrities, or you will spoil my opening.”

”I'll try to remember it,” he would say, with a mistrustful shake of his head as if he feared it was impossible. ”It's rather elusive, you know.”

”Perhaps I had better write it down on a slip of paper,” I said at the last.

”Oh, no,” he replied. ”I think I have it now--Salubrities, Salubrities, Salubrities--yes--I--I think I have it.”

We walked out upon the platform, and the dear old gentleman began a short address so filled with witty and pleasant things that I have ever since wished I could have had a stenographer present to take it down in shorthand. It would have formed an excellent standard of conduct and achievement worthy of any man's striving. And then he came to my subject.

”And to-night, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, ”Mr. Bangs has come to us to give us his famous lecture on--ahem--on--er--he has come, I say, to give us his inimitable talk on--er--on--er--”

I leaned forward, and tried to give it to him in a stage whisper; but was too late. His impetus carried him on to destruction.

”--his delightful talk on Lubricators He Has Met,” said he.

Without any jealousies let me confess that that observation was truly the hit of the evening. The bulk of the audience had been themselves so mystified by the possible significance of the word Salubrities that they knew the t.i.tle by heart, and we began the evening with a roar of laughter that made us all friends at once. And as a matter of fact no harm was done; for ”Lubricators I Have Met” was quite as good a t.i.tle as the other, for my Salubrities are men and women who have made the world happier, and better, and sweeter, by their kindliness and graciousness, and what in the world could be more fitting than that the people who do that should be called Lubricators?