and then for more voice.  Fortunately on this occasion we have not long to wait for the big announcement which everybody is so anxiously expecting.  It is usually the fate of the House of Commons, whenever something very momentous is under weigh, to have a thousand trivialities in its path before it gets on to the real business.  I have heard something like a hundred questions asked, most of them very trivial, on more than one night, when the whole of the civilized world was waiting for the Minister to develop some great plan of Governmental policy.  The bore, the faddist, the empty self-advertiser, is as inevitable on such occasions as the reportorial dog that always rushes along the Derby course at that dread moment when you can hear the beating of the gamblers’ hearts.

[Sidenote:  To business.]

But on this fateful Wednesday there is no such ridiculous intervention.  There are only two questions altogether on the paper; and both of those refer to the great issue of how obstruction is to be put down.  Mr. Gladstone answers the questions very briefly; but there is hidden and fateful meaning in every syllable he utters; and the House of Commons, looking on, shows itself in one of those moments which bring out all its picturesqueness—­its latent passions—­its very human characteristics.  There is the eager strain of curiosity.  Every face is turned to that of the single pale white solitary figure that stands out from the Treasury Bench, dressed, I may add, in the sober but light grey suit of the summer season, in spite of his being a messenger of such doom to Tory obstruction.  There is a hush, but a hush never lasts long in the House of Commons when a great party blow is going to be struck.  The nerves of the House, raised to expectancy—­tension, almost hysteria, by the joy of the one side, the anger and dread of the other, have a preternatural readiness in catching points, in producing outbursts of feeling.  And so it is to-day.  The Prime Minister has scarcely uttered the words which reveal the determination of the Government to resort to the most extreme measures, when there burst simultaneously from the Irish and the Tory Benches cheers and counter cheers—­the cheer of pride, joy, and delirium almost, in the one case; the answering cheer and counter cheer of haughty and angered defiance in the other.

[Sidenote:  Balfour the unready.]

The Old Man bears himself splendidly amidst all this.  He is very excited and very resolute—­you can see that by the very deadliness of tranquillity which he seeks to put in his voice, by the gentleness of his tone, by the almost deprecatory smile.  All the same, the prevalent note of his voice and manner is composure.  For the moment, either from surprise, relief, the joy they can badly conceal—­whatever the reason, the Tories seem to be nonplussed.  The audacious ally who is always ready to rush rashly into the breach on such occasions is away in Birmingham; and with all his excellent qualities, Mr. Balfour is