Then Claude went to London and had an interview of a very satisfactory character with Messrs. Shekels & Shackles. All that they stipulated was that he should not give himself away--the phrase was Mr. Shekels'--at the Royal Geographical Society. The papers read by distinguished--travellers--and some who were not quite so distinguished--at the big meetings of the Society, were only designed to stimulate the imagination of the public and prepare the way for the forthcoming book. A paper that discounted any portion of the forthcoming book--Mr. Shekels took it for granted that the book was always forthcoming--was worse than futile for advertising purposes He urged upon Mr. Westwood the advisability of putting nothing into his Geographical Society lecture that the newspapers could not lay hold of for the purposes of leading articles. The newspapers did not want pathological erudition. They wanted something that all their readers could understand--something about cannibalism, for example; cannibalism as a topic never failed to attract general readers. He hoped that Mr. Westwood would see his way to talk about the cannibals of Central Africa in his paper. That would tickle the palates of the general public, causing them to look forward to the book, which need not necessarily contain a single allusion to cannibalism. In one word, Mr. Shekels explained that the lecture should be a kind of _hors d'ouvre_ to the literary banquet which was to follow. All this he explained to Mr. Westwood, very tenderly, of course, for Mr. Westwood was (unfortunately, Messrs. Shekels & Shackles thought) not like the majority of distinguished explorers, anxious that the sale of his book should be enormous, being (unfortunately, again,) independent of book-writing for his living. If they were to say anything to hurt his feelings, he might take his book, when he had it written, to another publishing house, who then would have the privilege, so earnestly sought after by Messrs. Shekles & Shackles, of losing a considerable sum by its publication.