e of the House of Commons, whenever something very momentous is
under weigh, to have a thousand trivialities in its path before it gets
on to the real business. I have heard something like a hundred questions
asked, most of them very trivial, on more than one night, when the whole
of the civilized world was waiting for the Minister to develop some
great plan of Governmental policy. The bore, the faddist, the empty
self-advertiser, is as inevitable on such occasions as the reportorial
dog that always rushes along the Derby course at that dread moment when
you can hear the beating of the gamblers' hearts.

[Sidenote: To business.]

But on this fateful Wednesday there is no such ridiculous intervention.
There are only two questions altogether on the paper; and both of those
refer to the great issue of how obstruction is to be put down. Mr.
Gladstone answers the questions very briefly; but there is hidden and
fateful meaning in every syllable he utters; and the House of Commons,
looking on, shows itself in one of those moments which bring out all its
picturesqueness--its latent passions--its very human characteristics.
There is the eager strain of curiosity. Every face is turned to that of
the single pale white solitary figure that stands out from the Treasury
Bench, dressed, I may add, in the sober but light grey suit of the
summer season, in spite of his being a messenger of such doom to Tory
obstruction. There is a hush, but a hush never lasts long in the House
of Commons when a great party blow is going to be struck. The nerves of
the House, raised to expectancy--tension, almost hysteria, by the joy of
the one side, the anger and dread of the other, have a preternatural
readiness in catching points, in producing outbursts of feeling. And so
it is to-day. The Prime Minister has scarcely uttered the words which
reveal the determination of the Government to resort to the most extreme
measures, when there burst simultaneously from the Irish and the Tory
Benches cheers and counter cheers--the cheer of pride, joy, and delirium
almost, in the one case; the answering cheer and counter cheer of
haughty and angered defiance in the other.

[Sidenote: Balfour the unready.]

The Old Man bears himself splendidly amidst all this. He is very excited
and very resolute--you can see that by the very deadliness of
tranquillity which he seeks to put in his voice, by the gentleness of
his tone, by the almost deprecatory smile. All the sam