consideration.  Mr. Bright, though the laziest of mankind at official work, was the ideal hand at receiving deputations.  Some Ministers scold or snub or harangue, but he let the spokesmen talk their full, listened patiently, smiled pleasantly, said very little, treated the subject with gravity or banter as its nature required, paid the introducing member a compliment on his assiduity and public spirit, and sent them all away on excellent terms with themselves and highly gratified by their intelligent and courteous reception.

So far we have described our Minister’s purely departmental duties.  But perhaps the Cabinet meets at twelve, and at the Cabinet he must, to use Mr. Gladstone’s phrase, “throw his mind into the common stock” with his fellow-Ministers, and take part in the discussions and decisions which govern the Empire.  By two o’clock or thereabouts the Cabinet is over.  The labours of the morning are now beginning to tell, and exhausted Nature rings her luncheon-bell.  Here again men’s habits widely differ.  If our Minister has breakfasted late, he will go on till four or five, and then have tea and toast, and perhaps a poached egg; but if he is an early man, he craves for nutriment more substantial.  He must not go out to luncheon to a friend’s house, for he will be tempted to eat and drink too much, and absence from official territory in the middle of the day has a bad look of idleness and self-indulgence.  The dura ilia of the present[37] Duke of Devonshire could always cope with a slice of the office-joint, a hunch of the office-bread, a glass of the office-sherry.  But, as a rule, if a man cannot manage to get back to the family meal in South Kensington or Cavendish Square, he turns into a club, has a cutlet and a glass of claret, and gets back to his office for another hour’s work before going to the House.

At 3.30 questions begin, and every Minister is in his place, unless, indeed, there is a Levee or a Drawing-room, when a certain number of Ministers, besides the great Officers of State, are expected to be present.  The Minister lets himself into the House by a private door—­of which Ministers alone have the key—­at the back of the Chair.  For an hour and a half, or perhaps longer, the storm of questions rages, and then the Minister, if he is in charge of the Bill under discussion, settles himself on the Treasury Bench to spend the remainder of the day in a hand-to-hand encounter with the banded forces of the Opposition, which will tax to their utmost his brain, nerve, and physical endurance.  If, however, he is not directly concerned with the business, he goes out perhaps for a breath of air and a cup of tea on the Terrace, and then buries himself in his private room—­generally a miserable little dog-hole in the basement of the House—­where he finds a pile of office-boxes, containing papers which must be read, minuted, and returned to the office with all convenient dispatch.  From these labours he is suddenly summoned by the shrill ting-ting of