“Well, Josepha, I hope I may see The Bill pass the Commons to-night.”
“Then thou hes more to wish for than to hope for. Does Brougham and Palmerston iver speak to each other now?”
“It is as much as they can do to lift their hats. They niver speak, I think. Why do you ask me?”
“Because I heard one water man say to another, as I was taking a boat at my awn water house—
“‘If the Devil hes a son,
Then his name is Palmerston.’”
“Such rhymes against a man do him a deal of harm, Josepha. The rhyme sticks and fastens, whether it be true or false, but there is nothing beats a mocking, scornful story for cutting nation wide and living for centuries after it. That rhyme about Palmerston will not outlive him in any popular sense, but the mocking scornful story through which Canon Sydney Smith of St. Paul’s derided the imbecility of The Lords will live as long as English history lives.”
“I do not remember that story, Antony. Do you, Josepha?”
“Ay, I remember it; but I’ll let Antony tell it to thee and then thou will be sure to store it up as something worth keeping. What I tell thee hes not the same power of sticking.”
“It may be that you are right, Josepha. Men do speak with more authority than women do. What did Canon Sydney Smith say, Antony?”