So ANTONY GIBBS AND SON went off before dinner.  Didn’t miss much; grinding away at Irish Land Bill; most soul-depressing experience of modern life; no heart in it; no reality; SAGE of Queen Anne’s Gate brings up amendment after amendment, and makes successive speeches; SEYMOUR KEAY does ditto; SHAW-LEFEVRE adds new terror to situation by taking voluminous notes which promise illimitable succession of orations; House empty; PRINCE ARTHUR has the full length of Treasury Bench on which to lounge.  Occasionally Division-bell rings; Members troop in by the hundred; follow their leaders into Lobby right or left, deciding question they haven’t heard debated, and mere drift of which two-thirds don’t understand.

BRER FOX absent to-night, which precludes possibility of flare-up in Irish Camp.  TIM faithful to his post, but lacks inspiration of contiguity to BRER FOX.

“PARNELL’s played out,” said TIM, referring in course of evening to BRER FOX’s reception in his latest run through Ireland.  “He may ramp and roar here, but his game’s up in Ireland.”

“And is he resigned to the situation?” I asked.

TIM looked at me, half winking his miraculously preserved right eye.

“Did you ever hear, TOBY, what the weeping widow said to the parson, who asked, ‘Was your husband resigned to die?’ ‘He had ter be,’ she said, choking a sob.”

Business done.—­Very little in the Irish Land Bill.

Tuesday.—­Mr. G.’s presence at Morning Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill.  BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp.  TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order when Division-bell rings, and how, when it is decided to vote, they shall pass out through one door, march in at the other, cross the floor, and look as much as possible as if they were ten instead of five.  T.W.  RUSSELL—­“Roaring” RUSSELL, as his old colleague in Temperance fights, WILFRID LAWSON, calls him—­frequently on his legs.  At sound of his voice, Mr. G. gets his back up; interposes interjections and corrections; and presently, when he can stand it no longer, plunges into a speech.

Another time SAUNDERSON draws him.  “I am very sorry,” said Mr. G., who has been itching to speak for last half-hour, “that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has dragged me into debate by gross misstatements.”

Being there, however, Mr. G. enjoys himself passably well, grinding SAUNDERSON to powder, and hewing RUSSELL to pieces before the Lord STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL, who are sleeping peacefully together in the Gallery.  “Like the Babes in the Wood,” said PLUNKET, looking up smilingly at the face in the Gallery, which looks twice as wise when asleep as the ordinary man does in full possession of his senses.

[Illustration:  “Roaring” Russell.]

“I know,” Mr. G. continued, in measured accents of polite scorn, “that the eloquence of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (meaning SAUNDERSON) is as ungovernable as I am afraid it is sometimes unprofitable.  In the exercise of the understanding which the Almighty has given him, he has represented me as being a supporter of this Bill.”