use, or supposed to be the cause, of this
attack, I treated the hon. Member exactly as the policeman treated the
bluebottle--with perfect indifference, not even troubling to brush away
the trifling annoyance. But when in the midst of its buzzing round me I
moved in the direction of one of the officials, it flew away. Then
appeared what I had been anticipating, and the real cause of the insult
transpired. Dr. Tanner came up to me just as I recollect Slavin
approaching Jackson in their historic fight. He showered the grossest
insults upon me, and I was surrounded at once by his clique, who were
anxious for the scene which must have occurred had I, like Jackson, been
the first to let out with my left. But here again was I face to face
with a chronically excited Member, backed up by his friends, and I
refused to be drawn into a brawl. But the secret of the real cause of
this organised attack upon me was revealed to me by Dr. Tanner, who at
once informed me that it was the outcome of my imitations of the Irish
Members in my entertainment, 'The Humours of Parliament,' which I have
given for two seasons all over the country. This was my offence; my
caricature of Mr. Swift MacNeill the excuse for the attack."

[Illustration: DR. TANNER.]

Mr. MacNeill's "technical assault" was a very childish incident. He
merely touched the sleeve of my coat with the tip of his finger, and
asked me if I would accept that as a "technical assault." This
mysterious pantomime was subsequently explained to me, and meant that I
was to take out a summons--but I only laughed. At the moment Mr.
MacNeill was pirouetting round me at a distance, Mr. John Burns came on
to the scene, and chaffed Mr. MacNeill, drawing an imaginary picture
(for Mr. Burns was not in the Lobby) of a real assault upon me. A
gentleman connected with an evening paper, who happened to enter with
Mr. Burns, failed to see Mr. Burns's humour, and thereupon took down in
shorthand Mr. Burns's imaginary picture as a matter of fact. It was
published as a fact, and, for all I know or care, some may still believe
that I was assaulted!

[Illustration: ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE. WHAT THE PRESS DESCRIBED.]

When I read that I had been treated like a cur, I was rather amused; but
when I read a statement in the papers from a man like John Burns saying
that he saw me "taken by the lapels of the coat and shaken like a dog,
and then taken by the ear and shaken by that," I thought the joke had
b