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222 cheers and 'Hear, hear,' and then the fearful tempest was entirely hushed.

I suddenly bethought me of Parliamentary etiquette, and 'caught the Thunderer's eye,' no very difficult feat, considering that every eye in the vast apartment, including Bellagranda's ravishing pair, was fixed upon me. My speech will hardly bear reporting by the public press. I spoke or rather blundered out my ideas—or my unintelligible jargon—in short convulsive gasps, which were as little likely to give pleasure to my hearers as they did to me. My 'hems' and 'haws' were most painful; my coughs, to gain time, horrible. I used my pocket-handkerchief with a shocking report that resounded through the room, and made many of the facetious members laugh aloud. The wonder is that I did not faint away, or die on the spot.

'Mr. Thunderer ("Hear, hear"). Mr. Thunderer, sir, I find myself in a very (hem) astonishing, and most painful position, one in—no, I mean of—which I am thoroughly and undesirably ashamed. I am on the horns—(disapprobation,—I beg pardon, a great many times—of a surmountable and incombustible dilemma. I feel like the noble New Ireland dog, who found himself—hem, her—surrounded by an immense concourse of b-b-baboons, and was so terrified that his tail he could not wag (laughter, "Hear hear," "No no!" "Turn him out!"). Sir, I humbly crave the pardon of this Honourable House: it is far, a great many miles, from my intention to insult, or to imitate—no, irritate, hem, learned and honourable members. I pity that man who, in this dignified and munificent House, cannot discriminate, or I mean assimilate, between what is noble and undisciplined, and what is entirely unworthy of profound imitation and utterly—demoniacal (sensation)—Mr. Thunderer, Sir, I am a very humble and a highly exalted—no, I mean a protracted, and