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"Perhaps the doctor would let you, just for a few minutes. You had better come again at eleven."

At eleven Gerard woke up and saw Margaret by his side. His haggard eyes caught the reflection of a great joy.

She laid her hand on his head. “You mustn't talk," she said.

They were silent a long time. When Gerard spoke it was of the bogie.

"His Obesity seems to have changed our luck," he said. "Tell Ghazi Khan to put it back on the cairn."

opened his eyes he asked her to throw the window open. He wanted to see the peak. It was there calling him.

"I've forgotten to arrange about the transport," he said absently.

But Margaret exercised 8 counter-spell. She talked of Scotland until he could smell the bracken and the pines. Then she talked of Kent.

"Do you remember what the woods are like in autumn?" she said. "Beech and brackena roof and floor of gold. We'll go to Bedgebury. I know the seasons to a week. It will be just about the time that the pheasant lets you get near enough to see his crimson eye."

It was a siren's song in his

ears.

"Ter-res-sit-ta mia," he said, "you have made all things good. Just now I'd like a He dozed a little. When he breath

Margaret told him that she had put it back.

of clean home air.”

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM THE INSIDE AS I KNEW IT.

BY THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT FARQUHARSON.

WHEN my friends used to congratulate me on belonging to the best Club in London, my answer invariably was, You may call it so, but in my opinion the entrance fee is far too high and the annual subscription extortionately heavy. Nursing a constituency is an expensive process, and may run to thousands a-year if you are trying to turn out a rich man. When any of my constituents used to play off my opponent against me by pointing out that he had given so much to some particular charity, my answer was always the same: 'Keep him a candidate as long as you can, for if he becomes your member he will probably be as mean as I am," and then I gave half his contribution. Sir H. James, as he was then, tried to deal with this species of organised blackmail, but he found it impossible to do anything, and the member or candidate is only protected by common-sense, impecuniosity,

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or custom.

I can hardly imagine a greater mental and physical strain than a sharply-contested election. Long, often rough, drives in all weathers, precarious and irregular meals, disturbed sleep, the inevitable cranks and dreary bores whose aim and object seem to be to magnify their own importance and make other people uncomfortable, the tiresome chairmen

who so frequently speak at inordinate length and exhaust both the subject and their hearers, the hecklers who must be dealt with with a dexterity which only practice can give, the perpetual change of beds and hotel accommodation, and the necessity of being what some rather "ravelled " person said Cæsar's wife ought to be, all things to all men, combine with the natural worries and uncertainties of a perfectly new position to make up a blend of anxiety and occasional discomfort which must be rather hard to beat. One of the most trying things is the necessity of pumping up three or four speeches daily for several weeks on precisely the same line of subjects, and the difficulty of this is largely added to by the continual presence of reporters whose critical eye is most embarrassing, and who have a disconcerting way of laying down their pencils and staring into vacancy when the familiar platitudes are trotted out, and perhaps a well-worn peroration appears which has done duty on many previous occasions.

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better, at twelve o'clock to-mor-
row she'll know that I'm in."
And Dizzy, too, was very happy
when he stood quite unknown
on the hustings along with a
more experienced candidate
who had just expounded his
views. "And what do you
stand on?" pompously asked
an influential elector.
"On
my head," was the somewhat
disconcerting answer.

arm

people. It requires some experience to discover the precise object of their questions. Sometimes a man will get up and in an apparently threatening way ask something intended to enable you to make clear something you may have left obscure, or to touch on some point which you may have omitted. If you jump on him, you will probably make him your enemy for life, and Having earned by brain and to a random answer given on pocket the right to sit on the one occasion to a deadly earnest green benches, let the new person, who had not under- member forget not to gone the surgical operation himself with his credentials, and could not see a joke, I as worrying delay and much attribute a nasty three-cornered anxiety have been caused by fight which caused a great a lapse of memory leaving it deal of bitterness and anxiety. behind in his coat-pocket or in These friends in disguise should the cab. And now comes that be tenderly dealt with, but no which ought to be the most quarter should be given to the solemn and awe-inspiring, but enemy who tries to trip you up, which I have no hesitation in most especially to the emissary, describing as the most futile paid or otherwise, of the other and absurd, episode of his life side, who produces from his I refer to the ceremony pockets a long string of queries known as taking the oath. concocted by the by the minister I really used to be ashamed or the schoolmaster, or, still of ourselves when we stood at worse, sent down in printed the table, four deep, fighting form from the central associa- for the book as though we were tion. You should always try hounds struggling over a mutto turn the laugh against him, ton-bone, or boys at a football and if you succeed you will scrimmage passing the ball. have the audience heartily The first moment of disenwith you. A quick, smart, chantment, however, good-humoured retort will do when, fresh from the triumphs far more for a candidate than of the poll, the cheers of victhe most eloquent speech. The tory, the congratulations of Marquis of Carmarthen's famous friends and the press, and the repartee has become classic. He natural feeling of elation at was very boyish-looking when having secured or retained a he first stood for Parliament, seat for his party, he plants and some one called out to himself on a seat (if he can him, "Does your mother know find one) and looks round the you're out?" "Yes," was the House. A feeling of utter and immediate reply, "and what's hopeless worm-like insignifi

