We were “My Lords”! Probably some Hanoverian monarch had imported the title from Germany, and had applied it to a Committee of the Privy Council. Under this sign they conquered. It took the place of the kingly and editorial WE. It called up a vision of phantasmal, coroneted heads, shaking a negative, more rarely nodding an affirmative. In front there might seem to be a Secretary, an Assistant Secretary, even a clerk: but when the suppliant got as far as “What ho! Arrest me that agency,” the official vanished, and there was but a voice, “My Lords regret.” “And so the vision fadeth.” With this weapon they put to silence inquisitive members of the Opposition, who “wanted to know” things better unknown: with this they conquered School Boards and school managers of all denominations: with this they even tried to intimidate H.M. Inspectors themselves, who well knew that it was no lion that roared, but only Snug the joiner. My Lords were but a Parliamentary fiction; in theory composed of the Lord President, the First Lord of the Treasury, and some Secretaries of State: in practice they had no existence; but I think the Whitehall staff had by long “making believe” persuaded themselves that they were flesh and blood. A newly appointed examiner would go to his immediate superior with a letter from the School Board of Swaggerby, protesting against a deduction of one-tenth from the annual grant paid in respect of the Slum Street Board School: how should he reply? “Pooh, pooh: it’s Article 32, c. (3): tell them to go to the deuce.” And the beardless stripling would sit down, and write:-- “Adverting to your letter of the 24th inst., I am directed to inform you that My Lords regret that They are unable to reconsider Their decision in the matter. I am to refer you to Art. 32, c. (3) of the Code; and I am to add that Their Lordships will look for a marked improvement in the results of the next examination as a condition of the payment of any further grant.” The capital letter prefixed to the third personal pronoun always seemed to me the height of impertinent arrogance. But the examiners enjoyed it immensely; and I am convinced that, if they ever went to church and heard the petition in the Litany supplicating wisdom and understanding for the Lords of the Council, they mentally added, “Meaning US, though WE are already well supplied.”