Just then, a single voice in the distance was understood to shout “A speech from the Chancellor!” “Certainly, my friends!” the Chancellor replied with extraordinary promptitude. “You shall have a speech!” Here one of the waiters, who had been for some minutes busy making a queer-looking mixture of egg and sherry, respectfully presented it on a large silver salver. The Chancellor took it haughtily, drank it off thoughtfully, smiled benevolently on the happy waiter as he set down the empty glass, and began. To the best of my recollection this is what he said.
“Ahem! Ahem! Ahem! Fellow-sufferers, or rather suffering fellows——” (“Don’t call ’em names!” muttered the man under the window. “I didn’t say _felons_!” the Chancellor explained.) “You may be sure that I always sympa——” (“’Ear, ’ear!” shouted the crowd, so loudly as quite to drown the orator’s thin squeaky voice) “—that I always sympa——” he repeated. (“Don’t simper quite so much!” said the man under the window. “It makes yer look a hidiot!” And, all this time, “’Ear, ’ear!” went rumbling round the market-place, like a peal of thunder.) “That I always _sympathise_!” yelled the Chancellor, the first moment there was silence. “But your _true_ friend is the _Sub-Warden_! Day and night he is brooding on your wrongs—I should say your _rights_—that is to say your _wrongs_—no, I mean your _rights_——” (“Don’t talk no more!” growled the man under the window. “You’re making a mess of it!”) At this moment the Sub-Warden entered the saloon. He was a thin man, with a mean and crafty face, and a greenish-yellow complexion; and he crossed the room very slowly, looking suspiciously about him as if he thought there might be a savage dog hidden somewhere. “Bravo!” he cried, patting the Chancellor on the back. “You did that speech very well indeed. Why, you’re a born orator, man!”
“Oh, that’s nothing!” the Chancellor replied, modestly, with downcast eyes. “Most orators are _born_, you know.”
The Sub-Warden thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “Why, so they are!” he admitted. “I never considered it in that light. Still, you did it very well. A word in your ear!”
The rest of their conversation was all in whispers: so, as I could hear no more, I thought I would go and find Bruno.