Most of us do more or less lip-reading, whether we make a study of the science or not, and through long habit we come to make use of the eyes without realizing how largely our lives must depend upon light. Thus, when suddenly plunged into darkness, we are lost. I carried in my hand a small black case containing the electric instrument which I used as an aid to hearing, and this proved my undoing. Such a case may be accepted as professional evidence; it may contain only a lunch or your laundry, but lawyers and physicians also carry similar ones. As I stood looking about in the dim light an elderly man with a short beard stepped up and held his lantern so as to view my face. I saw his lips frame the words: “Come on; hurry! We are all waiting.” I supposed he referred to supper, for I knew my friend had a very orderly and precise wife, who is a little deaf. One must be promptly on time in keeping appointments with such a character. The old man caught me by the arm, hurried me to a carriage, and fairly bundled me into it. He paid no attention to my questions, but jumped into the front seat and urged on the horse to full speed. The lantern swinging from the front axle went out as we bumped off into the darkness over mud holes and ruts without number. I tried to get my electric device into operation, but the plug had dropped out of place and I could not make connections. So on we plunged. Soon I found that the old man in front was nearly as deaf as I. The combination of two deaf men in the darkness rushing through what was to one of them an absolutely unknown country should have been thrilling, but the deaf man rarely experiences a thrill; he must wait for some one to tell him what it is all about. As usual, my mind worked back for some comparative incident. I remembered two. The year before I had gone to Canada during the Winter. A farmer met me at the station after dark. It was very cold, and the body of a closed carriage which had been put on runners was filled with straw. This made a warm, comfortable nest, and the farmer got in with me, while his son sat up in front to drive. The same plug to my hearing device had dropped out, and in order to give me a light for finding it, my host struck a match. He held it too long and it burned his fingers. Then it fell into the straw and started a great blaze. No two men ever showed greater activity than we did as we plunged out of that carriage and threw in snow until the fire was extinguished. That scene came to my mind, and then followed the story by Ian Maclaren of the great surgeon who came up from London to perform an operation, and was carried off into the wilderness against his will by the local doctor.