r--The
Story of the Dry Champagne--The Labour Member--Dr Kenealy's
Fiasco--Mr Newdigate's Eloquence--Lord Beaconsfield's
Success--"Stone-walling"--Robert Lowe's Classics--The Press
Gallery and Mr Gladstone.

I forget precisely how it came about that I secured my first sessional
appointment in the gallery of the House of Commons. Some member of the
reporting staff of the _Daily News_ was disabled or had gone upon the
spree. Anyway the staff was shorthanded for a night, and I was told that
I could earn a guinea by presenting myself to the chief at the House of
Commons, and that there would probably be very little indeed to do for
it. I attended accordingly and found that my whole duty for the evening
consisted in inscribing on three separate sheets of paper, "Murray
follows Murphy--Pullen follows." I got my guinea and was instructed to
appear again on the following afternoon when I found a very different
condition of affairs prevailing. Every bench was packed, the side
galleries were full, and it would have been impossible to squeeze
another person into the Stranger's Gallery above the clock. A great
field night was toward, and from the time at which I first entered the
box at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon until two the following morning,
my pencil was kept going without cessation, note-taking or transcribing.

I have quite forgotten what the fight was about, but it was then that
I first caught sight of the parliamentary heroes of the time. Gladstone
was in his place with Hartington and Bright and the rugged Forster,
and Sir William Harcourt and all the rest of his henchmen. Disraeli
sat impassive opposite with folded arms and closed eyes, with his chin
resting on his breast. The only clear impression I brought out of the
rush and hurry of the night was that whereas Disraeli, whenever it
came to be my turn to be in the reporter's box, was apparently sound in
slumber and utterly oblivious of all that was going on, he rose an hour
after midnight and presented a masterly analysis of the whole debate,
interspersed with snatches of a fine ironic mockery. His method as an
orator was far from being impressive or agreeable, his voice was
veiled and husky, and once or twice when he dropped the ironic vein
and affected to be serious, he seemed to me to fall into burlesque. "It
would be idle," he said, and there he brought his elbows resoundingly
to his ribs, "to suppose"--and there the elbows came down energ