"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, already the Zeppelin scare has shaken your stock severely; this
will be the final blow. It is noble of you to sacrifice----"
"Don't go!" she cried in anguish.