enote: Chamberlain on the spring.]

Mr. T.W. Russell is always at the service of Mr. Chamberlain at such a
moment. A platform speaker by training and by years of professional
work, accustomed to make most of his case against Home Rule depend on
the characters, the words, the acts of the Irish members, he has, of
course, at his fingers' ends, all the useful extracts of the last
thirteen years. At once he was seen to rush excitedly from the House.
Every Irishman knew at once that he was going to the library to
reinforce his memory with regard to the date of Mitchelstown. A murmur
arose on the Irish Benches; slips of paper were passed up to Mr. Dillon
to recall to him the facts of the case; but, either in the hurry and
excitement, or because he did not appreciate the situation immediately,
Mr. Dillon went on with his speech--unconscious of the abyss that opened
up before him. Meantime, Mr. Chamberlain--pale, excited, his face torn
with the workings of gratified hatred and coming triumph--sat forward in
his seat, his eyeglass shining from afar, eagerness in every look, pose,
movement.

[Sidenote: Chamberlain pounces.]

At last Mr. Russell was back in his place; it did not require much
second sight to see that his quest had been successful, and that he had
brought to Mr. Chamberlain the ammunition he required in order to slay
John Dillon. The moment Mr. Dillon sat down, Mr. Chamberlain was on his
feet. He worked up to the situation with some skill; but, after all,
with that overdone passion which, as I have already said, spoils some of
his greatest effects--he did not expose the mistake in his first few
sentences. He worked up the agony, so to speak. First he recalled to the
Liberals--whose hatred to him he feels and returns with interest--the
fact that they had cheered Mr. Dillon's allusion to the effect
Mitchelstown had had on him in provoking the violence of his speech. And
then when he had created his situation, he pounced down on the House
with the climax--the speech had been delivered in 1886, the Mitchelstown
tragedy had taken place in the following year. It would be idle to deny
that Mr. Chamberlain had then one of the most triumphant moments of his
life. It was a small point, after all, and, as everybody soon knew, it
was all the result of a natural and a perfectly honest mistake. But the
House of Commons is not particular in weighing things in judicial scales
at moments of intense political passion. There rose fr