Mr. T.W.  Russell is always at the service of Mr. Chamberlain at such a moment.  A platform speaker by training and by years of professional work, accustomed to make most of his case against Home Rule depend on the characters, the words, the acts of the Irish members, he has, of course, at his fingers’ ends, all the useful extracts of the last thirteen years.  At once he was seen to rush excitedly from the House.  Every Irishman knew at once that he was going to the library to reinforce his memory with regard to the date of Mitchelstown.  A murmur arose on the Irish Benches; slips of paper were passed up to Mr. Dillon to recall to him the facts of the case; but, either in the hurry and excitement, or because he did not appreciate the situation immediately, Mr. Dillon went on with his speech—­unconscious of the abyss that opened up before him.  Meantime, Mr. Chamberlain—­pale, excited, his face torn with the workings of gratified hatred and coming triumph—­sat forward in his seat, his eyeglass shining from afar, eagerness in every look, pose, movement.

[Sidenote:  Chamberlain pounces.]

At last Mr. Russell was back in his place; it did not require much second sight to see that his quest had been successful, and that he had brought to Mr. Chamberlain the ammunition he required in order to slay John Dillon.  The moment Mr. Dillon sat down, Mr. Chamberlain was on his feet.  He worked up to the situation with some skill; but, after all, with that overdone passion which, as I have already said, spoils some of his greatest effects—­he did not expose the mistake in his first few sentences.  He worked up the agony, so to speak.  First he recalled to the Liberals—­whose hatred to him he feels and returns with interest—­the fact that they had cheered Mr. Dillon’s allusion to the effect Mitchelstown had had on him in provoking the violence of his speech.  And then when he had created his situation, he pounced down on the House with the climax—­the speech had been delivered in 1886, the Mitchelstown tragedy had taken place in the following year.  It would be idle to deny that Mr. Chamberlain had then one of the most triumphant moments of his life.  It was a small point, after all, and, as everybody soon knew, it was all the result of a natural and a perfectly honest mistake.  But the House of Commons is not particular in weighing things in judicial scales at moments of intense political passion.  There rose from the Tory and the Unionist Benches one of the longest, fiercest, most triumphant shouts that was ever heard in the House of Commons.  But then, as I again must say, and as will soon be seen, the passion was overdone, and a swift retribution came by-and-bye.  For the moment, however, it was giddily, dazzlingly triumphant, and Joe had one of the few moments of his life which were unrelieved by disaster.

[Sidenote:  A diversion.]