Laura tore off a couple of lines from the bottom of the sheet.

“Now,” she said, “you will know whether this is the handwriting or not.  You know it is the handwriting.  Now if you will listen, you will know that this must be the list of statistics which was to be the ‘nub’ of your great effort, and the accompanying blast the beginning of the burst of eloquence which was continued on the next page—­and you will recognize that there was where you broke down.”

She read the page.  Mr. Trollop said: 

“This is perfectly astounding.  Still, what is all this to me?  It is nothing.  It does not concern me.  The speech is made, and there an end.  I did break down for a moment, and in a rather uncomfortable place, since I had led up to those statistics with some grandeur; the hiatus was pleasanter to the House and the galleries than it was to me.  But it is no matter now.  A week has passed; the jests about it ceased three or four days ago.  The, whole thing is a matter of indifference to me, Miss Hawkins.”

“But you apologized; and promised the statistics for next day.  Why didn’t you keep your promise.”

“The matter was not of sufficient consequence.  The time was gone by to produce an effect with them.”

“But I hear that other friends of the Soldiers’ Pension Bill desire them very much.  I think you ought to let them have them.”

“Miss Hawkins, this silly blunder of my copyist evidently has more interest for you than it has for me.  I will send my private secretary to you and let him discuss the subject with you at length.”

“Did he copy your speech for you?”

“Of course he did.  Why all these questions?  Tell me—­how did you get hold of that page of manuscript?  That is the only thing that stirs a passing interest in my mind.”

“I’m coming to that.”  Then she said, much as if she were talking to herself:  “It does seem like taking a deal of unnecessary pains, for a body to hire another body to construct a great speech for him and then go and get still another body to copy it before it can be read in the House.”

“Miss Hawkins, what do yo mean by such talk as that?”

“Why I am sure I mean no harm—­no harm to anybody in the world.  I am certain that I overheard the Hon. Mr. Buckstone either promise to write your great speech for you or else get some other competent person to do it.”

“This is perfectly absurd, madam, perfectly absurd!” and Mr. Trollop affected a laugh of derision.

“Why, the thing has occurred before now.  I mean that I have heard that Congressmen have sometimes hired literary grubs to build speeches for them.—­Now didn’t I overhear a conversation like that I spoke of?”

“Pshaw!  Why of course you may have overheard some such jesting nonsense.  But would one be in earnest about so farcical a thing?”

“Well if it was only a joke, why did you make a serious matter of it?  Why did you get the speech written for you, and then read it in the House without ever having it copied?”