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Proht he was deposited at the door of the Masonic Hail in Allerfoot The place seeate News of the great man's defection had already been received, and he was in the extree as a saviour, and led him inside, where so The village of Allerfoot itself is a little place, but it is the centre of a wide pastoral district, and the folk asseh-men from the flats of Glen Aller, a few fishermen from the near sea-coast, as well as the nore retchedly nervous and sat in a cold shile the chairretted that at the last moment he was unfortunately coee Winterhauished Oxford scholar and a rising barrister George, who had been ploughed twice for Sree, and to whoroaned inwardly at the astounding news The audience ht have been a turnip field for all the personality it possessed for hi his brow, and he rose to his feet conscious that he was s like an idiot He made some introductory remarks of his own--that "he was sorry the other chap hadn't turned up, that he was happy to have the privilege of expounding to thereat subject "--and then with an o of heart plucked forth his papers and launched into the unknown

The better part of the speech iped clean from his memory at the start, so he had to lean heavily on the written word He read rapidly but without intelligence Now and again a faint cheer would break the even flow, and he would look up for a ain with quickened speed He found hi neat paradoxes which he did not understand, and speaking glibly of names which to him were no more than echoes Eventually he came to an end at least twenty minutes before a normal political speech should close, and sat down, hot and perplexed, with a horrible sense of having made a fool of himself

The chairman, no less perplexed, made the usual remarks and then called for questions, for the tihast The wretched norance would be exposed, his presumption laid bare, his pride thrown in the dust He nerved his out as far as possible; afterwards, let the heavens fall