I was not of his opinion, upon that point. To my simple mind, plain English words, mainly of English birth, and showing (one after other) what they mean, without any tangles or knots in them, are the right words to move the English heart. Whoever speaks thus, wins all my ears, and goes a long way towards winning my heart; because he is my brother Englishman. And even for sound, what power is there, whatever the scowl of the cloud may be, in long foreign thunder, below the horizon, and perhaps meaning something, in Italy, or Greece? But the Royal Speech, as usual, meant nothing anywhere; any more than the poor man, who foretells the weather. "A greenhorn like you, Tommy," said Sir Roland, as if he had served at least through the Long Parliament, "would expect a great fight, and a smash-up, at once, to follow up that palaver. But Thong, who knows everything, tells me that nothing, except little Irish rows, will be on for a fortnight. And we can do a heap more good, he says, by going down to Silverside, and making Chumps safe, than by hanging about for any trumpery divisions. It is jolly to see a fellow in his troubles. Suppose we start to-morrow?" "With all my heart;" I answered. And in saying this, I had used the right words, at the right moment. Not that I cared to see Bill in the straw so much, although it is a pleasant spectacle; but that I did long, with all my heart, to hear Laura's opinion on politics, with the whole of Her Majesty's speech cut out, and pasted up--as I had told her to do it--in the corner of my little room, where I meditated, and had left a woolly outline of my head against the wall. Our work was to be at Silverside; where Bill and his father already were in residence, having taken the front that looked over the porch, on the High Street side of the "_Bull-and-Mouth Hotel_." William Chumps, Esquire, had brought down "his lady, a lovely bride of some nineteen summers," as the _Silverside Constitutional_ described her, though I could depose that she was four and twenty, being eleven months older than myself, and no bride of any summer at all, but married to Bill for three months of the winter. There was no taint of envy in my feelings. She certainly looked very handsome, and had spent a good lump of her £12,000 in apparel; and Bill, of course, was mightily proud of her. But to dream, for a moment, that I was pining, as her melancholy manner towards me conveyed,--I longed very often to bring my Laura; but a scene of that kind was not fitted for her! Patriotic sentiments repressed my private anger; and I worked very hard for Bill; and wrote him some good posters.