orth while to go down to House
to hear the affair discoursed on by my Under-Secretary. Amongst
the natives in India, I'm told, I'm regarded as a sort of Fetish.
Travellers in remote regions bring home stories of finding, set up in
humble cottages, little images, more or less resembling me. GORST told
me they have a saying there, which he was good enough to translate.
His knowledge of Hindustanee is extensive, peculiar, and acquired with
remarkable rapidity. These are the lines:

If you'd never make a loss,
Put your money on GRAND CROSS.

A free translation, GORST says, but gives you the swing and the spirit
of the distich. Rather hard on CURZON that my popularity should spoil
his speech, but a good thing for the country."

_Business done_.--Budget brought in.

_Tuesday_.--Wonderfully good muster in Lords to-night. Every man upon
his mettle. As the MARKISS says, with that epigrammatic style that
makes him so delightful, "The first duty of a Peer is to appear."
Those Radicals been protesting that talk about necessity for
prolonging Session over week all a flam. Simply meant to make it
impossible for our delicate friend, the British Workman, to get
to poll. Peers must show they mean business, by turning up with
regularity and despatch.

[Illustration: "All over at last!"]

Appeal to patriotic feelings nobly answered; nearly a hundred Lords
in place to-night. CHELMSFORD, walking down with his umbrella, just
about to add a unit to the number; stopped on the threshold by strange
sight; looking in from room beyond the Throne, sees DENMAN standing
at Table, shaking his fist at Prime Minister. DENMAN is wearing
what CHELMSFORD, who is short-sighted, at first took to be red Cap
of Liberty. But it's nothing more dangerous than a red skull-cap,
designed to resist draughts. Needn't be red, but it is. Business
before House, Third Reading of Small Holdings Bill Occurs to DENMAN
to move its rejection; talks for ten minutes; difficulty to catch his
remarks; understood from fragmentary phrases to be extolling someone
as a luminous Statesman; seeing measure before the House is Small
Holdings Bill, noble Lords naturally conclude he's talking about
CHAPLIN. MARKISS interposes; says, "Noble Lord not speaking to Bill
before House."

It was at this moment CHELMSFORD arrived. Saw DENMAN draw himself up
to full height, shake his fist at the MARKISS, and this time at full
pitch of quivering voice cry, "Ha! ha! you wish to _cloture_