You may begin where your--hm--brilliant predecessor regretfully left off.
For the moment, pray, detach your thoughts from the verdant meadows and the sprightly football, Edwards.

And--ah--don't, _please_ don't tell me that you are not prepared.

Somehow that phrase afflicts my ears, Edwards, and were you to make use of it I should, I fear, be driven to--ah--strong measures.

Now, Edwards, if you will be so kind." Well, Steve was _not_ prepared, as it happened, but he knew better than to say so, and, putting on an expression of confidence and pleasure as though Mr.Simkins had offered him the rarest of privileges, he plunged bravely into a paragraph of Cicero's Orations.

But it was hard going and he was soon stumbling and hesitating, casting about desperately for words.