eemed as if it was an hour.

When the second minute was completed, the excitement in the House began
to grow intense. Disraeli seemed to be transfixed. Was he ill? Was the
great man sulking? What could this strange silence portend?

Two minutes and a half!

Some Members rose and approached him, but Disraeli raised his hand as if
to deprecate their interference, and they stole back to their places
conscious that they were forbidden to interrupt. Then, at last, when the
second hand of the clock had passed three times round its course, the
most remarkable silence which the House had ever experienced within
living memory was broken as the Tory leader slowly began once more to
speak.

"'Mr. Chairman,'" he said, "'and gentlemen,'" and then word for word he
repeated the whole speech of Mr. Gladstone from which he had made his
quotation, duly introducing the particular passage which the Liberal
leader had denied. Then he paused and looked across at his rival. The
challenge was not to be avoided, and Mr. Gladstone bowed. He would have
raised his hat did he wear one in the House, which, in the phraseology
of the ring, was equivalent to throwing up the sponge. Mr. Disraeli
afterwards informed a friend that, working backwards, he had recalled
the whole of Mr. Gladstone's speech to his mind. Beginning at the
disputed quotation, he recovered the context which led up to it, and so
step by step the entire oration. Then he was enabled to repeat it from
the outset, exactly as he had read it.

I saw Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons on the occasion of his
last visit to that chamber in which he had been the moving spirit. I
well recollect that morning. There had been an Irish all-night sitting:
the House was supposed to be listening to the droning of some Irish
"Mimber." The officials were weary, the legislative chamber was untidy
and dusty, and many of those present had not had their clothes off all
night. Lord Beaconsfield, scented, oiled, and curled, the daintiest of
dandies, sits in the gallery, examining the scene through his single
eye-glass. Leaning over him stands the ever-faithful Monty Corry--now
Lord Rowton. I sat within a few yards of them, and made a sketch which
happens to be the most successful study I ever made. The _Academy_ wrote
of it: "In humour Mr. Harry Furniss generally excels; but his portrait
of Lord Beaconsfield on his last appearance in the House of Commons is
something else than amusing--it is pathe