I believe it was on this very evening that I heard Sala utter one of those jocosely brutal sentences for which he was celebrated. The literary men who frequented Mrs. Riddell's house were not, I am sorry to say, so respectful to her husband as they might have been. They made it very clear, in fact, that it was the novelist and not the inventor of stoves whom they came to see, and they were impatient when the latter attempted to intrude his views upon them. A party of us were gathered in the dining-room, smoking and otherwise refreshing ourselves. We had been listening to story after story from some of the best talkers in the Bohemia of those days, and again and again the attempts of Mr. Riddell to contribute to our entertainment by some long-winded narration had been vigorously and successfully repulsed. At last the unhappy host found an opening, and had got so far as "What you were saying reminds me of an interesting anecdote I once heard," when Sala, striking his fist upon the table, thundered a stentorian "Stop, sir!" Mr. Riddell looked at him, half frightened, half indignant. "If the story you propose to tell us," continued Sala, "is an improper one, I wish to tell you that we have heard it already; and if it is not improper, we don't want to hear it at all." Yes, clearly one had wandered into Bohemia in those days. My work in the Gallery of the House of Commons was of great interest. I watched Disraeli during his first brief premiership in 1868, when he had to hold the reins of authority in a House in which his party was really in a minority, and when he had nightly to confront the fierce attacks of Mr. Gladstone, who was rallying his own followers, both in the House and in the country, for their successful onslaught upon the Government. It was a unique and most valuable experience to watch these two great men in their gladiatorial combats across the table of the House: Gladstone wielding the mighty broadsword of his powerful eloquence, and seeming as if at every moment he would annihilate his antagonist; Disraeli, with marvellous skill and exquisite adroitness, bringing the rapier of his wit to bear upon his opponent, and again and again pinking him with some stinging epigram or smart retort that set all the Tory benches roaring with delight. It made one's young blood grow warmer to watch the struggle from the impartial height of the Reporters' Gallery.