As I have hinted, I heard a good deal of Mr. Chamberlain's public
speaking when he first came to the front as a public man, and it was
impossible not to be interested, edified, and oftentimes amused by the
intelligence, point, and smartness of his speech. At the same time there
was--especially in the earlier days of his public career--a certain
setness and formality of style that suggested the idea that his speeches
were anything but the inspiration of the moment, but had been made
beforehand, and were being reeled off. Indeed, many of those who knew
him well maintained that his speeches were at this time the result of
painstaking study, care, and elaboration, and that those who had a nose
for oratory might detect in them a strong smell of the lamp.

One incident that came under my notice certainly went far to corroborate
this view. I refer to the occasion of a little semi-public dinner at
which Mr. Chamberlain was put down to propose a certain toast. He
proceeded for a time in his usually happy, characteristic manner, when
all at once in the middle of a sentence he came to a full stop! We all
looked up, and he looked down embarrassed and confused. He apparently
had lost the thread of the discourse he had so carefully woven; he could
not pick up the dropped stiches; and, if I remember rightly, he sat
down, his speech not safely delivered.

It seems difficult now to fancy Mr. Chamberlain making such a fiasco. He
is at the present time probably one of the most ready and fluent
speakers we have, and although many strange things might happen in the
House of Commons, one of the most astonishing would be to see Mr.
Chamberlain break down in a speech. It would create a sensation in that
unserene assembly which would almost be enough to make a seasoned
pressman swoon, and before the incident had been completely realised the