A great treat was expected, but there
was among the officers of police some who thought that a portion of
the audience would not bear quietly the hard things that would be
said, and that there was an uncanny gathering of roughs about the
street, who were not prepared to be on their best behaviour when
they should be told that old England was being abused.
Lord Drummond opened the proceedings by telling the audience, in a
voice clearly audible to the reporters and the first half-dozen
benches, that they had come there to hear what a well-informed and
distinguished foreigner thought of their country. They would not,
he was sure, expect to be flattered. Than flattery nothing was more
useless or ignoble. This gentleman, coming from a new country, in
which tradition was of no avail, and on which the customs of former
centuries had had no opportunities to engraft themselves, had seen
many things here which, in his eyes, could not justify themselves
by reason. Lord Drummond was a little too prolix for a chairman,
and at last concluded by expressing "his conviction that his
countrymen would listen to the distinguished Senator with that
courtesy which was due to a foreigner and due also to the great and
brotherly nation from which he had come."
Then the Senator rose, and the clapping of hands and kicking of
heels was most satisfactory.
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