Hesketh began to think them an unhandsome lot.

He stood bravely, however, by the note he had sounded.

He dilated on the pleasure and satisfaction it had been to the people of England to receive this mark of attachment from far-away dominions and dependencies, on the cementing of the bonds of brotherhood by the blood of the fallen, on the impossibility that the mother country should ever forget such voluntary sacrifices for her sake, when, unexpectedly and irrelevantly, from the direction of the cloakroom, came the expressive comment "Yah!" Though brief, nothing could have been more to the purpose, and Hesketh sacrificed several effective points to hurry to the quotation-- What should they know of England Who only England know?
which he could not, perhaps, have been expected to forbear.

His audience, however, were plainly not in the vein for compliment.

The same voice from the anteroom inquired ironically, "That so ?" and the speaker felt advised to turn to more immediate considerations.
He said he had had the great pleasure on his arrival in this country to find a political party, the party in power, their Canadian Liberal party, taking initiative in a cause which he was sure they all had at heart--the strengthening of the bonds between the colonies and the mother country.