It was, therefore, with the full expectation of being interested that I listened to him, but he drove me out of the House by the impossibility of my keeping awake under the influence of his dull, shallow, and disappointing speech.

He began with a little touch of nature that certainly was prepossessing.

He had brought in with him a dark-brown bottle, like the bottle one associates with seltzer water.

The fluid was perfectly clear; it was evidently not like the strong wine which Prince Bismarck used to require in the days when he used to make great speeches.

And Lord Salisbury, as he poured out a draught--it looked very like Johannis water--lifted up the bottle to the Ministers opposite with a pleasant smile, as though to prove to them that he was not offending against even the sternest teetotal code.
It was the first and the last bit of real human naturalness in the whole speech, for Lord Salisbury's manner and delivery are wooden, stiff, awkward and lumbering.