colourless face and nondescript features. I was not interested in him
till he began to talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice.
For he was the genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from
his mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet
floor. He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his
opponents with condescending geniality, deprecating all passion
and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane statement
must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so
much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying his face carefully;
and the thing that struck me was that there was nothing in it -
nothing, that is to say, to lay hold on. It was simply nondescript,
so almightily commonplace that that very fact made it rather
remarkable.

Wake was speaking of the revelations of the Sukhomhnov trial
in Russia, which showed that Germany had not been responsible
for the war. He was jolly good at the job, and put as clear an
argument as a first-class lawyer. I had been sweating away at the
subject and had all the ordinary case at my fingers' ends, so when I
got a chance of speaking I gave them a long harangue, with some
good quotations I had cribbed out of the _Vossische _Zeitung, which
Letchford lent me. I felt it was up to me to be extra violent, for I
wanted to establish my character with Wake, seeing that he was a
friend of Mary and Mary would know that I was playing the game.
I got tremendously applauded, far more than the chief speaker, and
after the meeting Wake came up to me with his hot eyes, and
wrung my hand. 'You're coming on well, Brand,' he said, and then
he introduced me to Mr Ivery. 'Here's a second and a better
Smuts,' he said.