Salisbury Minor

On a sultry evening in the House of Lords last week, peers of the realm reclined at their ease on red leather benches thinking, most of them, of "The Twelfth," immemorial August opening of Britain's grouse season. That most pedantic Laborite peer, snowy-haired Baron Parmoor, Lord President of the Council, had the floor. The 68-year-old Conservative Leader of the House of Lords, James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, co-heir to the Barony of Ogle, started from a daydream just as Lord Parmoor was saying:

"Let me remind you gentlemen, that as Lord Salisbury once said--"

James Edward etc. Lord Salisbury sat up abruptly, raised his gleaming silk hat, bowed amiably to his colleagues.

Lord Parmoor gazed at him acidly. "I meant," said he, "the great Lord Salisbury."*

The great Lord Salisbury's son replaced his hat, subsided.

*Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, was the present Lord Salisbury's father. Orator, diplomat, moderate Tory, he was thrice Prime Minister of Great Britain.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.