at to spare in
this, which I suppose was the Strangers' Gallery. Everybody there had
his hat off, and there was an official sitting on a raised chair in the
middle of the top row, something like I saw the warders sitting amongst
prisoners at Millbank one Sunday morning when Chiltern took me to see
the Claimant repeating the responses to the Litany. The House itself is
of oblong shape, with rows of benches on either side, cushioned in
green leather and raised a little above each other. There are four of
these rows on either side, with a broad passage between covered with
neat matting.

Chiltern says the floor is an open framework of iron, and that beneath
is a labyrinth of chambers into which fresh air is pumped and forced in
a gentle stream into the House, the vitiated atmosphere escaping by the
roof. But then the same authority, when I asked him what the narrow band
of red colour that ran along the matting about a pace in front of the
benches on either side meant, gravely told me that if any member when
addressing the House stepped out beyond that line, Lord Charles Russell
would instantly draw his sword, shout his battle-cry, "Who goes Home!"
and rushing upon the offender bear him off into custody.

So you see it is difficult to know what to believe, and it is a pity
people will not always say what they mean in plain English.

Midway down each row of benches is a narrow passage that turned out
to be "the gangway," of which you read and hear so much. I had always
associated "the gangway" with a plank along which you walked to
somewhere--perhaps on to the Treasury Bench. But it is only a small
passage like a narrow aisle in a church. There is a good deal of
significance about this gangway, for anybody who sits below it is
supposed to be of an independent turn of mind, and not to be capable
of purchase by Ministers present or prospective. Thus all the Irish
members sit below the gangway, and so do Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Charles
Lewis. It is an odd thing, Chiltern observes, that, notwithstanding
this peculiarity, Ministries are invariably recruited from below the
gangway. Sir Henry James sat there for many Sessions before he was
made Solicitor-General, and there was no more prominent figure in
recent years than that of the gentleman who used to be known as
"Mr. Vernon Harcourt."

On the conservative side this peculiarity is less marked than on the
Liberal, though it was below the gangway on the Conservative side
that