If my time at Biggleswick did nothing else it taught me to argue on my feet.
The first big effort I made was on a full-dress occasion, when Launcelot Wake came down to speak.

Mr Ivery was in the chair--the first I had seen of him--a plump middle-aged man, with a colourless face and nondescript features.

I was not interested in him till he began to talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice.

For he was the genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor.

He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so much higher.