14                                    Milton Smith

nobody ever told him of his error. The lecture was as interesting
the second time as it had been the first.

I realized then why Brander was such an exciting teacher: he
was a good actor. I hope I am making the point that this lecture
was not something prepared long ago which he repeated un¬
changed year after year. No doubt it had been prepared originally
long ago. But by now, it had been perfected by virtue of having
been played to many audiences. Behind its apparent casualness
was a wonderfully clear and logical arrangement of ideas. He had,
by now, polished every sentence. A\'hcn a sentence didn't work
the way he thought it should, he experimented with it. In short,
he Avas, in a true sense of the word, even as a lecturer, a superb
raconteur. And he worked hard at it, both in the classroom and
out of it.

Among the many stories he told superbly was one that he
called "The Conscientious Deadhead." (In reading the title, you
'must emphasize "Conscientious," and I trust it isn't necessary to
explain that a Deadhead is a term for someone who goes to the
theater on a free ticket.) I heard Brander tell this story a number
of times over the years to various people. Each time, at first, it
was a little different, slightly shorter, and better received. Finally,
he found the form he thought worked best, and thereafter he
told it word for word. Here it is: "A man goes to the theater to
see a play written by a friend of his, and afterwards he describes
how he liked it to a mutual friend. During the first act, he says,
he applauded and the audience sat still; during the second act, he
sat still and the audience hissed; and during the third act he went
out and bought a ticket and came back in and hissed." To witness
Brander's polishing of the story was an education in composition.

It is probably not necessary to say that he did the same thing
when he \\rote. The final result was always so clear and witty
and easy to read—and looked so easy to write—that certain of
his contemporaries could not believe that a man who wrote so
well could be a scholar. Perhaps this doubt was a high form of
praise. Anyway, thirty-five or more books, many of them by