Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/246

238 tap, and out of the buttered mould comes the sentence, compact and complete, whereas, in English, the idea is not given time to set, it is not even half baked, and then it is shaken out, and falls to pieces as it appears; or like an ill-set jelly, resolves into an insipid wash.

When Lord Lamerton rose to his feet, he proceeded to blow his nose loudly, then he looked about him, and his face glowed redly. He caught the eye of the Rector of Orleigh, and he said to himself: "Deuce take the fellow, he will know whence I got this speech. He was discussing the matter with my lady the other day."

He arranged his legs as best he could to support his superincumbent weight, and to make quite sure of not losing his balance laid his hand on the back of a chair. Then he put the other hand into his pocket.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I am not the sort of man you should have chosen to speak to you to-day, because——"

Interruptions of "No, no!"

"Because, if you allow me, I am not in the best of moods. I have had an attack, a damned—I beg your pardon, a dastardly attack made on me in the public papers, and I have been—I have been represented—that is, represented as a monster of iniquity, one who is ruining the country, and driving trade out of it."

"No, no!"

"I was never more astonished and shocked in my life. I did think, gentlemen and ladies, that, if there was one thing I cherished and loved, and strove to live for, it was—that is to say—it was my country, and next to my country, my dear old—my dear old mother country."

General emotion, and some of the ladies who had taken more than two glasses of sherry felt the tears rise into their eyes. Every gentleman kindled and stamped and said, "Hear, hear!"