etically
again--"that at such a crisis"--and here was another repetition of
the grotesque gesture--"Her Majesty's Ministers"--more rib and elbow
work--"would endeavour," and so on and so on, in what seemed to one
listener at least to be the merest insincerity. His irony was perfect,
his assumption of earnestness a farce. Robert Lowe was put up to answer
him, and after coughing out a score or two of biting trenchant phrases,
with a page of notes almost touching his white albino eyebrows and the
tip of his nose, every sentence punctuated with a roar of laughter,
cheers and protests, he sat down. Among the speakers I heard that
night were Mr Beresford Hope and Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the latter of whom
offered to the House quite a sheaf of carefully prepared impromptu.
Again I got my guinea, and again I was asked to appear on the following
night, and at the end of that week, the defaulting member of the staff
not having again put in an appearance, I was formally enrolled for the
rest of the session. I do not profess to record in anything like their
chronological order the events which most impressed me, but many scenes
occur to me as being worth remembering.

Perhaps the most remarkable example of Disraeli's careless audacity was
afforded on the occasion on which, in the House of Commons, he contrived
to denounce his great rival as a liar, without infringing the etiquette
of the House. I was on what is called or used to be called the "victim"
turn that week. It was the duty of the victim to stay on in the gallery
after all other members of his staff had left the House, and to watch
proceedings until the Assembly was adjourned. On one occasion, I
remember, I was on duty for seventy-two hours. That was when Parnell
made his famous stand against the Government, and the Irish members went
off in detachments to sleep at the Westminster Hotel and came back in
detachments to keep the parliamentary ball a-rolling.

Disraeli's famous escapade was made on another occasion in the small
hours of the morning and so far as I know I am the only surviving eye
and ear witness of the occurrence. Shortly before the dinner hour on the
preceding evening, somebody brought up from the lobby to the gallery the
intelligence that Mr Disraeli had called for a pint of champagne, and
that was taken to indicate his intention to make a speech. When Mr
Gladstone was bent upon a great effort, he generally prepared himself
for it by taking the yolk of an egg