dirty linen at home, that he is determined to prevent the British public from wearing bleached linen at all, lest they should perceive the difference. There is nothing," continued Welsh, with a chuckle, "nothing so convenient for one's purpose as well mixing one's hyperboles and analogies, and drawing just any conclusions you like out of premises well muddled up with similitudes. We know very well, my dear Marianne, that the bread we buy of the bakers is composed of some flour, and some alum, and some plaster-of-paris, and some china-clay, but we don't stop to analyse it at our breakfast; we cut ourselves a slice, butter it, and pop it into our mouths, and like it a thousand times better than home-made bread made of pure, unadulterated flour. It is just the same with political articles and political speeches. There's a lot of stuff of all sorts goes into them besides the flour of pure reason. And the British public don't analyse, they swallow. What they consume they expect to be light and to taste agreeably—they don't care a farthing what it is made up of."
Mr. Welsh took out his pocket-book, and dotted down his ideas. "Of course," said he, talking and laughing to himself, "we must touch this off with a light hand in a semi-jocose, and semi-serious manner. There are some folks who never see a joke, or rather they always see it as something grave. They are like earth-worms—all swallow."
Mr. Welsh put up his knee, interlaced his fingers round it, and began to swing his knee on a level with his chest.
"If you want to rouse the British public," he said, "you must tickle them. You can't do much with their heads, but their feelings are easily roused. Heads!—why there was no getting wisdom out of the head of Jupiter, till it was clove with an axe, and you would not have the skull of the British public more yielding than that of the king of the gods." He put down his leg that he had been hugging. "My dear sister," he went on, "I know the British public,
