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But much of my work was of such a confidential or personal nature that his directions were given to me either viva voce or in private notes. And to this day I can laugh over some of these.

Here is a sample. When the Fenians were smuggling revolvers and rifles into Ireland, labelled as pianos, or butter, or cement, I proposed that the clandestine conveyance of firearms should be made an offence. The Secretary of State adopted my projet de loi, and it was referred to the Treasury Counsel (Mr-afterwards LordThring) to draft the Bill. But, instead of acting on Mr Bruce's instructions, he wrote back a strong letter of objection and protest. Even the magistrates, he said, would regard such an enactment as unworkable. This was referred to Bow Street, and the Chief Magistrate replied that he and his colleagues approved of the scheme, and saw no practical difficulty in giving effect to it. Liddell's minute to me on this, written on a sheet of notepaper, was in the following terms: "This fellow Thring is getting bumptious. Prepare a letter to him for my signature. Just tell him to go to and square the circle: you know how to put it?" I did!

In a similar vein it was that he received my congratulations the day he was gazetted a K.C.B. Rising from his table, he faced me on the hearthon the hearthrug, and presently said he, his blank stare giving way to a genial smile, "But isn't it awful rot being called 'Sir'!"

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How many living men are there, I wonder, other than M.P.'s, who have ever entered the House of Lords along with the "faithful Commons to hear the royal speech at the opening of Parliament ? My police constable friend put me up to this. "If we catch you," said he, "it's not in the House of Lords you'll find yourself; but we'll not catch you if you do what I tell you." I did what he told me. those pre-dynamite days there was no difficulty in getting into the Lobby; and on the 5th February 1861 I found myself in the middle of a group of M.P.'s who were waiting there. Presently the Speaker's stately procession to "the gilded chamber" came along, and as soon as the leading Members had passed, the waiting group closed in with a rush. Had I been as anxious to keep out as I was to get in, nothing could

have stopped me. I was almost carried off my feet, and it was not till I found myself inside the House of Lords that I was able even to raise my hand to get my hat off my head. Some of the Members were much amused at finding me in their midst, and quizzed me about my constituency. Donnybrook Fair had at

memorable time, when there were Parliamentary giants in the land, whose set speeches were classic orations of a type unknown to the present generation.

tracted the notice of Parliament at that time because of the rowdyism which led to its abolition; and their amusement was increased when I told them I was M.P. for Donnybrook, and that my experience in the Lobby made me think myself back among my constituents.

After-events lent a special interest to that occasion. It was the last opening of Parliament at which "her Majesty's own words" were heard from her Majesty's own lips. after the Prince Consort's death the Queen never again read her Speech in person.

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When I returned to the Metropolis in 1868, the House of Commons had still greater attractions for me. My enjoyment of life in London at that time owed more than I can tell to the friendship of Captain Gosset, the Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms. I was always welcome at his dinner - table, and seldom a week passed that I did not avail myself of his hospitality-a real privilege to a bachelor living in London lodgings. But more than this: his friendship made me practically free of the Chamber. I was thus enabled to attend the historic debates of that

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But this was not all. Probably the majority of the M.P.'s of to-day never even heard of "Gosset's room." But in those days the Assistant Sergeant's office-room was a notable institution. It was, in fact, a quasi social club. The etiquette which regulated it was strict. No one frequented the room without a definite invitation, but an invitation made a man free of it afterwards. was situated in one of the inner corridors, and of course none but M.P.'s had access to it, the only exceptions being Captain Gosset's sons and one or two other immediate relatives, and myself. I was thus brought into touch with all the by-play of the House, and met the élite of its Members. What a book I might write if only I had kept a note of the good things I heard there! These pages seem to be running on the lines of that sort of sermon that consists of a series of theses with an illustrative incident for each. The following may serve for the present "thesis." A Mr Pim, an Irish Quaker, and one of the most estimable estimable and courteous of men, was returned at this time as M.P. for Dublin. Like many new Members, he was eager to hear, and being deaf, he used constantly to flit about to find a coign of vantage. Robert Lowe it was who cynically remarked that he seemed

to throw who was referred to as

morbidly anxious away his natural advantages! His movements attracted the more notice because he wore creaking shoes. The point of my story is Disraeli's mot about him. After studying him for some time he remarked, "I thought an Irish Member was always either a gentleman or a blackguard, but he's neither!"

And Disraeli's inquiry about another Irish Member may be worth adding here. Joseph Biggar, the Parnellite obstructionist, had marked peculiarities both of figure and gait. When Disraeli first saw him walking up the floor of the House, he looked at him intently through his eye-glass, and, by the way, he always held his eye glass with his thumb and first finger wrapped round it, as if it were an unfamiliar sort of optical instrument, and then, turning to a friend behind him, he asked, "What is that?"

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Before I dismiss the subject of "Gosset's room," I may mention that an indiscretion committed there one night at this time very nearly brought it to an untimely end. In Gosset's absence a number of the habitués held an impromptu concert, and owing to some one's "telling tales out of school," Grenville Murray got hold of the story, and a thinly veiled notice of it appeared in 'The Queen's Messenger,' a short lived racy paper of that period. The report gave what purported to be the programme, which, I remember, included a song by the late Duke of Devonshire,

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ungainly youth Lord Larkington. The Speaker, Mr Denison, was then getting old and crusty, and he was furious. But Captain Gosset's unbounded popularity in the House saved the situation, and the crisis was averted.

