Chapter 2

farewells_; Mr. TIDMARSH _is downstairs superintending their departure._ GWENNIE _has been pardoned on_ Lord S.'s _intercession, and dismissed, in much bewilderment, to bed._ Mrs. TIDMARSH _and_ Lord STRATHSPORRAN _are alone._

_Mrs. Tid._ (_hysterically_). Oh, Lord STRATHSPORRAN, when I think how I----What can I _ever_ say to you?

_Lord Strath._ Only, I hope, that you forgive my stupidity in blundering in here as I did, Mrs. TIDMARSH.

_Mrs. Tid._ It _was_ a good deal your fault. If you had only said who you really were--if my husband had not been idiot enough to misunderstand--if Miss SEATON had been more straightforward, all this would never----!

_Lord Strath._ We were all the victims of circumstances, weren't we? But I, at least, have no reason to regret it. And, if I may ask one last indulgence, will you--a--let me have an opportunity of saying good-bye to Miss SEATON?

_Mrs. Tid._ She, she doesn't _deserve_--Oh, I don't know _what_ I'm saying. Of _course_, Lord STRATHSPORRAN, anything, _anything_ I can do to----I will send her down to you, if you will only wait. She shall not keep you long!

_Lord Strath._ (_alone, to himself_). It's an ill wind, &c. I shall have MARJORY all to myself, now! To think that--but for a lucky blunder--I should be spelling out scarabs and things on the wrong side of that wall at this moment, and never dreaming that MARJORY was so----Ah, she's coming! (Miss SEATON _enters, looking pale and disconsolate._) MARJORY, you've no idea what you've missed! I _must_ tell you--it's too good to lose. What _do_ you think all these good people have been taking me for? You'll never guess! They actually believed I was hired from BLANKLEY'S! Give you my word they did!... Why don't you _laugh_, MARJORY?

_Miss Seaton_ (_faintly_). I--I _am_ laughing. No, DOUGLAS, I'm not. I can't; I haven't the conscience to. Oh, I never meant you to know--but I must tell you, whatever comes of it! _I_ believed it too, at first. (_Tragically._) I _did_, DOUGLAS!

_Lord Strath._ _Did_ you though, MARJORY? Then, by Jove, I _must_ have looked the character!

_Miss Seaton_ (_timidly_). I knew you--you weren't very well off, DOUGLAS, and so I fancied you might----Oh, I know it was hateful of me ever to think such a thing, but I did. And you can never _really_ forgive me!

_Lord Strath._ Couldn't think of it! Shall I tell you something else, MARJORY? I've a strong impression that you will not be an inmate of this happy English household _much_ longer.

_Miss Seaton._ I'm _sure_ I shan't, from Mrs. TIDMARSH'S expression just now. But I don't care!

_Lord Strath._ Don't be reckless. How do you know there isn't a moral lion about? And where will you go next, MARJORY?

_Miss Seaton_ (_with a shrug_). I don't know. I suppose to anybody who wants a Governess, and doesn't mind taking her without a reference, if there _is_ such a person!

_Lord Strath._ Well, oddly enough, I fancy I know somebody who has been trying for a long time to find a young person of just your age and appearance, and might be induced to waive a reference on a personal interview. (Miss SEATON _looks incredulous._)... MARJORY, don't you understand? If I hadn't been such a pauper, I'd have spoken long ago, when we were up in Scotland together, only it didn't seem fair then. I--I daresay I've no better chance now; but, at least, I've more right to speak than I had, and--and--will you have me, MARJORY? (_She turns away._) I--I won't worry you, dear, if you really can't care about me in that way; but--but if you only _could_, MARJORY, even a little!

_Miss Seaton._ DOUGLAS!...

_Same Scene--somewhat later._

_Lord Strath._ Not yet, MARJORY--I can't let you go just yet!... Must I, really? Before I've said half what I wanted!... Well--in one minute, then. And you're coming to my people as soon as you can get out of this, MARJORY; and I shall see you every day, till--till we shall never be separated any----Confound it!--who's that? [Mr. TIDMARSH _enters suddenly._

_Mr. Tid._ Oh--er--Lord STRATHSPORRAN, sorry to interrupt you, but--hem--my wife, who's feeling too unwell to come down again, desires me to say that, in her opinion, Miss SEATON has been here quite long enough. [Miss SEATON _escapes by the back drawing-room._

_Lord Strath._ I entirely agree with Mrs. TIDMARSH; but I am happy to say that Miss SEATON will not remain here very much longer, as she has just done me the honour of consenting to be my wife. Good night, Sir, and many thanks for a most er--eventful evening.

[_He goes out._

_Mr. Tid._ (_making an effort to escort him downstairs, but giving it up, and sitting down heavily on a settee instead_). She'll be Lady STRATHSPORRAN! And I shall have to break it to MARIA--after she's just gone in and stuck a month's salary and immediate notice on her pincushion! Oh, lor--as if my poor wife hadn't trouble enough to bear as it was!

THE END.

* * * * *

HARE-ING HIS DIPLOMACY.

As I have already conveyed, in a short note last week, the first night of the revival of _Diplomacy_, viz., Saturday, Feb. 18th, will be for ever memorable in the annals of the English stage in general, and in the reminiscences of Mr. JOHN HARE in particular, whenever he may choose to give them to the public. It will also afford matter for a brilliant chapter in the second or third series of Mr. and Mrs. BANCROFT'S _On and Off the Stage_. A great night, too, for the eminent adapters Messrs. SCOTT and STEPHENSON, once known as "the Brothers ROWE," who rowed in the same boat.

Never, at any time, has this version of the French play been so well cast as it is now at Garrick Theatre, though nervousness told on all the actors, especially on the elder ones, except, apparently, Mrs. BANCROFT, in whose performance there was hardly any trace of it, though once she nearly missed her cue while resting awhile at the back of the stage.

The part of _Lady Henry Fairfax_ has literally nothing whatever to do with the plot, and were it not played as it is now, and played so capitally by Mrs. BANCROFT, it would be better, for an English audience at least, if omitted entirely, or reduced to a few appropriate lines in pleasant places. An English audience wants the story, when once begun, to go on without any break or interruption; and indeed, but for dramatic effect, an English audience is inclined to resent even the division of a piece into Acts, unless such arrangement is evidently necessitated by some heavy mechanical change of scenery.

So our audiences would decidedly prefer to have the _rôles_ of _Lady Henry_ and _The Marquise de Rio Zarès_ (with her wearisome iteration about "Don ALVA," and played with rather too much accentuation by Lady MONCKTON) reduced to the smallest possible algebraic expression. Mr. BANCROFT was the same _Count Orloff_ as he was years ago on the little stage of the old Prince of Wales's Theatre; his action more deliberate than when he was younger and more impetuous; his pauses for meditation longer by a thought or so than of yore; while in his tone and manner there was just a delicately-deepened colouring of the genuine original Bancroftian "Old Master." To Mr. BANCROFT, resuscitating our old courtly friend _Count Orloff_ (now _Count Orl-on-again_), I would address the once well-known line from "_Woodman, spare that Tree_"--

"Touch not a single _bow_!"

ARTHUR CECIL, too, as _Baron Stein_, excellent, _cela va sans dire_; yet, somehow, his effects now seem to me to be laid on with too broad a brush, especially in the scene of his last appearance, where he makes a sly, and, for the _Baron Stein_, a rather over-elaborated and farcical attempt to recapture the letter he has just given up. FORBES ROBERTSON is good from first to last as the very weak-knee'd _Julian Beauelere_, sufficiently emotional in the strong situations, and never better than when the character itself is at its weakest; that is, in the one great scene with his wife.

