my joy, one night there was a great buck nigger who had a lot to say
about 'Africa for the Africans'. I had a few words with him in Sesutu
afterwards, and rather spoiled his visit. Some of the people were
extraordinarily good, especially one jolly old fellow who talked about
English folk songs and dances, and wanted us to set up a Maypole. In
the debates which generally followed I began to join, very coyly at
first, but presently with some confidence. If my time at Biggleswick
did nothing else it taught me to argue on my feet.

The first big effort I made was on a full-dress occasion, when
Launcelot Wake came down to speak. Mr Ivery was in the chair--the first
I had seen of him--a plump middle-aged man, with a colourless face and
nondescript features. I was not interested in him till he began to
talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice. For he was the
genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth
as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor. He had a sort of
man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending
geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel
that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could
have put the case so much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying
his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was
nothing in it--nothing, that is to say, to lay hold on. It was simply
nondescript, so almightily commonplace that that very fact made it
rather remarkable.

Wake was speaking of the revelations of the Sukhomhnov trial in Russia,
which showed that Germany had not been responsible for the war. He was
jolly good at the job, and put as clear an argument as a first-class
lawyer. I had been sweating away at the subject and had all the
ordinary case at my fingers' ends, so when I got a chance of speaking I
gave them a long harangue, with some good quotations I had cribbed out
of the _Vossische Zeitung_, which Letchford lent me. I felt it was up
to me to be extra violent, for I wanted to establish my character with
Wake, seeing that he was a friend of Mary and Mary would know that I
was playing the game. I got tremendously applauded, far more than the
chief speaker, and after the meeting Wake came up to me with his hot
eyes, and wrung my hand. 'You're coming on well, Brand,' he said, and
then he introduced me to Mr Ivery. 'Here's a second and a better
Smuts,' he said.

Ivery made me walk