If a speaker before you has made a joke which has taken well, repeat it, and get up a second laugh in your own favour, and the originator is flattered at being quoted, while you share the honours with him. Should you be in the position of finding that your ideas have flown, or that they have not arrived, fix on the one who has made the best speech, and say he has anticipated you in everything you were about to observe. This will arouse sympathy for you under the trying circumstances, reflect credit on you as a speaker, and exonerate you from further remarks. As your toast will probably be pretty well down the list, the company will not be difficult to please, or critical, so you need not let your nominative trouble you. I have often felt the deepest sympathy for the poor reporters who have to take home the tangled mass of some great man's speech and unravel it into grammatical order; and one is often astonished next morning to read an interesting speech extracted from chaos. If some distinguished person--say, Sir Henry Irving--accepts an invitation to sup with a club, it will be the duty of the committee to see that a full toast-list is prepared, as, after the strong mental strain he has just come through, it will be a relief and a rest to him to have his mind diverted to such subjects as "The Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh," "Our Educational Interests," "Our Mercantile Interests," "The Clergy," &c., and you can afterwards give your friends an idea of the splendid night you had by saying you "kept it up till three in the morning." The one who has to propose "The Provost and Town Council" must allude to our beautiful, our own romantic and historic town, giving the Council all credit, and say that no one has the interest of our city more at heart than ----, whoever is to reply. He may have acted as if he had mistaken the Council Chambers for the House of Commons or a licensed grocer's back parlour; he may have been active in bringing Edinburgh into ridicule, so that, like the inhabitant of another town when from home, we feel we should say, "I belong to Edinburgh, but, as share's death, I couldna help it." Still, the classic expression must be used; and whoever replies will say with all the earnestness of an original expression, "There is no one who has the interest of the city of Edinburgh more at heart than I have," and thereby confirm the truth of your assertion. If the phrase "Proudest moment of my life" is used, the speaker should try to get up a suitable expression, as it is sometimes said in such melancholy tones as would lead the audience to doubt the assertion, or give them a humble opinion of previous proud moments.