tryin'; and as to those bad Irish brats,

As BALFOUR interjuced—dear! jest fancy our Party adopting small Pats!

And now this here Brummagem babby! You say he's a promising cheild,

Missis G., and 'you're learning to love him!' All this makes old SAIREY feel wild.

It's wus than kidnapping, this bizness of picking up 'Fondlings' all round.

You're nussing a wiper, I say, and you'll soon feel 'is bite, I'll be bound.

Who arsked for 'im, BETSY—I mean Missis G.—who demanded the brat?

You've altered your mind, and you pet him; you'd much better mind what you're at.

Drat the boy's bragian imperence! I says. He's a halien, a fondling, a waif,

And I never knew, for my part, any Brummagem goods as wos safe!"

THE ADOPTED CHILD.

MOTHER GOSCHEN. "FOUND 'IM IN BIRMINGHAM, MY DEAR! DIDN'T LIKE 'IM AT FIRST,—BUT, SOMEHOW, I'VE QUITE TOOK A FANCY TO 'IM!!"

MRS. GAMP. "A FONDLING INDEED!—WHICH ALL I CAN SAY IS I DON'T LIKE THE LOOKS OF 'IM!!"

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

House of Commons, Monday, April 27.—"Well, I never!" said GEORGE ELLIOT, beaming on House from back bench; "have known HARCOURT man and boy for forty years; seen him in divers moods; watched him through various occupations. These have been so many that I have had time to forget he was once Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was, and upon my word, listening to him to-night, and knowing something about figures myself, I believe he would have made a splash at the Treasury."

Genial George.

JOKIM doesn't enjoy performance quite so much as GENIAL GEORGE. Oddly enough, Budget Night, which ought to be the apex of comfort and glory for CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, is with him ever the season of tribulation. House of Commons is, regarded as audience, always at its best on Budget Night. Will laugh immoderately at feeblest joke uttered by CHANCELLOR; cheers to the echo his moral sentiments; sits enraptured when he soars into eloquence; and is undisguisedly grateful when he has completed his peroration. JOKIM'S muddle of Thursday night made the best of. Opposition silenced by promised legislation establishing Free Education. Everything in sunshine-glow of prosperity. Thought JOKIM might keep some of the sunbeams for himself. Then comes HARCOURT with the abhorrëd shears of facts and figures, and slits the thin-spun web of JOKIM'S ingenious fancy; shows that, instead of a surplus, he has, when honest arithmetic is set to work, a deficit; instead of increasing the rate of reduction of National Debt, he has done less in that direction than his predecessors; and that whilst expenditure on Army and Navy has exceeded any figures reached by former Chancellors of the Exchequer, the floating debt is ever growing.

JOKIM sits on Treasury Bench affecting the virtue of a smile though he has it not. Wriggles like a snail under dispensation of salt. When HARCOURT finished, HENRY FOWLER stepped in, and with fresh array of figures and new marshalling of argument, completed the demolition of JOKIM'S system of finance. Mr. G. looked smilingly on, delighting in the energy and aptitude of his Young Men. JOKIM, anxious to change the subject on any terms, tried to draw Mr. G. into the controversy. "I think not," said Mr. G., with a smile of ineffable sweetness. "Right Hon. Gentleman need not go so far afield: will have pretty tough job in answering HARCOURT."

A pretty scene; admirable Parliamentary play. Oddly enough boxes empty; stalls a wilderness; pit only half full. Energies of House so sapped with dreary flood of talk on Irish Land Bill cannot be reanimated even for a brisk battle over the Budget.

Business done.—JOKIM pummelled to pulp.

Tuesday.—OLD MORALITY walked out of House just now, his back suffused with sense of duty done, alike to QUEEN and Country. Irish Land Bill, which, as CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN says, makes a Moated Grange of House of Commons, on again all day. SAGE OF QUEEN ANNE'S GATE and his Party active as usual. The PARTY a little doubtful of the SAGE. Sometimes, in blessed intervals of silence, is discovered gazing on a bald space on back of SAGE'S head, striving, as it were, to pierce through this weak spot, and discover what is in the SAGE'S mind. The SAGE in outward manner most deferential and encouraging. Misses no opportunity of publicly applauding him. It is true that when the SAGE has got him on his legs, starting afresh on new Amendment, he seizes the opportunity to slink out of the House, and take another cigarette, quite certain that the PARTY is good for half-an-hour. This, and one or two other little things, create a suspicion in the mind of the PARTY, who was not brought up in India for nothing. WILFRID LAWSON, who sits close by, and keenly watches progress of events, says he has no doubt the time will come when the PARTY will revolt.

"KEAY," says WILFRID, "occupies a strategical position, which gives him a great pull over LABBY. His respected Leader sits on the bench immediately below him. Some day SEYMOUR KEAY'S wild Mahratta blood may boil over, an unsuspected scimitar may flash forth from his trouser pocket, and the SAGE'S head, falling gory on the floor of the House, may gently, from mere force of habit, roll in the direction of Queen Anne's Gate."

"For a real sanguinary-minded man," said RITCHIE, to whom I told this story, "give me a teetotaller."

The PARTY, with some assistance from Windbag SEXTON, wasted sitting till quarter to seven. By this time, all Amendments to Clause 3 being wearily worn off, opportunity just left to pass Clause before Sitting adjourned. Question put that Clause 3 pass. Then SAGE, smelling obtrusively of cigarettes, interposed, and declared it "would be indecent" to accept the Clause without further discussion. Nothing House shrinks from just now more abjectly than from charge of indecency. Accordingly debate stood over, and Thursday may, if the SAGE and his Party please, and the Closure is not invoked, be appropriated for further discussion of Clause 3.

OLD MORALITY might have moved Closure at twelve minutes to seven, and carried Clause 3. Committee naturally expected he would. But OLD MORALITY had another card up his sleeve. At very last moment, whilst Members trooped out, and it was thought all was over, OLD MORALITY gave notice of motion to take the whole time of House, including Tuesday and Friday nights' evening sittings.

"I think you had them there," I said, as we walked across to Grosvenor Place.

"Yes, TOBY," he said, a little flush mantling his modest face; "we've given them rope enough, and now we'll hang them. They've had their run, now we'll take ours. It's the main thing I always look to. Never forget when I was still in the seminary writing out copy of verses about a shipwreck. A graphic scene; the riven vessel, the raging seas, the panic-stricken crowd on deck, and then this little self-drawn picture of the sole survivor, the one man left to tell the story: