the division-bell and the raucous bellow of the policeman to take part in a division.  He rushes upstairs two steps at a time, and squeezes himself into the House through the almost closed doors.  “What are we?” he shouts to the Whip.  “Ayes” or “Noes” is the hurried answer; and he stalks through the lobby to discharge this intelligent function, dives down to his room again, only, if the House is in Committee, to be dragged up again ten minutes afterwards for another repetition of the same farce, and so on indefinitely.

It may be asked why a Minister should undergo all this worry of running up and down and in and out, laying down his work and taking it up again, dropping threads, and losing touch, and wasting time, all to give a purely party vote, settled for him by his colleague in charge of the Bill, on a subject with which he is personally unfamiliar.  If the Government is in peril, of course every vote is wanted; but, with a normal majority, Ministers’ votes might surely be “taken as read,” and assumed to be given to the side to which they belong.  But the traditions of Government require Ministers to vote.  It is a point of honour for each man to be in as many divisions as possible.  A record is kept of all the divisions of the session and of the week, and a list is sent round every Monday morning showing in how many each Minister has voted.

The Whips, who must live and move and have their being in the House, naturally head the list, and their colleagues follow in a rather uncertain order.  A Minister’s place in this list is mainly governed by the question whether he dines at the House or not.  If he dines away and “pairs,” of course he does not in the least jeopardize his party or embarrass his colleagues; but “pairs” are not indicated in the list of divisions, and, as divisions have an awkward knack of happening between nine and ten, the habitual diner-out naturally sinks in the list.  If he is a married man, the claims of the home are to a certain extent recognized by his Whips, but woe to the bachelor who, with no domestic excuse, steals away for two hours’ relaxation.  The good Minister therefore stays at the House and dines there.  Perhaps he is entertaining ladies in the crypt-like dining-rooms which look on the Terrace, and in that case the charms of society may neutralize the material discomforts.  But, if he dine upstairs at the Ministerial table, few indeed are the alleviations of his lot.  In the first place he must dine with the colleagues with whom his whole waking life is passed—­excellent fellows and capital company—­but nature demands an occasional enlargement of the mental horizon.  Then if by chance he has one special bugbear—­a bore or an egotist, a man with dirty hands or a churlish temper—­that man will inevitably come and sit down beside him and insist on being affectionate and fraternal.