"I do wish, Jacob Taverner, you would bend to the law of committees and listen to the chair," he begged. "Don't you understand me? I'm pretty good at making myself clear, I believe—it's my business to do so to the youthful mind—and I tell yuu it can't be done. Legally everything we enact before the minutes are read is nothing at all—a mere lapsus lingua, in fact."
"Besides," said Daniel, "I beg to say I ought to hear the minutes—else how can I know what was settled at the first meeting?"
"You're soon answered," replied Jarratt Weekes. "Nothing was settled at the first meeting."
"I beg your pardon, Jarratt," said Adam Churchward. "That is neither kind nor true. A great deal was settled—else how would it take Nathaniel Spry twenty-four and a half pages of foolscap to put it all down? And no man writes a better or neater hand. Therefore I ask you to call back that statement."
"There was a lot said—I admit. But surely you must allow there was mighty little done," retorted Weekes.
"The question is whether the minutes are to be taken as read. I've proposed that and Pearn's seconded it," repeated Mr. Taverner.
"And I rule it out of order, Taverner, so there's an end of that," answered Adam.
"The question is if you can rule it out of order," replied Jacob Taverner.
"Certainly he can. Bless the man, he's done it!" said Brendon.
"He says he's done it; but if it's not legal, he can't do it. Everybody's got a right to speak on a committee, and I never heard in all my born days that a chairman could rule a thing out of order, if 'twas properly proposed and seconded," answered the other.