exordium

There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which after saying "Now, Handel," as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.

He complicated this exordium by an exposition in which he painted the power and the deeds of the cardinal, that incomparable minister, that conqueror of past minister, that conqueror of past ministers, that example for ministers to come--deeds and power which none could thwart with impunity.

A glance at the king after this discreet and subtle exordium, assured Villefort of the benignity of his august auditor, and he went on: --

Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing.

This exordium, and Miss Pross's two hands in quite agonised entreaty clasping his, decided Mr.

Brooke heard the laughter; but he had expected some Tory efforts at disturbance, and he was at this moment additionally excited by the tickling, stinging sense that his lost exordium was coming back to fetch him from the Baltic.