tockbroker. Sir Charles Russell is
different, for he dresses in thorough taste; but when one saw him in the
House of Commons in a grey suit and a deep-cut waistcoat, one might have
taken him for a gentleman squire with a taste for study, varied by an
occasional visit to Newmarket.

[Sidenote: Mr. Morley's tweed suit.]

All these observations have been suggested by the portentous fact that
on June 15th Mr. John Morley startled the world of Parliament by
appearing in a very neat, a very well cut, and a very light tweed suit.
If Mr. Morley figures in many Tory imaginations as a modern St. Just,
longing for the music of the guillotine and the daily splash of Tory and
orthodox blood, it is much more due to his clothes than to his writings;
for ordinarily he is dressed after the fashion which one can well
suppose reigned in the days when the men of the Terror were inaugurating
a reign of universal love, brotherhood, and peace through the narrow
opening between the upper and the lower knife of the guillotine. His
coat is blue: so is his waistcoat; and his nether garments are of a
severe drab brown. It is impossible to imagine that any man who assumes
such garments could be otherwise than a severe and sanguinary
doctrinaire, anxious for his neighbours' blood. The genial smile with
which the House of Commons has become familiar has invalidated the Tory
estimate of Mr. Morley, but it was that memorable Thursday that
completed the transformation of judgment. No man could be a lover of the
guillotine who could wear so airy, so gay, and, above all, so juvenile
and well-cut a suit of clothes. Mr. Morley himself was overwhelmed with
the amount of attention which his new suit attracted. He, poor man, did
not see the portentous political significance of the transaction, and
almost sank under the multitude and variety of congratulations which he
received from watchful friends. He has done many great and successful
things in the course of his brilliant career--but he never achieved a
triumph so complete and so prompt as he did when he put on his light
tweed suit, and steered under its illuminating rays the Home Rule Bill
through the rocks and shoals, the eddies and the cross-currents of the
House of Commons.

[Sidenote: A brilliant pas de deux.]

On the following afternoon there was another scene in which clothes had
their share. At about three o'clock there entered the House together two
slight, alert figures--in both cases a little