"If only it left that, it might be worth it. But there's a new white waistcoat. An audience soon gets tired of a lecture, and then there's nothing for the wakeful ones to concentrate on but the white waistcoat of the lecturer. It must be of a virgin whiteness. Say thirty-five shillings. So I lose thirty shillings by it. Can I afford so much?" "But you gain the acoustics and the waistcoat." "True. Of course, if you insist--" "Oh, you _must_," said Celia. So I returned to the library. By tea-time I had got as far as this:-- "ADVENTURES WITH A CAMERA IN SOMALILAND "_Lecture delivered before the Blanktown Literary and Philo_--" And then I had an idea. This time a brilliant one. "Celia," I said at tea, "I have been wondering whether I ought to take advantage of your generosity." "What generosity?" "In letting me deliver this lecture." "It isn't generosity, it's swank. I want to be able to tell everybody." "Ah, but the sacrifices you are making." "Am I?" said Celia, with interest. "Of course you are. Consider. I ask a fee of ten guineas. They cannot possibly charge more than a shilling a head to listen to me. It would be robbery. So that if there is to be a profit at all, as presumably they anticipate, I shall have a gate of at least two hundred and fifty." "I should _hope_ so." "Two hundred and fifty. And what does that mean? It means that at seven-thirty o'clock on the night of December the 8th two hundred and fifty residents of Blanktown will _turn out the electric lights in their drawing-rooms ..._ PERHAPS EVEN IN THEIR HALLS ... and proceed to the lecture-room. True, the lecture-room will be lit up--a small compensation--but not for long. When the slides of Vesuvius are thrown upon the screen--" Celia was going pale. "But if it's not you," she faltered, "it will be somebody else." "No; if I refuse, it will be too late then to get a substitute. Besides, they must have tried everybody else before they got down to me... Celia it is noble of you to sacrifice--" "Don't go!" she cried in anguish. I gave a deep sigh. "For your sake," I said, "I won't." So that settles it. If my lecture on "First Principles in Homoeopathy" is ever to be delivered, it must be delivered elsewhere. ENTER BINGO