Leacock's lecture is not of a character which, has not, so to speak, the kind of value, in short, is not a lecture of that class." Here he paused and choked back a sob. "Had our poor friend been spared to us for another six years he would have rounded out the century. But it was not to be.

On his next call there was a lively Ruth who invited him up to the library, read extracts from Stephen Leacock's Nonsense Novels; turned companionably serious, and told him how divided were her sympathies between her father the conscientiously worried employer and a group of strikers in his factory. She made coffee in a fantastic percolator, and played Débussy and ragtime.