"As to the next paragraph," he continued, "I don't complain so much, though, personally, I consider 'Extract from Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department' a very poor paraphrase of the resounding couplet in which I introduced him:—
"'Now speaks in genial tones, from heart to heart meant,
The Secretary for the Home Department!'
"I could have overlooked that, Sir, if they had retained the lines I had written for him. But they've only let him speak the first four words—'Passengers in Railway Carriages'—and then drivel on thus: 'which are provided with blinds must keep the blinds covered so as to cover the windows'—a clumsy tautology, Sir, for which I am sure no Home Secretary would care to be held responsible, and from which I had been at some pains to save him, as you may judge when I read you the original text:—
"'Passengers in railway carriages
Possess a sense which none disparages;
So those who are not perverse or froward
May be trusted to see that the blinds are lowered,
To cover the windows so totally
That no one inside can be seen, or see.