A lady who was present at the dinner-party, and who was a great admirer of Mr. Gladstone, thought it her duty to write to him, and tell him the charge that had been made against him. She did not mention the name of her informant, but merely stated the facts that had been reported to her. She received an immediate reply, on a postcard. It was as follows:--"The presence of ---- was not unperceived on the occasion to which you refer; but the conversation he has reported to you was not of the nature he imagined, and possibly desired." The voice of slander often pursued Mr. Gladstone, but the reply which he gave to this particular accusation was recognised, even by his enemies, as complete and conclusive. All through his life Mr. Gladstone was filled with pity for the outcasts of the streets, and whenever he could hold out a helping hand to them he did so with a fearlessness that was characteristic of his courage--the courage of the pure in heart. I must turn aside from the Irish tragedy to speak of a small agitation, in which I and other persons were concerned at the time, that had a certain connection, not with the Phoenix Park murders, but with the events that led up to them. Two of Mr. Chamberlain's brothers had been nominated as candidates for the Reform Club. It was, perhaps, unfortunate for them that they came up for election in this spring of 1882, when there was much hostility towards Mr. Chamberlain himself on the part of many Liberals, who believed that he was intriguing in order to drive Mr. Forster out of the Cabinet. At all events, the two candidates were black-balled, and great was the ferment that arose in consequence. In Birmingham the action of the Reform Club was regarded as an outrageous insult not only to Mr. Chamberlain himself, but to that section of the Liberal party to which he then belonged. "The good people of Birmingham are simply furious," wrote Mr. Chamberlain to his friend, Mr. Peter Rylands, M.P., "and they even talk of marching upon London," It was an astounding assertion, but really Mr. Chamberlain's organs in the Birmingham Press dealt with the black-balling of his brothers in such a fashion as almost to warrant the expectation that Pall Mall would be invaded, and the Reform Club sacked, if it did not repent in dust and ashes of the affront it had offered to the leader of Birmingham Radicalism. Nothing less would suit Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, as an atonement for the misdeeds of the club, than such an alteration in the rules as would deprive the members of the power of black-balling candidates by transferring elections from the club at large to a special election committee.