For example, in complaining
to Mr. Hodges, the school trustee, about the lack of heat in
mid-January, she completely subdued him be remarking that there
wasn't "the least raison d'etre for such a condition." In view of
these and other intellectual associations, Miss Miller's "room"
was obviously the place for the Literary Society to meet.
Mr. George Ade, Mr. Booth Tarkington, Mr. James Whitcomb Riley,
Mr. Meredith Nicholson and other noted Indiana authors had been
invited to "read from their works" before the Society, and while
none of them had been able to accept, each and every one had written
a polite note of regret to the secretary, who not only read them
aloud to the Society but preserved them in her own private scrap
book and spoke feelingly of her remarkable "collection."
The room was crowded to hear the "celebrated air-man" relate his
experiences at the front. The exercises were delayed for nearly an
hour while Mr. Hatch, the photographer, prepared and foozled three
attempts to get a flashlight picture of the gathering. Everybody
was coughing violently when A. Lincoln Pollock arose to introduce
the speaker of the evening. In conclusion he said:
"Mr. Thane was not only wounded in the service of humanity but
he was also gassed. I wish to state here and now that it was not
laughing gas the Germans administered. Far from it, my friends.
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