tic gesture,
which throws him off his tack)--a contire--a complete
disill--misunderstanding of the things which he himself relies on
as--as--as a backing-up of the things that he would have us take
or--er--accept and receive as the right sort of reduction--deduction
from the facts of...in fact, from the facts of the case.' Then the poor
dear heaves a deep sigh of relief, which is drowned by other members in
a hideous cachinnation meant to express mirth.

And the odd thing is that the mirth is quite sincere and quite
friendly. The speaker has just scored a point, though you mightn't
think it. He has just scored a point in the true House of Commons
manner. Possibly you have never been to the House of Commons, and
suspect that I have caricatured its manner. Not at all. Indeed, to save
space in these pages, I have rather improved it. If a phonograph were
kept in the house, you would learn from it that the average sentence of
the average speaker is an even more grotesque abortion than I have
adumbrated. Happily for the prestige of the House, phonographs are
excluded. Certain skilled writers--modestly dubbing themselves
'reporters'--are admitted, and by them cosmos is conjured out of chaos.
'The member for South Clapham appeared to be labouring under a
misapprehension of the nature of the facts on which his argument was
based (Laughter).' That is the finished article that your morning paper
offers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram over your tea
and toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to make it, and of
the crises through which it passed, as you are of those poor sowers and
reapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but for whom there would be
no fragrant tea and toast for you.

The English are a naturally silent race. The most popular type of
national hero is the 'strong silent man.' And most of the members of
the House of Commons are, at any rate, silent members. Mercifully
silent. Seeing the level attained by such members as have an impulse to
speak, I shudder to conceive an oration by one of those unimpelled
members... Perhaps I am too nervous. Surely I am too nervous. Surely
the House of Commons manner cannot be a natural growth. Such perfect
virtuosity in dufferdom can be acquired only by constant practice. But
how comes it to be practised? I can only repeat that the English are a
naturally silent race. They are apt to mistrust fluency. 'Glibness'
they call it, and scent behind it the adventu