But suppose a Speaker, who, of course, puts his own interpretation on precedents and Standing Orders, ultimately finds that he has made a wrong ruling, what ought he to do in the way of rectifying it? Thomas Moore relates in his _Diary_ an extraordinary discussion on this point with Manners-Sutton after dinner one evening in 1829 at the Speaker’s house. “Dwelt much on the advantages of humbug,” writes Moore, in reference to Manners-Sutton; “of a man knowing how to take care of his reputation, and to keep from being _found out_, so as always to pass for cleverer than he is.” Moore says he himself argued that this denoted a wise man, not a humbug. If by that line of policy a man induced his fellow-men to give him credit for being cleverer than he really was, the fault could not be his, so long as he did not himself advance any claim to it as his due. The moment he _pretended_ to be what he was not, then began humbug, but not sooner. The poet then goes on: He still pushed his point, playfully, but pertinaciously, and in illustration of what he meant put the following case: “Suppose a Speaker rather new to his office, and a question brought into discussion before him which Parties are equally divided upon, and which he sees will run to very inconvenient lengths if not instantly decided. Well, though ignorant entirely on the subject, he assumes an air of authority, and gives his decision, which sets the matter at rest. On going home he finds that he has decided quite wrongly; and then, without making any further fuss about the business, he quietly goes and _alters_ the _entry_ on the Journals.” Moore again insisted that wisdom, and not humbug, was the characteristic of such an action. “To his _supposed_ case all I had to answer,” the poet writes, “was that I still thought the man a wise one, and no humbug; by his resolution in a moment of difficulty he prevented a _present_ mischief, and by his withdrawal of a wrong precedent averted a _future_ one.”