"Ladies and gentlemen," I said hastily, "the mayor has been sitting
behind me. Do tell me: has he been asleep?"
In the ante-room afterwards he assured me solemnly that he hadn't been
asleep.
On Friday night I began thus: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am
going to talk about Forgetting." Then I put my hand in my inside coat
pocket; then I tried another pocket, and got very excited while I
rummaged every pocket I had.
"I must apologise," I said, "but I have forgotten my notes."
The audience laughed, and we became the best of friends.
* * * * *
Forgetting is very often intentional. We forget what we do not want to
remember. Brown writes to me saying that he is taking the wife and
kids to the seaside, and would I please pay him the fiver I owe him? I
at once sit down and write: "My dear Brown, I enclose a cheque for five
quid. Many thanks for the loan. Hope you all have a good time at the
sea."
Three days later Brown replies.
"Thanks for your letter, old man, but you forgot to enclose the cheque."
Why did I forget the cheque? Because I did not want to pay up.
Consciously I did want to pay, for I wrote out the cheque all right,
but my unconscious did not want to pay, and it was my unconscious that
made me slip the cheque under the blotter.
Last summer I was invited to spend the week-end with some people at
Stanmore. I did not want to go; a previous week-end with them had been
most boring. However, I reluctantly consented to go out on the
Saturday morning. When Saturday morning came I was not very much
surprised to find that I had forgotten to put out my boots to be
cleaned the night before.
"It looks as if I weren't keen on this trip," I said to myself.
I went down to Baker Street and got into the train. We stopped at many
stations, and after an hour's journey I began to wonder what was wrong.
I asked another man in the compartment when we were due at Stanmore,
and he looked surprised.
"Why," he said, "you're on the wrong line; you ought to have changed at
Harrow."
I got out at the next station and found that I had an hour to wait for
the return train to Harrow. As I sat on the platform I took from my
pocket my host's letter.
"Remember," it ran, "to change at Harrow," and the words were
underlined.