"They say that but for Mr. Beadon’s seizure a vote of censure would have been moved at once. Under the circumstances it was impossible to go on with the ordinary business of the day; at the moment we all feared that the poor Prime Minister would actually die in his seat. The House was adjourned. There are rumours of Mr. Farquharson’s resignation, but I heard just now that he absolutely refuses to give up his post until he is assured that he has lost the confidence of the country. It seems as though he could not take in the fact that he had hardly a friend in the world except our own little coterie. He got on too well and too quickly not to arouse envy and jealousy on all sides. "I send you, under separate cover, some cuttings from the papers; the leading ones were of course non-committal, the others are full of invective and denunciation. As for the _Moon_, it did not mince matters at all. Caring not a jot what it said so long as it just escaped the law of libel, it practically accused Farquharson of selling the nation for his own ends. As you know, he has never been popular with the Press. No newspaper can say of him, ’This is my puppet; I pull the strings and he does as I direct.’ "It is now supposed that Mr. Farquharson’s study and safe must have been opened by duplicate keys on the afternoon of the great crisis in the House. The question is how an impression could have possibly been taken of the key of the safe, as it never leaves Mr. Farquharson’s personal possession. The safe was ransacked, nearly everything in it being taken—everything official, I mean; private papers were left. Detectives are at work on the affair, of course. "It appears that Mr. Farquharson went out early that afternoon, leaving the Prime Minister to lock the door. Lord Creagh, who was with Mr. Beadon all the time, says that he never parted with the key until he returned it to his son-in-law. Both of Mr. Farquharson’s secretaries can prove alibis on the day in question; the servants have borne irreproachable characters for years. The fact that Richard himself spent the afternoon with Herr von Kirsch, the representative of that Government into whose possession this special information was proved to have been given that very day, is dead against him. Mr. Farquharson means, I hear, ’to face the music’ to-night; the papers will tell you that most of the other Ministers have been suddenly stricken down with influenza. Wereminster says that the party is in a state of absolute panic; they got into office on a wave of public emotion, and are terrified lest the tide should turn.