My eyes dilated as Mrs. Symple rattled off this jargon about the intellectual growth of Ourtown. A year ago I had regarded her as a young woman with brain-cells of the most primitive form imaginable, picking up pebbles on the shores of the Shakespeare class; and here she was drinking deep draughts of advanced thought, and talking about Ibsen and Tolstoï and Emerson as glibly as if they were old acquaintances. “And who is Professor Gnowital?” I asked, “and by what formula does he estimate the comparative degrees of culture to the square foot in Boston and Ourtown? He must be a man of remarkable gifts.” “Remarkable gifts!” echoed Mrs. Symple, “well, I should think so. He comes from Boston and he’s been giving readings here before the Saturday Night Club. And oh, you _must_ come and make an address at the meeting next week! It’s to be the grand gala one of the whole course. Professor Gnowital is coming on to attend it with some really cultivated people from Boston, and you’ll be surprised to see what a fine literary society there is here now.” I agreed to address the Saturday Night Club, but I saw with deep sorrow that the town had simply gone mad over what it termed “culture.” People whom I had always regarded as but little better than half-wits were gravely uttering opinions about Carlyle and Emerson, or “doing” German literature through the medium of English translations. And all this idiocy in place of the Shakespeare Club, sleigh-rides, late suppers, and coasting, that once made life so delightful for us all. Mrs. Symple had asked me to address the club on whatever topic I might select, and while I was considering the invitation a great idea took possession of my brain. To think was to act; and without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a long letter to my old friend, Dr. Paulejeune, begging him to come up and address the club in my stead, and by so doing render a service not only to his lifelong friend, but to the great cause of enlightenment and human progress as well. Now Dr. Paulejeune is not only an educated man with the thinking habit long fastened upon him, but also that _rara avis_, a Frenchman who thoroughly understands the language, literature, and social structure of America. Moreover he possesses in a marked degree the patriotism, wit, and cynicism of his race, and has a few hearty prejudices against certain modern vogues in art which are remote from the accepted ideals of the Latin race. Happily enough his name was well known in Ourtown by reason of his little volume of essays, which had just then made its appearance.