comes

cance comes over him. He has now become a mere unit, and sits forlorn and unnoticed in a pushing and struggling crowd of colleagues, all of whom seem to be thoroughly at home, competing eagerly for the Speaker's eye and other Parliamentary privileges. I have known men make up their minds there and then to quit an assembly which, if not actively hostile, is supremely indifferent to the advent of a newcomer. It is a kindly act to take the neophyte in hand, introduce him to the officials, see that he gets a locker, that indispensable aid to Parliamentary comfort, help him to order his first lunch and dinner, to get his smoke, to escape for a little with the help of a pair,—and your bread thus cast on the waters will be returned to you in the shape of gratitude after many days.

There are some things that you may do and others that you must not do-in the House of Commons. For instance, when you have crossed the Bar, you must bow respectfully to the Speaker. But the same reverential inclination of the head must be made even if he is not there. Why is this? The reason is not very clear, but it has something to do with the fact that the House is supposed to be built on the site of an ancient chapel, and that reverence must be made accordingly.

When you rise up to speak you must be uncovered, but after a division is called, and you wish to raise a point of order, you must do it with your hat on your head,

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXVIII.

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and this gives rise sometimes to amusing incidents. Those who saw it can never forget the occasion when Gladstone, who never wore a hat in the House, had to surmount his mighty cranium with a "topper' hastily snatched from the head of his neighbour Herschell. The forbidden things are numerous. It is a serious Parliamentary crime to pass between a speaker and the chair, and loud cries of order greatly confuse the neophyte who makes this mistake for the first time. A front bench man may loll on the small of his back and plant his boots on the table without remonstrance, but his humble satellites are sharply pulled up by the Sergeant-at-Arms if they venture to follow his example. You must not ostentatiously read a book or a newspaper I once saw Mr Chamberlain pulled up for quoting from a file of 'The Times'

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or open letters in the House, nor read your speech; and if you indulge in tedious repetition you may be admonished by the Speaker, if any common informer puts the law in motion. Nor are you allowed to eat anything from your place on the green benches. I remember once, during one of the allnight sittings, the late A. M. Sullivan, towards the small hours of the morning, produced a paper bag and proceeded to feed himself with jam puffs, and when his attention was directed to this irregularity by the Chairman, he replied, "I thought, Mr Playfair, that we were in Com

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mittee of Supply." I have never, however, seen any one pulled up for partaking of fluid refreshment in the House. Mr Gladstone used to slobber up a glutinous-looking mess out of a pomatum pot, composed, one of his sons told me, of egg, ether, and sherry; Lord Palmerston sucked oranges; some front bench men have their glass of claret; and an amusing story is told of Sir M. Hicks Beach, as he then was. During a budget speech he was indulging in some of the time-honoured jokes appropriate to the occasion, and said, "Who drinks rum nowadays? But a modest quencher of port, brought him from the bar, happened to be of the tawny variety closely imitating in colour the liquor whose disappearance from popular consumption he had announced, and when he raised it to his lips an immediate shout of laughter rippled over the green benches. The great Wilberforce is reported to have taken an opium-pill before he spoke; and Lord Granville, in the 'Life' so admirably written by my friend Lord Fitzmaurice, reproached himself with having once in the House of Lords risen before Lord Beaconsfield, who had primed himself up by drinking something, or inhaling something, to fire off at a particular hour. And it is hinted, with what truth I know not, that a young rising politician of the front bench rank, whose name wild horses or their equivalent would not drag from me, has recourse to oxygen before beginning one of

his highly successful harangues. Dress regulations were strict in former days, and the late Mr Cowen was obliged to get the Speaker's leave before he could wear at the instance of his doctor-a soft felt hat. Colonel Gourley told me that he was called up to the Chair and told that it was out of order to exchange the more formal costume of society for a cutaway coat. This is all changed now, and every variety of costume is allowed. Mr Keir Hardie has replaced his deerstalker by a sort of Spanish sombrero, and billycocks of every shape and size surmount the crania of hon. members. I have only once seen a straw decorating in somewhat defiant fashion the austere brows of a Radical below the gangway, and some time ago a perspiring senator might be seen hard at work in the library with his coat off.

Swords can only be worn by the mover and seconder of the address-even the Sheriffs of London, and that awe-inspiring functionary, the City Marshal, are disarmed before they appear at the Bar; and I remember on one occasion, when a member going to some official function was sitting with selfconscious pride in the full glories of a court suit, he had his dignity rudely disturbed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, who there and then divested him of his sword and left him defenceless.

It has become almost colloquial and journalistic commonplace to say that our manners are bad and want

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