"Sir," said HARTUPP (_with an inflection of unspeakable pathos in his voice, which ought to make_ PINCENEY _shed tears--but does not_), "before I sit down--before, Sir, I resume my seat,"--(_this solemnly, as if he has a deep presentiment that he may never resume another seat_)--"let me ask the Honourable Member who is responsible for the Motion on the paper this evening--let me put to him this single inquiry, this solitary question--and I shall await his answer with considerable curiosity." ... (_Here_ HARTUPP _gazes with an air of challenge at_ DUFF, _who, however, is drawing_ EUCLID'S _first proposition upon his blotting-pad, an occupation which seems to absorb the whole of his faculties for the moment_.) "Is he here to-night to deny the existence of any good that is not visible, that is not tangible, that cannot be measured with a tape, or weighed in scales? _Sir_, that is the philosophy of the volatile sparrow, of the soulless hog, that skims the vault of the azure empyrean, and wallows content in the mire of his native sky--I _should_ say" (_with an air of careless concession to prosaic accuracy_), "stye! That bird, Sir, that pig, like the Honourable Proposer himself"--(_a titter here from the more frivolous_; DUFF _rubs his nose, and evidently wonders whether_ HARTUPP _has been saying anything worth noticing_)--"would find the universe none the poorer had PRAXITELES carved nothing more immortal than an occasional cold fowl; had HOMER swept his lyre, not in commemoration of the fall of an ancient Troy, but to celebrate the rise of a new soap (HARTUPP _rather prides himself on his talent for antithesis_); "and had TITIAN lavished all his wealth of glowing colour and gorgeous hues upon the unretentive surface of some suburban pavement! But, _Sir_, I hope that we, by our vote to-night, will afford no encouragement to the gross and contemptible materialism which is the curse of the present day, and of which, I am compelled to add," (_here he glances reproachfully at the unconscious_ DUFF, _who is sharpening a pencil_), "we have been afforded so melancholy an example this evening. Let us proclaim to the world without that we, as Gentlemen and as Gargoyles, repudiate, that we loathe, that we abhor, that we abominate," (HARTUPP _seems to be screwing all these verbs out of himself, and throwing them defiantly at_ DUFF,) "the grovelling tendency of our animal nature to ignore the joys of the soul and the pleasures of the intellect, and place its highest enjoyment in the ignoble pursuit of creature comforts!" [_Here_ HARTUPP _sits down amidst applause, and applies himself diligently to his whiskey-and-water_.