to men of slatternly memory, and doubtful accuracy.  I have heard several of the wonderful Old Man’s private secretaries declare that they had never been able to get over the dread with which this uncanny power of remembering everything inspired them—­it was awe-inspiring, and produced a perpetual feeling of nervousness—­as though they were in the presence of some extraordinary and incomprehensible great force of nature.  It is rather unfortunate for Joe that nature did not endow him with any bump of veneration, and that he is thus ready to embark on hazardous enterprises, in which he oftens comes to grief.  When he made this quotation against Mr. Gladstone, the Old Man at once pounced on him with a demand for the date and the authority.  Joe was nonplussed, but he stuck to his point.

But on the following day Mr. Gladstone got up and in the blandest manner declared that he had since looked into the speech to which Mr. Chamberlain had alluded, and he found that what he had really said was, that Mr. Collings had been supposed to have advocated “three acres and a cow” as a policy, and to that policy Mr. Gladstone had declared he had never given his adherence.  This was turning the tables with a vengeance.  Jesse grinned and Joe frowned—­the rest of the House was delighted.

[Sidenote:  Mr. Asquith.]

The Home Secretary delivered a speech, which in one bound carried him to the front rank of Ministerial speakers.  It was a triumph from beginning to end:  in voice, in delivery, in language—­above all, in revelation of character, it was an intoxication and a delight to the House of Commons.  He swept over the emotions of that assembly like a splendid piece of music, and there was no room, or time, for reflection.

But there was an aftermath, and then it began to be hinted that it was the speech of an orator and an advocate rather than of a Minister, and that it was unnecessarily and unwisely harsh in tone; it uttered “no” and a “never”—­which are the tombs of so many Ministerial declarations.  The occasion was the motion of Mr. Redmond in reference to the release of the dynamitards.  Mr. McCarthy, though he strongly disapproved of the motion, was forced to express regret that Mr. Asquith had closed the prison doors with a “bang;” and one or two of the supporters and friends of Mr. Asquith were also compelled to express their dissent, and to vote in the lobby against him.  But undoubtedly that speech has immensely increased Mr. Asquith’s reputation and strengthens his position.  He is one of the strong and great men of the immediate future.

[Sidenote:  Obstruction, naked and unashamed.]