tomed to go home in broad
daylight. It is true the House at that time met an hour later in the
afternoon, but the earlier buckling to is a light price to pay for the
certainty that shortly after midnight all will be over. Even now the
twelve o'clock rule may be suspended, and this first Session of the new
Parliament has shown that all-night sittings are not yet impossible. But
so unaccustomed is the present House to them, that when one became
necessary on the Mutiny Bill everyone and everything was found
unprepared. In the old days, when Mr. Biggar was in his prime, the
commissariat were always prepared for an all-night sitting. When, this
Session, the House sat up all night on the Mutiny Bill, the larder was
cleared out in the first hour after midnight.

It is not generally known how nearly the valuable life of the Chairman
of Ways and Means was on that occasion sacrificed at the post of duty.
Having lost earlier chances by remaining in the chair, it was only at
four o'clock in the morning he was rescued from famine by the daring
foraging of Mr. Herbert Gladstone, who, the House being cleared for one
of the divisions, brought in a cup of tea and a poached egg on toast,
which the Chairman disposed of at the table.

[Illustration: MR. MELLOR.]

Mr. Mellor is an old Parliamentary campaigner, and remembers several
occasions when, living injudiciously near the House, he was brought out
of bed to assist in withstanding obstruction. Being called up one
morning by an imperative request to repair to the House, he observed a
man violently ringing at the bell of the house of a neighbour, also a
member of the House of Commons. On returning two hours later, he found
the man still there, diligently ringing at the bell.

"What's the matter?" he asked; "anyone ill?"

"No, sir," said the man. "Lord Richard Grosvenor sent me to bring Mr.
---- down to the House, and said I was not to come away without him."

"Ah, well, you can go off now; the House is up."

Mr. ----, it turned out on subsequent inquiry, had gone down to Brighton
with his family, and the servants left at home did not think it
necessary to answer a bell rung at this untimely hour.

[Sidenote: "PAIRED FOR THE NIGHT."]

It was about the same time, in the Parliament of 1880, that another
messenger from the Government Whip went forth in the early morning in
search of a member. He lived in Queen Anne's Mansions, and the messenger
explaining the urgency of his errand,