"There is a Midge at Westminster,
A Gnatty little Thing,
It bites at Night
This mighty Mite,
But no one feels its sting."

Two gentlemen of Yorkshire had a dispute about his correct height, and
one of them, anxious to have an authoritative pronouncement, wrote to
the noble Lord, and received the following reply:

"2, CONNAUGHT PLACE, W.

"Dear Sir,--Lord Randolph Churchill desires me to say, in reply to
your letter of the 21st inst., that his height is just under 5ft. 10in.

"I am, yours faithfully,

"CECIL DRUMMOND-WOLFF, Secretary."

[Illustration: MR. LOUIS JENNINGS.]

Lord Randolph Churchill was a mere creature of impulse, the spoilt pet
of Parliament--what you will--but no one can deny that he was the most
interesting figure in the House since Disraeli. He had none of
Disraeli's chief attraction--namely, mystery. Nor had he Disraeli's
power of organisation, for, although Lord Randolph "educated a party" of
three--the first step to his eventually becoming Leader of the House--it
cannot be said that at any time afterwards he really had, in the strict
sense of the word, a party at all. He was a political Don Quixote, and
he had his Sancho Panza in the person of Mr. Louis Jennings. Perhaps
nothing can show the impulsive nature of Lord Randolph more than the
incident which was the cause of Mr. Jennings breaking with Lord
Randolph. Mr. Louis Jennings was, in many ways, his chief's superior: a
brilliant journalist, originally on the _Times_, afterwards editor of
the _New York World_, when, by dint of his energy and pluck, he was the
chief cause of breaking up the notorious Tammany Ring; a charming writer
of picturesque country scenes--in fact, an accomplished man, and one
harshly treated by that fickle dame Fortune by being branded, rightly or
wrongly, as the mere creature of a political adventurer.

One afternoon I was standing in the Inner Lobby when Mr. Jennings asked
me to go into the House to a seat under the Gallery to hear him deliver
a speech he had been requested to make by the Government Party, and one
he thought something of. At that moment Lord Randolph came up and said,
"I am going in to hear you, Jennings; I have arranged not to speak till
after dinner." And we all three entered the House.

Lord Randolph, who had then left the Ministry, sa