The _Algie Fairfax_, of Mr. GILBERT HARE, was natural where the authors have allowed him to be natural, and best, therefore, in the last Act, where he has become a responsible personage in a diplomatic office. The "three-men-in-a-difficulty" scene went as well as ever, though, on the whole, played far too slowly, and with so much "suppressed force," that the celebrated "_Monsieur! à vos ordres!_" when _Orloff_ suddenly breaks out into "the language of diplomacy," did not electrify the house. On the contrary, the audience took it very quietly, awaiting with some curiosity the interference of _Henry Beauclerc_. And it was at this point that the services of Mr. JOHN HARE in this character were invaluable. Never had his crisp incisive style produced more marked effect. It is a pity that in the Third Act, which being the weak point of the play requires all the strength of the actor to be seriously employed, Mr. HARE should have given a very light comedy, nay, even a farcical touch to his treatment of the "business" of sniffing the perfume--when he is literally "on the scent"--and to the momentous situation of his interview with _Zicka_. "_Maintenant à nos deux!_" Odd that, in his treatment of the strength of the scent, SARDOU should have shown the feebleness of his methods. Yet so it is. The play, at this point, being practically played out, he carelessly chucks the puppets into a corner. He has made his great scenes, and there's an end of it; let the weakest go to the wall.

Last of all to be mentioned with unstinted praise is Miss KATE RORKE. It is as well to remember throughout that we are witnessing a play of semi-French, not purely domestic English life, and the essence of the play could not be adapted to ordinary English notions. _Julian Beauclerc_, for example, in England, would never have challenged _Count Orloff_; he might have had "a deuce of a row with him"; _et voilà tout_. _Dora_, as a young Irish girl, and not, as she is here, a half-breed, would never have threatened to suicide herself out of the window, though all else she, as a not particularly well-educated, but certainly very impulsive girl, might probably have done. Her great scene, where she bangs her fists against the looked doors, shrieking to her husband to return--an effect to be led up to and made within the space of a minute--was, if I may be allowed to say so, without being suspected of exaggeration, "just perfect." That some considerable time will elapse before the enthusiasm aroused by this revival dies out among the patrons and lovers of the Drama-at-its-best is the private opinion, publicly expressed, of Yours, truly, "THE ONE MAN SEEN" IN A BOX.

P.S.--When _Diplomacy_ shall have accomplished its Hundred Nights, Mr. HARE can announce its Scentenary.

* * * * *

A LAST STRAW.

(_By One who has to Make Bricks with It._)

["... It is rumoured that a measure will shortly be introduced for transferring the duties of Revising Barristers to Magistrates."]

Go, tell the budding blooms they'll ne'er have dew more, Go, doom the summer trees to languish leafless-- A like effect this ultra-fiendish rumour Works in the drooping bosoms of the Briefless.

No more Reviserships! No paltry pittance For Themis' harvesters, too often sheafless! Is this the Constitution, once Great Britain's; _This_, your provision for the meekly Briefless?

As well proclaim to such as slave at Sessions, A world unburglarised and wholly thiefless, As rob the least rewarded of professions Of its ancestral comfort for the Briefless.

What's to become of us?--I speak for many, Idle and "Unemployed," but oh! not griefless; Please, please kind Government to spare a penny, Or yet Trafalgar Square shall rouse the Briefless.

Yes! Don't imagine, uncomplaining creatures Are quite disorganised and limp, and chiefless; Our jaw is one of our most drastic features, And Art is long, though Life perforce be Briefless.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"'BEN' TROVATO."--Odd that the French author of such truly Parisian stories as _Coeur d'Actrice_, _L'Amour pour Rire_, _Flirtage_, and others _du même genre_, should be named "TILLET." There is a "du" before the French author's name, and it is of course proverbial that even a certain person in the Lower House shall have his "due." 'Tis just this, that, as far as name goes, differentiates him from t'other TILLET, "which his Christian name is BEN."

* * * * *

Further Fall in Irish Stocks.

(_Vide Daily Papers, Feb. 24, 1893._)

Though mongers of panic, with malice satanic, The credit of Ireland be troublin', Home Rule cannot shake her, nor severance break her, So long as her _capital's D(o)ublin_.'

* * * * *

WEATHER FORECAST BY MRS. R.--"After this cold snowy weather," she observed, oracularly, "we may expect what they call 'equally obnoxious gales.'"

* * * * *

* * * * *

PUTTING IT PLEASANTLY.

[Mr. FOWLER announced the Government's willingness to appoint "a small Commission" to consider how the City could be amalgamated with the rest of London.]

"Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!" Cried good _Mrs. Bond_ to the ducks, in the story. Conceive with what rapture the victims were thrilled, And then picture the joy of our Turtle friends, filled With sweet premonitions of glory!

