and explained that the stout man at
the door would neither go away nor tell his name, but must see his
lordship at once.

When the Bishop appeared in his dressing-gown and saw the King, he
nearly had apoplexy. But the King quickly told his errand and made his
friend Primate on the doorstep, with the butler and the housemaid for
witnesses.

Later in the day when Pitt appeared at the palace he was told that a
Primate had been appointed--the King was very sorry, but the present
incumbent could not be removed unless charges were preferred. Pitt
smilingly congratulated the King on the wisdom of his choice, but
afterward referred to the transaction as "a rather scurvy trick."

At twenty-three years of age, William Pitt entered the House of Commons
from the same borough that his father had represented at twenty-seven.
His elder brother made way, just as had the elder brother of his father.

The first speech he made in Parliament fixed his place in that body. His
fame had preceded him, and when he arose every seat was taken to hear
the favorite son of the Earl of Chatham, the greatest orator England had
ever seen.

The subject was simply a plan of finance, and lacked all excuse for fine
phrasing or flavor of sentiment. And what should a boy of twenty-three
know about a nation's financial policy?

Yet this boy knew all about it. Figures, statistics, results,
conclusions, were shown in a steady, flowing, accurate, lucid manner.
The young man knew his theme--every byway, highway and tracing of it. By
that speech he proved his mathematical genius, and blazed the way
straight to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Not only did he know his theme, but he had the ability to explain it. He
spoke without hesitation or embarrassment, and revealed the same
splendid dignity that his father had shown, all flavored by the same
dash of indifference for the auditor. But the discerning ones saw that
he surpassed his father, in that he carried more reserve and showed a
suavity that was not the habit of Chatham.

And the man was there--mighty and self-reliant.

The voice is the index of the soul. The voice of the two Pitts was the
same voice, we have been told--a deep, rich, cultivated lyric-barytone.
It was a trained voice, a voice that came from a full column of air,
that never broke into a screech, rasping the throat of the speaker and
the ear of the listener. It was the natural voice carefully developed by
right use. The po