on a memorable night more than a quarter of a century ago a
certain dandified young man, with well-oiled locks and theatrically
folded arms, stood, and, glaring upon a mocking House, told them that
the time would come when they _should_ hear him. As a rule, the
Conservatives make Ministers of men who have borne the heat and
burden of the day on the back Ministerial benches. With the Liberals
the pathway of promotion, Chiltern says, opens from below the gangway.
Mr. Lowe came from there, so did Mr Goschen, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr.
Childers, Mr. Foster, and even Mr. Gladstone himself. The worst thing
a Liberal member who wants to become a Cabinet Minister or a Judge
can do is to sit on the back Ministerial benches, vote as he is bidden,
and hold his tongue when he is told. He should go and sit below the
gangway, near Mr Goldsmid or Mr. Trevelyan, and in a candid, ingenuous,
and truly patriotic manner make himself on every possible occasion as
disagreeable to the leaders of his party as he can.

I do not attempt to disguise the expectation I cherish of being some day
wife of the First Lord of the Admiralty, or at least of the President of
the Board of Trade; for there are few men who can, upon occasion, make
themselves more disagreeable than Chiltern, who through these awkward
bars I see sitting below the gangway on the left-hand side, and calling
out "Hear, hear!" to Sir Stafford Northcote, who is saying something
unpleasant about somebody on the front Opposition benches.

The front seat by the table on the right-hand side is the Treasury
bench, and the smiling and obliging attendant tells me the names of the
occupants there and in other parts of the House. The gentleman at the
end of the seat with the black patch over his eye is Lord Barrington,
who, oddly enough, sits for the borough of Eye, and fills the useful
office of Vice-Chamberlain. Next to him is Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson,
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and whom I have
heard genially described as "one of the prosiest speakers in the
House." Next to him, with a paper in his hand and a smirk of supreme
self-satisfaction on his face, is Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary.

He sits beside a figure you would notice wherever you saw it. The
legs are crossed, the arms folded, and the head bent down, showing
from here one of the most remarkable styles of doing the human hair
that ever I beheld. The hair is combed forward from the crown of the
head and from partin