Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/184

 Cries of "Hear! Hear!"

Mr. Macronyx: "I bow to the president's ruling. I will gladly say that the lecturer is an eminently truthful person, since though the bulk of his discourse is a tissue of baseless fabrications, one or two of his assertions may be accepted as true. We all admit that he is a distinguished savant. Many of us may be of opinion that his discourse contains nothing that was worth saying. But let us be grateful for the instruction we have received from his lips to-day, even if I am reluctantly unable to give my support to all his statements. More particularly, if I may be allowed to say so, he is hopelessly mistaken in the account he has given us of the institution of marriage among men. Among us, if any tiger, with a view to the continuance of the species, consorts with a fair tigress, that constitutes matrimony. (I would beg my learned hearers, in passing, to note the etymology of the word 'consort'. It is made up of con, implying union, and sors, fate or accident.) The marriage of men is not of this sort. Man is by nature a