My dear Wolff,--I have had a very curious letter from the Queen, which I will not show you when we meet. Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. C. Blenheim Palace: January 2, 1884. My dear Wolff,--You are not generally slow to take a hint, therefore your failure to understand my letter which you received on New Year’s Day is, I think, a pretence. In political friendships confidence must be mutual, and measure for measure the rule. You wrote to me that you had received a very curious letter from Lord S., and that you would show it to me when we met. When I receive ‘very curious letters from political personages’ I have hitherto sent them to you without delay. Your cautious behaviour about Lord S.’s letter seemed to call for similar caution on my part. I therefore wrote to you that I had received a very curious letter from the Queen, which I should not show you when we met, and I shall not. Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. C. [Illustration: LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL SIR HENRY WOLFF MR. BALFOUR. MR. GORST. THE FOURTH PARTY. _Reproduced from Leslie Ward’s Cartoon, December 1st, 1880, by permission of the proprietors of “Vanity Fair.”_] Lord Randolph’s correspondence with Sir Henry Wolff has carried the reader somewhat in advance of the regular course of the narrative. His letters in 1883 and 1884 belong to a region of more serious disputes than those with which this chapter deals. The swift unravelling of events was to bring varied fortunes and many adventures to the four friends who now delighted to ‘act together.’ They were to play a decisive part in great affairs. Yet it is probable that the early sessions of their comradeship were the joyous days of the Fourth Party. ‘Politics,’ wrote Lady Randolph, ‘seemed more like a game of chess than the life-and-death struggle it was so soon to become for some of them.’ Plots and ambuscades prepared with severe impartiality, amid fun and laughter, against both Front Benches; stormy battles in the House; generous comradeship and glorious discomfiture of foes; miniature Cabinet Councils; toy whitebait dinners, filled the years with merry excitement. One single enormous sofa could contain the whole party--leaders and followers--at once. They were cartooned together in _Vanity Fair_--Lord Randolph speaking from his famous corner seat, the others and Mr. Balfour (who travelled from Scotland in order to be painted) sprawling on the Bench beside him. Dinner with the Fourth Party was regarded as a rare distinction and justly restricted in its scope. Their political action was not always the result of long premeditation. ‘On one occasion,’ writes Sir Henry Wolff, ‘Balfour gave a dinner at his house, to which he invited the Fourth Party and some other members of Parliament, amongst them Sir R. Cross and Mr. Pell. Someone at length said, “We must return to the House on account of the Bill,” of which I do not remember the subject.