that welcomed him to his high position.

Lower down, filled up by another, is the place whence used frequently to arise a tall, almost gaunt, figure, which, with voice and manner indicating close associations with the Church pulpit, read from manuscript neatly-constructed answers designed to crush HENNIKER-HEATON. A kindly man and an able was RAIKES, who did not obtain full recognition for his administration of the office to which he was called.

On the other side of the House a great gap is made by the withdrawal of PARNELL from the scene. A second, of quite other association, yawns where genial DICK POWER used to sit, and wonder what on earth he did in this galley, when he might have been riding to hounds in County Waterford. HARTINGTON gone, too, an unspeakable loss to gentlemen on the benches immediately behind. Many are the weary hours they have wiled away wondering whether, at the next backward jerk of the head of the sleeping statesman, his hat would tumble off, or whether catastrophe would be further postponed. In HARTINGTON's place sits CHAMBERLAIN, much too wide awake to afford opportunity for speculation on that or cognate circumstance.

In his old corner-seat, in friendly contiguity, with his revered friend on the Treasury Bench, GRANDOLPH lounges contemplative. Met him earlier in afternoon. Passed us in corridor as I was talking to the MARKISS, who was anxious to know how the dinner went off last night, at which nephew ARTHUR appeared in character of the New Host at Downing Street. The MARKISS looked narrowly at GRANDOLPH as he passed with head hung down, tugging at his moustache.

"You remember TOBY, what HEINE said of DE MUSSET? 'A young man with a great future—behind him.' There he goes."

"Don't you believe it, my Lord," I said, with the frankness that endears me to the aristocracy. "You'll make a grave mistake if you act upon that view of GRANDOLPH's position."

"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:—

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."

"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.

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