which may save you in tight circumstances. It is like the fire department--the

less you must use it the better. If this method is followed very long you are

likely to find yourself talking about plum pudding or Chinese Gordon in the most

unexpected manner, so of course you will get back to your lines the earliest

moment that your feet have hit the platform.

 

Let us see how this plan works--obviously, your extemporized words will lack

somewhat of polish, but in such a pass crudity is better than failure.

 

Now you have come to a dead wall after saying: "Joan of Arc fought for liberty."

By this method you might get something like this:

 

"Liberty is a sacred privilege for which mankind always had to fight. These

struggles [Platitude--but push on] fill the pages of history. History records

the gradual triumph of the serf over the lord, the slave over the master. The

master has continually tried to usurp unlimited powers. Power during the

medieval ages accrued to the owner of the land with a spear and a strong castle;

but the strong castle and spear were of little avail after the discovery of

gunpowder. Gunpowder was the greatest boon that liberty had ever known."

 

Thus far you have linked one idea with another rather obviously, but you are

getting your second wind now and may venture to relax your grip on the

too-evident chain; and so you say:

 

"With gunpowder the humblest serf in all the land could put an end to the life