Having read some of the interesting stories published about Mr S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and his dogs, I thought that the readers may enjoy the following anecdote which also includes a reference to dogs, that illustrates the ready wit and the gift of the gab that this great man possessed.

SWRD was making a speech in the House of Representatives as Minister and he touched on an issue that happened to be the hobby-horse of an opposition MP - a well respected leader hailing from a Southern electorate who was well known for making impassioned speeches on the subject both in and out of the House. This MP being an elderly person had the habit of falling asleep in his seat during the sessions. He suddenly awoke from a short nap and having heard the Minister (SWRD) making a reference to his favourite subject, immediately interrupted the Minister and proceeded to make a statement of his own while demanding a clarification from the Minister.

SWRD responded in his usual good natured way to say that he had already given that very clarification a few minutes ago, but in case the Honourable Member was not listening, he would be only too happy to repeat it and started to do just that. A minute or two into his repeat clarification, someone from the Government Benches remarked "Sir, he is sleeping again". SWRD stopped his speech and saw that the questioner was indeed nodding in his seat. He controlled his anger with some effort and said "Oh! let sleeping dogs lie" paused for a second to look at his notes, looked up and added "and lying dogs sleep". This was greeted by waves of laughter from both sides of the chamber.

[I owe this gem to a well respected former Secretary of a Ministry who related it while entertaining some foreign visitors at lunch, some time during the 1980s. For obvious reasons, I have refrained from mentioning the names of some of the persons involved in this incident. I offer my apologies to my source in case I failed to preserve the interesting original form of the story].