No little testudinate triflers are these, Unmindful of doom unforbodingly playing. The cook's charming manners are likely to please, But the flash of that knife Snapping Turtles might freeze, 'Tis so strangely suggestive of--slaying.

The civic Brer Terrapin certainly seems Extremely content with its time-honoured station. Our "young men" may dream highly optimist dreams, But Turtledom feareth what Turtledom deems The perils of--Unification!

"No compulsion, of course, only, darlings, you must!" That's their reading _au fond_ of the C. C. Cook's attitude. "'Amalgamate' Us? Doosed cool, most unjust! Your offer inspires us with dismal distrust, Your 'Commission' won't move us to gratitude.

"We love the traditions of Old London Town, We Turtles. Pray leave us alone, and don't bother! Amalgamate? Nay, on the notion we frown! Like the lion and lamb we'll together lie down---- When the one is safe inside the other!"

Alack and alas! But the new _Mrs. Bond_ Means mischief, we fear, with her kind "Dilly, Dilly!" And well may the Turtles droop fins and despond. When the snug isolation of which they're so fond, They must part with at last, willy-nilly!

* * * * *

WAGES.

(_A long way after Lord Tennyson._)

["Lord WOLMER ... pointed out that Mr. GLADSTONE'S majority of forty would be wiped out if the 'paid mercenaries' of the Irish-American factions were withdrawn, or were even unable to keep up a steady attendance in the House of Commons."--_The Times._

"The proposed Bill to Provide for the Payment of Members of Parliament ... is a bold attempt to transfer to the tax-payers of Great Britain the burden of supporting at Westminster the Irish Nationalist Members."--_Ibid._]

Glory of Irishman, glory of orator, going it strong, Paid by his countrymen's mites from across the Atlantic Sea-- Glory of PAT, to spout, to struggle, right Ireland's old wrong! Nay, but they aim not at glory, or Home Rule (swears WOLMER, swears he): Give 'em the glory of living on _us_ and our L. S. D.!

The wages of swells are high; if high wage to a Minister's just. Shall we have the heart low wages to hard-worked M.P.'s to deny? _Mercenaries?_ What then are those toffs in high places of trust, Who live on our golden largess? Will WOLMER inform us just why We _may_ give wages to Wealth, and _not_ unto Poverty?

* * * * *

"Down Among the Dead Men."

_Ebriosus loquitur_:--

Silly spook-hunters show a wish to learn If (_hic!_) departed spiritsh e'er return! _Did_ they, I should not have so dry a throttle, Nor would it cost so mush to--passh the bottle! Thersh no returning (_hic!_) of Spiritsh fled, And (_hic!_) "dead men"--_worsh luck!_--continue dead!

* * * * *

WANTED BADLY.--A "close time" for Autograph-hunting. Alas! the great--and even the not-so-very-great--are "made game of" all the year round.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH'S CHILD'S GUIDE TO KNOWLEDGE.

_Question._ What is a holiday?

_Answer._ The hard work of that wearisome pursuit known as "pleasure."

_Q._ To whom are holidays profitable?

_A._ To the butchers, the pastry-cooks, and last, but certainly not least, the doctors.

_Q._ What are the ends of holidays?

_A._ Pills and Bills.

_Q._ What are pills?

_A._ The means by which fortunes are made, and in another sense Clubs kept select.

_Q._ And Bills?

_A._ Necessary evils laid on the table in the House of Commons, and thrown into the waste-paper basket in the domestic circle.

_Q._ What is Parliament?

_A._ An assembly of men in which hats are worn when the Members don't want to talk, and removed when they wish to show what amount of brains they may possess.

_Q._ What is a hat?

_A._ Generally a nuisance.

_Q._ What is cover?

_A._ The profit made by an Outside Broker out of his too confiding customers.

_Q._ What is the difference between an Outside Broker and an Inside Broker?

_A._ One is associated with the Stock Exchange, and the other is usually made comfortable with a pot of beer and a penny paper in the kitchen.

_Q._ What is a kitchen?

_A._ The source from which happiness or misery flows under the superintendence of a cook.

_Q._ Describe a cook.

_A._ As a food-preparer he, or she, is often an executioner.

