[Sidenote:  The transformation.]

The House on the following day, July 4th, was very still when Mr. Dillon rose—­evidently to refer to the incident of the previous night.  His address was quiet, brief, and graceful.  With charming modesty, he acknowledged the mistake he had made, and explained how, in running over in memory the hundreds of speeches he had delivered, he had confounded one speech with another.  He was unable to understand how his memory, which never before had played him false, had done him this ill turn, and he appealed to the House generally, and declared that there was not even amongst his bitter political foes one who would think him capable of trying to palm off on the House a speech which could be so palpably and so readily exposed.  In these few sentences, Mr. Dillon brought before the House his strange, picturesque, and chequered career.  His oratory was such that the explanation was considered the best ever given in the House of Commons.

[Sidenote:  Joe is absent.]

This was a recovery of some ground lost on the previous night.  But there was even better to come.  Mr. Harrington’s accuracy and veracity as to Mr. Chamberlain’s dealings with the Irish members had been challenged, as I have said, by Mr. Chamberlain, and he now rose to read the historic letter of Mr. Duignan, which, he claimed, justified his account.  Several attempts were made to stop Mr. Harrington, and the Tories during this were decidedly annoyed and embarrassed because Mr. Chamberlain happened not to be in his place.  But doggedly and persistently Mr. Harrington held to his ground, and at last the Speaker allowed him to read the letter.  The reading of the letter led to various scenes, because it was one of those balanced utterances in which Mr. Chamberlain used to try to hold one foot in the Unionist and to place the other in the Home Rule camp.  There were speeches about the County Councils, and there had been Unionist and Tory cheers in relief; but when immediately afterwards there were allusions to Home Rule, very little different in scope or character from that proposed by Mr. Gladstone, there was a triumphant rejoinder from the Liberal and Home Rule Benches.  Austen Chamberlain, excited, nervous, angered, flitted to and fro in the attempt to gather forces to defend his absent parent.  At last Mr. Courtney took up his case.  There was not very much in what he said, and while he was speaking Mr. Chamberlain entered the House.  He was pale, excited, and unnerved.  He endeavoured to carry the whole thing by a jauntiness which was too easy to see through.  Mr. Courtney had been waving furiously a telegram towards the Speaker, and asked that he might have the privilege of reading it.  Austen Chamberlain snatched the telegram from Mr. Courtney, and gave it to his father just as he had taken his seat.  Mr. Chamberlain had not a moment to spare; he had just time to glance at the contents of the telegram when he rose to speak, and all he did was to read the telegram, which was a confirmation by Mr. Duignan of the general accuracy of the previous evening.  This was a score for Joe, and his friends were delighted to recover something of their lost spirit.