by one proposition of bold originality, and as it was received
with murmurs by the assembly, the deputy exclaimed:--

"What! does this surprise you? But it is not I that say it. Brigida says
it."

"Who is Brigida?" asked a journalistic tyro.

"His housekeeper," replied another, without looking up.

"Why! what a ridiculous thing to quote his housekeeper here!" exclaimed
the first.

The deputies received with renewed murmurs the name of the author of the
quotation.

"Brigida says it," cried the orator with all the force of his lungs.

Louder and longer murmurs. When quiet was restored, he said in a grave
and solemn tone:--

"Santa Brigida says so!"

"Ahaaaaaa!" replied the assembly.

The last five minutes were devoted to the events in Cadiz, and that was
to say that it was all the fault of the government.

It seems logical to report that the orator was removed from there in a
cage and taken to a mad-house. Nothing of the sort happened, however:
the minister replied in all formality, and combated his quotations and
theories with other quotations and other theories. At that period all
addresses began with Adam and no one was surprised at it.

Next, coming to the order of the day, it was the turn of tariff reform,
and Mendoza was granted the floor. He, having spread out on his desk his
earthquake of notes, coughing three or four times, lifting up his hands
an equal number, began his great oration.

His voice was well modulated, clear, and mellow; his tone grave and
high-sounding; his gestures noble and refined. Neither Demosthenes, nor
Cicero, nor Mirabeau were blessed with such an effective presence and
such an elegant round of attitudes as our friend Brutandor.

But the trouble was that the ideas that proceeded from his mouth did not
correspond in the least with such attitudes. That wrathful gesture, that
lowering and raising of the voice, and those short but quick steps in
front of his desk, were very appropriate to accompany the celebrated
"Tell your master that only by the force of bayonets will we be taken
from this spot," or the _Quousque tandem Catilina_; but for saying that
the annual consumption of cotton in England in 1767 was 4,000,000
pounds, and that in 1867 it was more than 1,400,000,000 pounds; that the
number of workmen engaged there in the manufacture of cotton is 500,000,
and 4,000,000 the persons whose living depends on this industry; that
the value of the paper manufactured in 1835 was 8