But still there it was; he was weak on his "h's."
He has, however, by this time overcome the defect. Mr. Labouchere talks
classic English; was at a German university; has been in every part of
the world; has written miles of French memorandums; has sung serenades
in Italian; and, if he were not so confoundedly lazy, would probably
speak more languages than any man in Parliament. But yet he cannot
pronounce either a final "g" or allow a word to end in a vowel without
adding the ignoble, superfluous, and utterly brutal "er." When he wishes
to confound Mr. Gladstone, he assaults about "Ugand_er_"; when the
concerns of our great Eastern dependency move him to interest, he asks
about "Indi_er_"; and he speaks of the primordial accomplishments of man
as "readin'" and "writin'."
[Sidenote: Sir Edward Grey.]
Ugand_er_ gave Sir Edward Grey his first opportunity of speaking in his
new capacity of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. There are some men
in the House of Commons whose profession is written in the legible
language of nature on every line of their faces. You could never,
looking at Mr. Haldane, for instance, be in doubt that he was an Equity
barrister, with a leaning towards the study of German philosophy and a
human kindliness, dominated by a reflective system of economics.
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