God's Counsel doth not predetermine the Will to any evil

‘I understand you—upon every other subject, but the only one, my content requires, you are ready to obey me.’

Agreeable to the order of the day, the House took up the report.

I would prevaricate and palter in my usual plausible way, but, this being Cambridge, such stratagems would cut no ice with my remorseless and (in my imagination) gleefully malicious interrogator, who would stare at me with gimlet eyes and say in a harsh voice that crackled with mocking laughter: ‘Excuse me, but do you even know who Lermontov is?’