_Q._ What is a century?

_A._ When obtained by a cricketer, an honour; when achieved by an individual, a distinction that must be shortly followed by extinction.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.--JOHN OLIVER HOBBES'S last contribution to FISHER UNWIN'S charming Pseudonym Library is well named _A Study in Temptations_. It is not in itself an attractive title, but it accurately indicates the style of the book. It is a study for a novel rather than an accomplished work. One expects, my Baronite says, that in some leisure time the author will come back and finish it. It is well worth the labour, being full of living characters. _Lady Warbeck_ in particular, is excellent, reminiscent of, and worthy of THACKERAY. The temptingly arranged pages glitter with shrewd thoughts admirably phrased. BARON DE B.-W.

* * * * *

NO DOUBT AS TO THE ANSWER.--In the list of "Noblemen and Gentlemen" (invidious distinction, by the way) attending the _Levée_ at St. James's Palace, whose name would be always found?--Why that of "JAMES O. FORBES, _of Corse_."

* * * * *

NEW (NORWEGIAN) NONSENSE VERSE.

(_After seeing Ibsen's Dramas._)

There was a young female in Norway, Who fancied herself in a poor way, Because she felt that Her sweet sex was squeezed flat, As though caught in cold Destiny's doorway.

This rebellious young woman of Norway Cried, "Man, in his coarse, brutal boor-way, Would wipe his big feet On my sex soft and sweet; But _I_'ll be no mere mat in Man's doorway!"

And so this young woman of Norway Got IBSEN to write, in cock-sure way, Concerning her woes, And tip-tilted her nose, Crying, "_Now_ womankind will have more way!"

But alas! this young woman of Norway _Still_ feels that her soul's in a poor way, Because, in a play, She won't charm (so they say) Or draw crowds through the theatre's doorway.

* * * * *

LATEST À PROPOS OF THE COVENT GARDEN FANCY DRESS BALLS.--"Of course," observed Mrs. R., "as ladies do not want to be recognised, they simply go in dummy noses."

* * * * *

LEGAL QUERY.--When a leading Barrister gets someone to "devil" for him, may the latter's occupation be correctly described as "devilry"?

* * * * *

* * * * *

AN ORLEANS PLUM.--Prince HENRI D'ORLÉANS (says the _Times_) has just been rebuking the British people for the Chauvinism of their Oriental policy. Like the late M. MASSIE, whose shade he invokes, the young Prince seems to object to us, not because we commit any specific acts of hostility, but "because we look on in a most aggravating fashion." This is truly funny! One country may steal a--Tonkin, but another may not look over a boundary! Prince HENRY presents a peculiarly close parallel to KEENE'S infuriated (and incoherent) Paterfamilias, who angrily commanded his silent son "not to look at him in _that_ tone of voice!"

* * * * *

OPERA AND DISESTABLISHMENT.--_La Damnation de Faust_ was produced most successfully at the Theatre at Monte Carlo. According to some stern moralists, who regard the Principality as a gambling-hell upon earth, this particular Opera was in a quite congenial atmosphere. Odd that in the two Principalities, Monte Carlo and Wales, the objects for Disestablishment should be so diametrically opposite. In Wales it is the particular Church, and at Monte Carlo it is the not-at-all-particular t'other word, unmentionable twice in the same paragraph to ears polite.

* * * * *

NEW READING.--(_By a Musical Lady Latinist._)--"Amor et melle et KELLIE est fecundissimus."

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, Monday, February 20._--New Chairman to-day; dropped in in most casual way. Wondered to see MELLOR wandering about Library and corridors at three o'clock in afternoon in full evening dress. "Going out to tea?" I asked, in my genial way.

"Order! order!" said MELLOR; "the Hon. Member will please give notice of that question." And he stalked off, trying to convey to the mind of his astonished interlocutor as near an approach to back view of COURTNEY as could be attained, without loan of late Chairman's famous summer pantaloons.

