The aphorism attributed to Dr. John Watson, of "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush," suggests itself. "My fee is one hundred dollars if I go to a hotel, two hundred if I am entertained, because in the latter event one can only live half so long." I conclude that he made the choice of Achilles, for he died on a lecture tour. So far fate has been kinder to me. The greatest danger is the reporter, especially the emotional reporter, who has not attended your meeting. I owe such debts to the press that this statement seems the blackest of ingratitude. On the contrary, I must plead that doctors are privileged. My controversy with this class of reporters is their generosity, which puts into one's mouth statements that on final analysis may be cold facts, but which, remembering that one is lecturing on work among people whom one loves and respects, it would never occur to me to slur at a public meeting. No one who tries to alter conditions which exist can expect to escape making enemies. I have seen reports of what I have said at advertised meetings, that were subsequently cancelled. I have followed up rumours, and editors have expressed sorrow that they accepted them from men who had been too busy to be present. But "qui s'excuse, s'accuse"; and my conclusion is that the lecturer is practically defenceless. Since our marriage my wife has generously acted as my secretary, having specially learned shorthand and typewriting in order to free me from carrying such a burden, and has helped me enormously ever since on this line. But lecture tours used to make me despair of keeping abreast of correspondence. I sometimes was forced to treat letters as Henry Drummond did--who allowed them to answer themselves--if I wished free mornings in which to visit the hospitals, just at the time that all their professional work was in progress. These clinics are invaluable and almost unique experiences. They persuaded me more than ever how much depends in surgery as well as in medicine on "the man behind the gun"; and that mere mileage is not the real handicap on members of our profession whose fields of work lie away from the centres of learning. They also imbued me with the profoundest spirit of respect for the leaders of the healing art. * * * * * To no one but myself did it seem odd that a plain Englishman should be invited to perform the function of best man at the wedding of the daughter of the President of the United States of America at the White House. The matter was never even noticed either in the press or in conversation. The only citizen to whom I suggested the anomaly merely said, "Well, why not?"