The Home Department Minister is speaking now, but apparently affording but cold comfort to his colleagues. Mr. Mayhew belongs to the English bar. He is an excellent speaker, but that is all. It would have been better if he had stuck to his profession exclusively, and left politics alone, for he has not shone in them. He is a weak man, and an obstinate one, and can never be got to acknowledge having committed a mistake. He has held office before in a Conservative Ministry in the same department, which did not profit much by his supervision, or attain any particular distinction for efficiency. He is the best man, however, that the Nationals have at their command for the post, which is not saying much for the existing state of things. “Detectives are at work in nearly every great centre, and the police are fully instructed how to act,” he assures his colleagues. “Don’t you think, Mayhew, that Hector D’Estrange, or, as I suppose we must now call her, Gloria de Lara, has many secret friends in the force? There is no doubt she has the mass of the working classes of the country on her side—certainly nearly every woman amongst them. Depend upon it your detectives will not trace her, and it seems to me you are all of you vastly underrating her power.” The speaker is a man of about fifty years of age, with a fine forehead, rather scant hair, prominent, intelligent eyes, a sallow complexion, and somewhat of the middle height. He looks younger than he really is, and it is probably his long thick moustache that gives him a little of the military appearance. But Lord Pandulph Chertsey is no soldier. He is every inch a politician, living for nothing else but politics.