Everything explained later. Soon as questions over, Mr. G., rising and fixing glittering eye on SPEAKER, observed, "I beg to move that you, Sir, do now leave the Chair." Strangers in Gallery pricked up their ears; thought SPEAKER been doing something, and was now in for it. Right Hon. Gentleman offered no defence, but meekly left Chair. Mr. G. up again like a shot. "I beg to move that Mr. MELLOR do take the Chair," he said. Then MELLOR (fortuitously on spot in evening dress) stepped into Chair, where through six Sessions, COURTNEY has sat ruling the whirlwind out of order, and riding on the storm. All done in moment. Before you knew where you were, there was new Chairman of Committees proposing vote of £2,000 for rearrangement of rooms in Houses of Parliament. ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS rose, with evident intent of wanting to know "about these rooms," when irrepressible Mr. G. on his feet again. "I beg to move," he said, addressing Chairman, "that you do report progress, and ask leave to sit again."

Rather hard this on MELLOR. Just got into Chair; beginning to feel comfortable. Had proposed subject that might have agreeably occupied Committee for half an hour, when here comes the untameable, irresistible, peremptory Mr. G., and bundles him off. At first some signs of inclination to resist. New Chairman, having put question and declared it carried, should forthwith have stepped away from the table. MELLOR dropped into Chair again.

A moment of embarrassment. COURTNEY, looking critically on form below Gangway, grimly smiled. Members under Gallery tittered. Clerk nudged new Chairman in ribs. MELLOR sat on till, lifting his eyes, discovered Mr. G. meaningly regarding him. Knew he'd be up again if he didn't go; so with promising alacrity, hopped out of Chair, and disappeared from ken of House.

"Well, I don't know," said honest BILL CREMER. "Of course I don't hold with COURTNEY'S goings-on in the political field, and he can scarcely have expected us to keep him on in a snug berth. But this I will say, the manners of the new Chairman may, so to speak, be more MELLOR, but, as Chairman of Committees, COURTNEY'll be hard to beat."

_Business done._--"Ban, ban, Caliban, got a new Premier, get a new man"--in Chairman of Committees.

_Tuesday._--"The life of Her Majesty's Ministers," said the GRAND YOUNG GARDNER, moodily contemplating his spats, "is not an entirely happy one. I think I may add that is peculiarly the case with the MINISTER for AGRICULTURE. I must say, if the language, be not regarded as too flowery----"

"The MINISTER for AGRICULTURE," I said, desiring to put GARDNER at his ease, "would be fully justified in using cauliflowery language."

"Thank you. Then I'll say I go to bed with tuberculosis, and get up with HARRY CHAPLIN. The casual observer is, doubtless, aware that CHAPLIN has an eye. He sees it gleaming through the eyeglass. I feel it ever upon me. It is no slight thing to have succeeded a statesman of the calibre of CHAPLIN. But when he persistently sits opposite you, critically observing all your movements with that air of supreme intelligence which more than hints that, as MINISTER for AGRICULTURE, he was personally acquainted with every one of the cattle on a thousand hills, it is an ordeal that calls into play all the higher faculties of Man. As to the tuberculosis, it is always breaking out in unexpected places; people concerned insist upon regarding me as personally responsible for the visitation."

"But," I said, "you have your little holiday, Saturday to Monday, and get out to dinner on off-nights?"

"No," he sighed, "the MINISTER for AGRICULTURE has no off-nights; and if I go to church at the seaside on a Sunday, the Church-warden in passing round the collection-plate, is sure to steal into my hand a telegram, announcing a fresh outbreak of tuberculosis. As to going out to dinner----"

"Ministers," CAUSTON here observed, "never dine out when the House is sitting, unless commanded by the QUEEN, and Whips can't be spared even to dine with HER MAJESTY."

"As to going out to dinner," continued the GRAND YOUNG GARDNER, ignoring the interruption of his genial colleague, "it is impossible. It was said, I believe by one of themselves, 'The Guard dies, but never surrenders.' I may add, the MINISTER for AGRICULTURE lunches but never dines. What would become of the Government if a division-bell rang and he was found out of the way? Now to-night, you would say, looking at the business, I might well be spared. We commence with KIMBER on disparities in the representation of constituencies. ROLLIT will follow in the interests of undersized flat-fish. What has the MINISTER for AGRICULTURE to do with flat-fish of whatever size? you might ask. To the casual observer, nothing. But, looking ahead, as the responsibilities of my position make it necessary I should habitually do, I recall the fact that sometimes the placid pilchard is cast upon our shores in such quantities as to be carted away for manurial purposes. I am not intimately acquainted with the pilchard. It is not like the terrapin a land fish. I am not sure it is flat. Still I have a strong impression it is undersized. Therefore it might come within the purview of the discussion on ROLLIT'S motion. MUNDELLA, as you say, is in charge of the debate, and I might comfortably go to dinner. But what does MUNDELLA know of manure? No; the MINISTER for AGRICULTURE remains, and will dine,--if necessary die, at his post."

