'None in the least. But, perhaps, some of your diligence.'
'I could learn it by heart, sir,--if you mean that.'
'But I don't mean that; or rather I mean much more than that. You
have first to realise in your mind the thing to be said, and then
the words in which you should say it, before you come to learning
by heart.'
'Some of them I suppose would tell me what to say.'
'No doubt with your inexperience it would be unfit that you should
be left entirely to yourself. But I would wish you to know,--
perhaps I should say to feel, that the sentiments expressed by you
were just.'
'I should have to praise Sir Timothy.'
'Not that necessarily. But you would have to advocate that course
in Parliament which Sir Timothy and his friends have taken and
propose to take.'
'But I hate him like poison.'
'There need be no personal feeling in the matter. I remember that
when I moved the address in your house Mr Mildmay was Prime
Minister,--a man for whom my regard and esteem was unbounded,--who
had been in political matters the preceptor of my youth, whom as a
patriotic statesman I almost worshipped, whom I now remember as a
man whose departure from the arena of politics left the country
very destitute.
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