It was a funny speech, stuffed with extravagance and vehemence, not very well argued and terribly discursive.

His main point was that Germany was now in a fine democratic mood and might well be admitted into a brotherly partnership--that indeed she had never been in any other mood, but had been forced into violence by the plots of her enemies.

Much of it, I should have thought, was in stark defiance of the Defence of the Realm Acts, but if any wise Scotland Yard officer had listened to it he would probably have considered it harmless because of its contradictions.

It was full of a fierce earnestness, and it was full of humour--long-drawn American metaphors at which that most critical audience roared with laughter.

But it was not the kind of thing that they were accustomed to, and I could fancy what Wake would have said of it.