_Business done._--8:10 P.M., House Counted Out, whilst GRAND YOUNG GARDNER is explaining how it was he couldn't go out to dinner.

_Friday_, 12:30 A.M.--Storm subsided. Magnificent whilst it lasted. GRANDOLPH in fine form. Mr. G., under his influence, renewed his youth like the eagle. At same time, though Welsh Church may be doomed, supply of cabs on night like this inadequate. Better be put in yard in good time. KENYON lingers on scene, still asking for Bill to be "taken _de die in diem_." "As if he were giving a prescription," said WILFRID LAWSON, back from Mansion House, where he has seen his portrait presented to Lady LAWSON. KENYON, with eye on Bishop of ST. ASAPH, up in Peers' Gallery, made desperate resistance to attack on Church. Bishop looked a little grave when KENYON dropped into metaphor.

"Bill like bagged fox, don't you know," said KENYON, nodding confidentially to SPEAKER. "Meant to run any way you like. What I mean to say is--" and here he turned for approval to Lord Bishop, consorting in Gallery with his fighting Dean, "this fox is so tainted with insincerity, or aniseed, that the hounds may just as well shut up their noses, and have nothing to do with it."

With this sage remark, and, something horribly like a wink at the Bishop, KENYON sat down. Up again later, when Closure moved. HICKS-BEACH, in temporary command of Opposition, deprecated resistance. But KENYON'S blood up. With strong effort of self-restraint he stopped himself midway in stentorian shout, "Yoicks!" dexterously turned the "Yo" into "No," and so saved himself from reproof of SPEAKER. Having got the "No!" he made most of it. Nothing left but to clear House for Division. Members near entreated KENYON to desist from further opposition. No use fighting Closure; only meant another Division and twenty minutes' prolongation of sitting. KENYON, with eye reverently fixed on Bishop, immovable. Others might falter on the way; might palter with the truth; might parlay with the enemy. KENYON would have no compromise, no surrender. "Yoic----" he meant "No! no!" and he shouted it too.

"Will the Hon. Member name another teller?" said the wary SPEAKER, when House cleared for Division. KENYON, evidently still seeing the fox steal away, Aniseed at the Helm and Insincerity at the Prow, almost stumbled on the name "YOICKS!" Again stopped himself just in time, and looked forlornly round; eye finally resting on Peers' Gallery. If only the Bishop could "tell" with him! That evidently out of order. Bishop belonged, to other House. No one volunteering to stand with him in the breach, and two tellers being a necessary preliminary to Division, KENYON bent his head in silent grief, and leave given to bring in Bill which ASQUITH remorselessly admitted was first step towards Disestablishment of Welsh Church.

_Business done._--Welsh Church Suspensory Bill read First Time, by majority of 56, in excited House of 546 Members.

_Friday Night._--After the storm, the customary calm. Spent night in discussing tempting themes of Local Taxation in London, and Superannuation of School-teachers. On latter subject that _preux Chevalier_, TEMPLE, laying down the lute, and leaving Amaryllis in the shade, delivered luminous speech; convinced CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER; made him promise to fork out.

_Business done._--Much of useful kind.

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"SUPPOSITIOUS."--"Well," observed our old friend, who was discussing a recent case that had been headed "Romance in the Court of Chancery," "this all comes from bringing up a child that they pretended was their own. I mean what they call 'A Superstitious Child.'"

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QUITE ANOTHER THING.--With reference to a recent burglary at Sir THOMAS PIGOT'S, it is stated that "thieves were known to be in the neighbourhood, and the police have the matter in hand." Wouldn't it be better if they had the thieves there?

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