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To that popularity it was that he afterwards owed his promotion. Lord Charles Russell, the then Sergeant - atArms, had been appointed by the Prime Minister, and when he resigned in 1875 it was assumed that the office was in Mr Disraeli's gift, and that, as a matter of course, the Assistant Sergeant at - Arms would succeed to it. It transpired, however, that in sanctioning Lord Charles's appointment, the Queen had directed that future vacancies were to be reported to the Sovereign, with whom whom personally the patronage rested. And it was rumoured that her Majesty intended to confer the office upon the gentleman who at present holds it. But 80 strong was the feeling of the House on the subject that Disraeli went to Osborne to lay the matter before the Queen. On the day of his return I went down to the Lobby to seek for news. But the Lobby was empty, and I was driven to apply to the principal doorkeeper. The subordinate officials of the House have sometimes to act "chuckers-out," but never before, perhaps, did a doorkeeper act as "chucker-in." Indeed, his passing a stranger into the House, save by express orders,

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might in ordinary circum- Lord Charles Russell made me stances have cost him his place. But the moment he recognised me, he seized hold of me, and rushed me in under the gallery; and I was just in time to see the Premier rise to answer a question on the subject.

punctilious in all my dealings with their subordinates. them I played no tricks. But the House of Lords officials were fair game. On the last evening of the great historic debate on the Irish Church, an old friend of my father's, whom I met at dinner, spoke of his fruitless efforts to get an order for the Peers' Gallery, and declared that he would give £100 for a seat. When we rose from dinner I invited him to accompany me to Westminster. I passed with him through the lobbies, and up to the gallery door; and there, with the lordliest manner I could assume, I told the doorkeeper that I should be extremely obliged if he could find a seat for my friend. Whom he took me for I never knew, but he responded effusively, and begged me to bring him in. Later on I noticed that he and a colleague were evidently discussing me, trying no doubt to make out who I was. So I thought it better to "skip," as Yankees say; but my friend kept his seat till the House rose. In passing out, I thanked the doorkeeper in a patronising tone for his courtesy, and expressed my regret that I could not stay longer myself. I should add, perhaps, that I never got that £100! (To be continued.)

He began by stating, with great solemnity and in his grandest manner, that "the appointment of Sergeant-atArms was in the gift, and entirely in the gift, of her Majesty the Queen, and there is no person, whatever his position in the House, who has any influence whatever in that appointment." Here he paused, and his words were received in lugubrious silence, as indicating seemingly the failure of his visit to Osborne. Then he added, “But I have been commanded by the Queen to state that, being aware of the strong, not to say unanimous, feeling of the House on the subject, her Majesty, as a gracious favour to her faithful Commons, has been pleased to appoint to the office the gentleman who is at present Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms." The tumultuous cheering which followed, from every corner of a crowded House, was a striking testimony to Gosset's popularity.

My relations with him and

the

RIZA BEY.

FOR several years of promiscuous travel Riza Bey Bairam Zade was my companion; and it was my promise to him that if ever I wrote a book of our journeys I would speak well of his people. Now I am confronted with this difficulty, that it is impossible to describe the Gheg Albanians as they would wish, and be strictly truthful. To draw a picture of the Northern "Arnauds," as they see themselves, clad in a puritan though prismatic robe of virtue, would be easy but not honest. They reminded me constantly of children with the highest code of honour, but an even more absorbing love of sweets. Their acknowledged chivalry and courage put the critic who pays some attention to their equally undoubted frailties in a false position. Where courage and romance are so conspicuous to noble minds, why hunt for little faults? they ask-and on the whole I am inclined to agree with them, and so I shall content myself with writing of of Riza and his people (and more particularly of him) as I have seen them, eating, sleeping, and marching, with only that suppression of truth that is excusable in speaking of friends. For myself the virtues of Riza always shone resplendently, and their alloy of vanity was only a perpetual amusement. The master who weighs small derelictions of duty, or even etiquette,

against honesty, affection that is often outspoken, and independence, should choose 8 British butler and not an Albanian kavas for his servant. If upon occasions our tempers were worn thin by vexations in remote places, amongst fickle and noisy Arabs, are there any wanderers who under these circumstances have not given way to an acrimonious spirit? Our faults like our forgiveness were mutual. Riza had a cheerful creed, shared I believe by tourists and by trippers in general, though not articulately expressed, that "God does not look at error by the way,"-i.e., that travelling and piety are an incompatible pair. This formula, "Allah yolda kussur bakmaz," was constantly his grace as he shared my breakfast of scented mastik before marching out from into the darkness that comes before the bitter desert dawn. In his dealings with Arabs he held also, and acted on, the same conviction as that which dominated an old English servant of my youth in her dealings with foreigners. "I shout and shout," she used to say, "but they will not understand." Riza believed firmly that in dealing with people whose tongue he could not speak, hullabaloo was, if not essential to, yet a great ally of, lucidity. Here is a typical scene that recurred in various forms in our march from

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