Nineteen hundred and ten was an important year. Halley's comet came along, and some predicted the End of the World. And Stephen Leacock's first _humorous_ book--_Literary Lapses_--was published. First humorous book, I said, for Mr. Leacock--who is professor of political economy at McGill University, Montreal--had published his _Elements of Political Science_ in 1906. It seems to me that I have heard that _Literary Lapses_ was obscurely or privately published in Canada before 1910; that Mr. John Lane, the famous London publisher, was given a copy by some one as he got on a steamer to go home to England; that he read it on the voyage and cabled an offer for it as soon as he landed. This is very vague in my mind, but it sounds probable. At any rate, since that time Professor Leacock's humorous volumes have appeared with gratifying regularity--_Nonsense Novels, Behind the Beyond_, etc.; and some more serious books too, such as Essays and _Literary Studies_ and The _Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice_. One of the unsolved riddles of social injustice is, why should Professor Leacock be so much more amusing than most people? We usually think of him as a Canadian, but he was born in England in 1869. Coming up home the other night in my car (the Guy Street car), I heard a man who was hanging onto a strap say: "The drama is just turning into a bunch of talk." This set me thinking; and I was glad that it did, because I am being paid by this paper to think once a week, and it is wearing. Some days I never think from morning till night. This decline of the drama is a thing on which I feel deeply and bitterly; for I am, or I have been, something of an actor myself. I have only been in amateur work, I admit, but still I have played some mighty interesting parts. I have acted in Shakespeare as a citizen, I have been a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and I was once one end (choice of ends) of a camel in a pantomime. I have had other parts too, such as "A Voice Speaks From Within," or "A Noise Is Heard Without," or a "Bell Rings From Behind," and a lot of things like that. I played as A Noise for seven nights, before crowded houses where people were being turned away from the door; and I have been a Groan and a Sigh and a Tumult, and once I was a "Vision Passes Before the Sleeper." So when I talk of acting and of the spirit of the Drama, I speak of what I know. Naturally, too, I was brought into contact, very often into quite intimate personal contact, with some of the greatest actors of the day. I don't say it in any way of boasting, but merely because to those of us who love the stage all dramatic souvenirs are interesting. I remember, for example, that when Wilson Barrett played "The Bat" and had to wear the queer suit with the scales, it was I who put the glue on him.