CHAPTER V.
It was on the following afternoon that Sir John Elphinspoon presented the Wazoo Annexation Bill to a crowded and breathless House.
Those who know the House of Commons know that it has its moods.

At times it is grave, earnest, thoughtful.

At other times it is swept with emotion which comes at it in waves.

Or at times, again, it just seems to sit there as if it were stuffed.
But all agreed that they had never seen the House so hushed as when Sir John Elphinspoon presented his Bill for the Annexation of Wazuchistan.
And when at the close of a splendid peroration he turned to pay a graceful compliment to the man who had saved the nation, and thundered forth to the delighted ears of his listeners-- _Arma virumque cano Wazoo qui primus ab oris_, and then, with the words "England, England," still on his lips, fell over backwards and was carried out on a stretcher, the House broke into wild and unrestrained applause..