er it be it seems to me
Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."

This the shorthand genius rendered in the manner following:--"The right
honourable gentleman, who resumed his seat amidst loud and prolonged
cheers, concluded by remarking that however it might represent itself
to others it appeared to him that the only true nobility consisted in
goodness, that kind hearts were better than coronets, and that simple
faith was more to be esteemed than Norman blood." Somehow this passed
the printer's reader and appeared in all the glory of type the following
morning. It fell to my lot to take the criminal to task, but he disarmed
me by a mere turn of the hand. "I don't call it fair," he said, in
his soft, insinuating Rother-ham accent, "to expect a man to have all
English literature at his fingers' ends for five and thirty bob a week,
and beside that, if you look at Mr Pitman's preface to his last edition"
(he produced the book from his coat pocket), "you'll find it set down as
an instruction to all shorthand writers that it's a reporter's duty to
make good speeches for bad speakers. I have got down what he said right
enough, but I thought I'd touch him up a bit!"

On another occasion the improver of Tennyson came across from the Town
Hall to the office with the final "turn" of an address which had just
been delivered by Mr Bright to his constituents. "I'm in a bit of a
difficulty," he explained to me breathlessly, "there's old Bright been
havering about in his customary manner and he has been talking about
Hercules and some kind of stables. I got a 'j' and an 'n' down on my
notes, but I forgot to vocalise the word and I can't remember it." I
suggested Augean. "That's it," he said joyfully, "but, my word! what a
memory you've got to be sure!"

One almost incredible example of mental agility he gave me. He came to
me one day beaming with an unusual complacency, and announced that he
had made a discovery. He had an absolutely hairless, shining dome
of head, and he confided to me the fact that the boys in Rotherham
seventeen years ago had nicknamed him "bladder o' lard." "I could never
make out what they meant by it," he said, "until this morning I was
standing in front of my looking-glass shaving, and it came to me at a
run--they gave me that nickname because I'm bald!"

CHAPTER VIII

The House of Commons Press Gallery--Disraeli as Orato