When I knew how I was to get away, I looked up the committee. So far as I was concerned, the point at which I most frequently found a serious conflict in a committee was the subject on which I was to talk. That was supposed to have been settled—I had their letter for it. But not everybody wanted me to talk on so-and-so. Usually I found it was because somebody feared I might be too radical. They didn’t want anything said on their platform which would antagonize the well-to-do conservative sponsors of the course or encourage the town’s social and economic rebels. I remember times when, after an exciting discussion behind the scenes, I stood in the wings waiting for the signal to come onto the platform while behind me the discussion went on. Only at the last moment did the chairman say begrudgingly, “Well, talk on so-and-so.” But the chief objector meeting me after the lecture said, “I would so much have preferred to have heard you on so-and-so.” But the indecision of the committee was not the only trying experience before I was actually on my feet and at my job. There was the introduction. You never knew exactly what was to happen. As a matter of fact the introduction should and frequently does give opportunity for repartee, for anecdote—an easy way for putting yourself at once on terms of friendliness with your audience. But I was never happy at that kind of thing. On the Chautauqua circuit the fashion has been for the speaker to go out as soon as the music was over, take his stand and begin. Nobody said, “This is So-and-So who will speak on so-and-so.” Nobody told them anything about you—you stood up and said your piece. The ritual on the lyceum platform was different. There they made the most of me, as a rule. It sometimes seemed to me that each successive committee had a different way of presenting me. Sometimes I marched out with the master of ceremonies, a man or woman, and was placed in an armchair while the chairman made remarks about me which were often bewildering. I have been introduced as the author of George Kennan’s Siberian books and of Edna Ferber’s Emma McChesney stories. I have heard a long explanation of why I had never married. Once I was called a notorious woman by the speaker, he evidently thinking that the word was flattering. Often I had a bodyguard made up of important women of the community—a tribute to my sex. One of the most peculiar fashions, as well as the most trying, was having a scene arranged behind the drop curtain. The stage was turned into a pleasant sitting room, and a half-dozen of the leading women of the town in their best gowns were seated about in informal fashion. When we were all ready the curtain went up. There would be music, and then the chairman would tell them who I was, and why I was supposed to be worth their attention. While this was going on the audience was locating the different persons of importance on the stage and criticizing the setting and the costumes.