the reading-room of the British Museum.  It was also a peculiarity of the position that he seemed an almost unwelcome visitant, even to those who had to defend him.  There was an awful pause when he rose, silently and so spectre-like, from his seat in the dim land of the back benches, and passed to the seat immediately behind the Marquis of Salisbury.  Lord Salisbury made a very vivid and amusing speech in the course of the evening, in defence of Lord Clanricarde and in an attack on Mr. Justice Mathew; but observers thought they saw a look of palpable discomfort pass across his face at the approach of the Marquis of Clanricarde.  The Lord of Woodford handed to Lord Salisbury a little bundle of papers; in the distance, the bundle had an inexpressibly shabby look—­the look one might expect on the bundle which some Miss Flit of the Legislature would bring every day, as the record of her undetermined claim.  Altogether, this appearance of Lord Clanricarde in the glimpses of the moon, rather added to the mysterious atmosphere in which he loves to live.

[Sidenote:  Sir Charles Dilke.]

In the meantime, a very interesting debate was going on in the House of Commons.  I have already remarked that Sir Charles Dilke has, in an extremely short time, re-established that mastery over the ear and the mind of the House of Commons which he used to exercise with such extraordinary power in the old days before misfortune overcame him.  It is a power and mastery derived from a perfect House of Commons mind.  Sir Charles Dilke, doubtless, has written on many subjects outside mere politics; but in politics his whole heart and soul are concentrated.  There is no man in the House of Commons so thoroughly political.  It would be bewildering to give even the heads of the subjects on which he has written and in which he is profoundly learned.  He has written about our Army—­he could tell you everything about every army corps in the German Army—­he knows all about every fortress on the French frontier—­he can convey to you a photographic picture of every great public man on the Continent—­he would be able in the morning to take charge of the Admiralty, and over and on top of all this knowledge he could tell you every detail of the law of registration, of parochial rating, of vestry work, and all the rest of that curious technical, dry, detailed information which raises the ire of parish souls, and forms the fierce conflicts of suburban ratepayers.

[Sidenote:  Egypt.]

It could be seen after he had been five minutes on his legs that Sir Charles Dilke was about to give on Egypt a speech which would suggest this sense of easy and complete mastery of all the facts, and that, therefore, the speech would be a thorough success.  And so it was—­so successful, indeed, that it was listened to with equal attention by the Tories as by the Liberals, though nothing could be more abhorrent to the Tory imagination than the proposal by Sir Charles Dilke of an early evacuation of Egypt.  Perhaps their indignation was a little mitigated by the fact which Sir Charles Dilke brought out with such clearness, that Lord Salisbury was just as deeply committed to the eventual evacuation of Egypt as any other public man.