“Ah, well,” said the MARKISS, a little hastily; “I must go and see STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL about this Portugal business.”

As he strode off I thought how precise and graphic remains Lord LYTTON’s description of him, written before he came to the Premiership:—­

  “The large slouching shoulder, as oppressed
    By the prone head, habitually stoops
  Above a world his contemplative gaze
    Peruses, finding little there to praise.”

Sorry I vexed him.

Some disappointment at GRANDOLPH’s appearance.  Hoped he might do honour to occasion by presenting himself in the attire clad in which he of late roamed through Mashonaland.  It would have been much more picturesque than either of the uniforms in which mover and seconder of Address are obviously and uncomfortably sewn up preparatory to reciting the bald commonplace of their studiously conned lesson.

“He might at least,” said CHAPLIN, who, as Minister for Agriculture, takes an interest in specimens of animal produce, “have brought with him the skin of one of those nine lions he shot from the oak in which CHARLES THE FIRST took refuge.”

[Illustration:  “No gun made would carry so far.”]

GRANDOLPH affects not to hear this whispered remark.  It was addressed to NICHOLAS WOOD, who, leaning over back of Treasury Bench, laboriously explains that CHAPLIN is a little mixed; that the oak-tree to which he alludes was grown on English ground—­wasn’t it in Worcestershire?—­and therefore could not afford a safe place of retreat whence lions might be potted in Central Africa.

“There is,” said NICHOLAS, emphatically, “no gun made that would carry so far.”

“Pish!” said CHAPLIN, somewhat inconsequentially.

GRANDOLPH looks across at Front Opposition Bench, and wonders how Mr. G. is enjoying himself in the Sunny South.  “Younger than any of ’em,” GRANDOLPH admits.  “Odd that with a general sweeping away of the Leaders in their places last Session, only he should be left.  Expect he’ll see us all out.”

“Order! order!”

’Tis the voice of the SPEAKER.  I thought he’d complain.

“Notices of Motion!” he calls, in sonorous voice.  Then the dreary business begins, MILMAN having all the fun to himself as he pulls a lucky number put of the Ballot Box, and Members rise in long succession, giving notice of interminable Bills and Motions, just as they did at the beginning of last Session, when HARTINGTON slept on the Front Opposition Bench, when OLD MORALITY fidgetted uneasily in the seat of Leader, and when PARNELL stood with his back to the wall in Committee Room No. 15.

* * * * *

TRULY AND REELLY.—­Why didn’t they at once elect COTTON, Alderman, Poet, and Haberdasher, for the office of City Chamberlain, without waiting for a show of hands and the rest of it?  Of course COTTON ought to have been elected right off the reel.