"--some people find this quite impossible and have to employ persons to--" "make personal remarks about their neighbours--" "gentlemen,--" "I need not remind you that among the Urbans--" "are to be found some of the most hideous types of ugliness imaginable-- what we need is--" "--a little common sense to enable us to tell the difference between shams--" "--like ourselves and the baboons, which is not always easy. In conclusion, gentlemen, I beg to point to our--" "--dirty hands and faces, which no one who is really interested in hunting for remains of his native--" "--ugliness ought to be ashamed of." And so on. We were too busy cheering our own orator and listening to the enemy's to take in the full humour of the medley at the time. The opening speeches were evidently prepared beforehand (a good part of them possibly copied bodily out of some book). But, as soon as the chairman on either side declared the subject open for discussion, the interest thickened. Flitwick led off on "Remains," whereas it fell to my lot to reply on "Beauty." By a little sharp practice, I got the lead, which, as it happened, turned out more to the enemy's profit than my own. "Gentlemen," shouted I, for the breeze made it necessary to speak out, "I beg to disagree with all that the last speaker has said." "Gentlemen," came the answering voice of Flitwick, "in consequence of a donkey braying somewhere near, I fear I shall find it difficult to make myself heard." "When people have nothing to say," continued I, "the less they try to say the better." "I will not imitate the idiots who call themselves Philosophers, and yet don't know what gender a simple Latin word like _corpore_ is." "It is sad to think how many afflicted ones there are, close to us, who cannot possibly be as big fools as they look, or look as big fools as they are." "The one kind of remains you can't find are the remains of a Philosopher's lunch. 'Greedy' is a mild word to use for their sickening gluttony." "If you want to look for beauty, gentlemen, you should look anywhere but straight in front of you." (Cheers.) "Gentlemen, as I hear some geese quacking, as well as the donkey braying, I find it difficult to say what I want." (Laughter.) "I deny that there is any beauty in the laugh of a pack of hyenas." "If there was anybody here called Sarah," continued Flitwick, wandering farther and farther from his point, "who has been brought up in a girls' school, and wears tan boots and lavender gloves in school (loud and derisive shouts), and is well-known as the dunce of his house (hear, hear), I should advise him never to look in the looking-glass if he is afraid of chimpanzees." This was too much for the pent-up feelings of the Philosophers--not that they particularly resented Flitwick's facetious allusions to myself--but in my capacity as President of the Club they felt called upon to support me.