The Turnstile by A.E.W. Mason

An hour later Cynthia drove down to the House of Commons, anxious and yet expectant of triumph. For on this afternoon Harry Rames should particularly excel; the occasion was so confederate with his gifts. In debate he was as yet too inexperienced to shine with any brilliancy. His success had been made with prepared speeches. He had not as yet the art to handle words with such precision that he could express vividly in an argument across the floor just what he meant, and no more and no less. He was not at ease with his vocabulary when a sudden call was made upon it, and his lack of ease became manifest and spread, as it always does, discomfort. He was in a word on the way to becoming a polished debater but as yet he was at school. This afternoon, however, he had not to reply, not to intervene in the middle of a discussion; his business was to make the set speech which set the debate going. And here he was on his own good ground.

He could prepare the vivid phrase and, a quality perhaps still more important, he could speak it. He had an invaluable gift which had stood him in good stead when he had delivered his maiden speech. He was able so to deliver a carefully concocted speech as to give the impression that he was thinking aloud. He gained his effect by an apt breaking off of sentences and a recommencement, by a sudden drop to the homeliest of colloquialisms, by a seeming deliberation in the choice of his words, so that the picturesque and living sentence, which had been so carefully thought out, appeared to leap new-minted from a furnace of conviction. He had been shrewd enough to recognize with his own unflattering estimation of his powers that an amendment to the address provided him especially with a rare opportunity.