But the error was seen to have been in the choice of the lecturer.  Our members were no longer interested in the causes of the war.  The topic was too old.  We therefore held another public lecture in the club, on the topic What Will Come After the War.  It was given by a very talented gentleman, a Mr. Guess, a most interesting speaker, who reduced his fee (as the thing was a war charity) by one-half, leaving it at three hundred dollars.  Unhappily the weather was against us.  It was too fine.  Our members scarcely care to listen to lectures in fine weather.  And it turned out that our members are not interested in what will come after the war.  The topic is too new.  Our receipts of fifty dollars left us with a net deficit of two hundred and fifty.  Our treasurer therefore proposed that we should carry both deficits forward and open a Special Patriotic Entertainment Account showing a net total deficit of four hundred and fifty dollars.

In the opinion of the committee our mistake had been in engaging outside talent.  It was felt that the cost of this was prohibitive.  It was better to invite the services of the members of the club themselves.  A great number of the ladies expressed their willingness to take part in any kind of war work that took the form of public entertainment.

Accordingly we presented a play.  It was given in the ball room of the club house, a stage being specially put up for us by a firm of contractors.  The firm (as a matter of patriotism) did the whole thing for us at cost, merely charging us with the labour, the material, the time, the thought and the anxiety that they gave to the job, but for nothing else.  In fact, the whole staging, including lights, plumbing and decorations was merely a matter of five hundred dollars.  The plumbers very considerately made no charge for their time, but only for their work.

It was felt that it would be better to have a new play than an old.  We selected a brilliant little modern drawing-room comedy never yet presented.  The owner of the copyright, a theatrical firm, let us use it for a merely nominal fee of two hundred dollars, including the sole right to play the piece forever.  There being only twenty-eight characters in it, it was felt to be more suitable than a more ambitious thing.  The tickets were placed at one dollar, no one being admitted free except the performers themselves, and the members who very kindly acted as scene shifters, curtain lifters, ushers, door-keepers, programme sellers, and the general committee of management.  All the performers, at their own suggestion, supplied their own costumes, charging nothing to the club except the material and the cost of dressmaking.  Beyond this there was no expense except for the fee, very reasonable, of Mr. Skip, the professional coach who trained the performers, and who asked us, in view of the circumstances, less than half of what he would have been willing to accept.

The proceeds were to be divided between the Belgian Fund and the Red Cross, giving fifty per cent to each.  A motion in amendment from the ladies’ financial committee to give fifty per cent to the Belgian Fund and sixty per cent to the Red Cross was voted down.