Don't mention it, Uncle Peter, for what I tell you is confidential, but do you know that my little bunch of remarks, which cost me nothing anyway because I was invited to the banquet, have given me more widespread advertisement than Andy Carnegie can get for eighteen public libraries? You know, Uncle Peter, there is nothing in the world so easy to make stand up on its hind legs as the general public if you just go after it right. But the trick is, Uncle Peter, to know what to say and when to say it. Look at my case and then tell me if it wasn't up to me to emit a rave. There I was, just about to leave my native land to go to Oxford and become the squeegee professor in the Knowledge Factory and be all swallowed up in the London fog, but nobody seemed to miss me before I went away. I began to feel lost, lonely and forgotten like a vice-president of the United States. Then came the banquet, Uncle Peter, and like a flash the inspiration came to me and I arose in my seat and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, after a man reaches the age of 40 he is a seldom-happener, and after he gets to the age of 60 he is a dead rabbit and it's the woods for his." What was the result, Uncle Peter? Every man in the world felt that I was his personal insult. Every man _over_ 40 listened to what I said and began to yell for the police; and every man _under_ 40 realized that he would be _over_ 40 some day, so he began to look for a rock to throw at me. I had them, going and coming. Then the newspapers heard about it and where formerly in their columns was nothing but dull and harmless war news my picture began, to blossom forth like the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la! Pretty soon, Uncle Peter, every man, woman and child in the world began to know me and I couldn't walk out in the public streets without being snap-shotted or bowed to, or barked at, according to the age of those present. Of course, we all know, Uncle Peter, that my theory has wormholes all over it, but didn't I make good? We do not need a book or history to tell us that Julius Caesar was over forty before he ever saw the base of Pompey's statue; that Brutus and Cassius were over forty before they saw a chance to carve their initials on Caesar's wishbone; that Cleopatra was over forty before she saw snakes; that Carrie Nation was over forty before she could hatchet a barroom and put the boots to the rum demon; that Mrs. Chadwick was over forty before she opened a bank account; that Jonah was over forty before he saw a whale; that President Roosevelt was over forty before he saw a self-folding lion; that Kuropatkin was over forty before he learned to make five retreats grow where only one retreat grew before; that George Washington was over forty before he was struck with the idea of making Valley Forge a winter resort; and so forth, and so forth, world without end. But these suggestions only prove the rule, Uncle Peter, and the rule is this: