Passing over chairman chatty and chairman terse, chairman eloquent and chairman the reverse, I feel decidedly most kindly toward the silent chairman. He is very rare, but he does exist and, when met with, is exceedingly precious. Why he exists, in some English Institutes, I have always been at a loss to imagine. Whether he comes on to see that the lecturer does not run off before his time is up, or with the water bottle, which is the only portable thing on the platform generally; whether he is a successor to some venerable deaf and dumb founder of his Society; or whether he goes on with the lecturer to give a lesson in modesty to the public, as who should say: "I could speak an if I would, but I forbear." Be his _raison d'être_ what it may, we all love him. To the nervous novice he is a kind of quiet support, to the old stager he is as a picture unto the eye and as music unto the ear. * * * * * Here I pause. I want to collect my thoughts. Does my memory serve me? Am I dreaming, or worse still, am I on the point of inventing? No, I could not invent such a story, it is beyond my power. I was once lecturing to the students of a religious college in America. Before I began, a professor stepped forward, and offered a prayer, in which he asked the Lord to allow the audience to see my points. Now, I duly feel the weight of responsibility attaching to such a statement, and in justice to myself I can do no less than give the reader the petition just as it fell on my astonished ears: "Lord, Thou knowest that we work hard for Thee, and that recreation is necessary in order that we may work with renewed vigor. We have to-night with us a gentleman from France [excuse my recording a compliment too flattering], whose criticisms are witty and refined, _but subtle_, and we pray Thee to so prepare our minds that we may thoroughly understand and enjoy them." "_But subtle!_" I am still wondering whether my lectures are so subtle as to need praying over, or whether that audience was so dull that they needed praying for. Whichever it was, the prayer was heard, for the audience proved warm, keen, and thoroughly appreciative. [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. REFLECTIONS ON THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. _New York, January 23._ I was asked to-day by the editor of the _North American Review_ to write an article on the typical American. The typical American! In the eyes of my beloved compatriots, the typical American is a man with hair falling over his shoulders, wearing a sombrero, a red shirt, leather leggings, a pair of revolvers in his belt, spending his life on horseback, and able to shoot a fly off the tip of your nose without for a moment endangering your olfactory organ; and, since Buffalo Bill has been exhibiting his Indians and cowboys to the Parisians, this impression has become a deep conviction.