But in the office thus contemned by the Paladins of the Treasury, there was plenty of interesting though little-observed work. In the autumn of 1883 I undertook, in conjunction with the President of the Board, a mission of enquiry into the worst slums in London. There is no need to recapitulate here all the horrors we encountered, for they can be read in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor which was appointed in the following year; but one incident made a peculiar impression on my mind. The Sanitary Officer reported some underground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard of Wantage as a kind of Earthly Paradise, where the Church, the Sisterhood, and the "Great House" combined to produce the millennium, I said, involuntarily, "How you must wish to be back there!" "Back at Wantage!" exclaimed the Lady of the Cellar. "No, indeed, sir. This is a poor place, but it's better than Wantage." It was instructive to find this love of freedom, and resentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields. An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancy belongs to this period. Those were the days of agitation for and against a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers, and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Board of Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel, said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel, as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he was really in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and after the ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table. Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, and the rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said, "Ah, this is capital! Here we are--eight sensible men--and all in favour of the Tunnel." Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, I challenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone and his echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have had the hardihood to say so.