“And then,” continued her brother, kindling with professional enthusiasm, “after that divorce case, too, when the noble lords and ladies washed their dirty linen in public. You can figure how it will all work out. Here is my Lord Lamerton knows that the titled aristocracy have so much 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 jotted 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.