I fairly gasped for breath as I heard the astonishing news. Here was I, the editor of an English daily newspaper, away up in the Arctic circle, separated by days of travel from newspapers or means of getting news, and I suddenly heard this startling piece of intelligence. I could not credit it, and eagerly asked for further particulars. But the old tar could tell me nothing more. He could only persist in affirming and reaffirming his conviction that Mr. Gladstone's loss of office was the best thing that could have happened to the country. And this was the end of the great Ministry of 1880, for the formation of which I had worked so hard, and which I had so constantly and ardently supported with my pen! I went back to the _Kong Halfdan_ much excited, and rushing to the captain told him that I must go back to England at once. He heard my news and sympathised with my dilemma, but assured me that the earliest mode of returning to Trondhjem would be by sticking to his ship. I went ashore, and made further inquiries, only to have the captain's statement confirmed; so, willy-nilly, I had to go on to the North Cape, bitterly conscious of the fact that I ought to have been at my post at Leeds. But a man in a hurry is always the victim of circumstances, and there was nothing for it but to possess my soul in patience. How eagerly I looked for further news! It was not, however, until several days later that, on returning to Tromsoe, I found a mail-steamer going north, and saw an unmistakable Englishman on the deck, whom I immediately accosted with a request for information. All he could tell me was that Mr. Gladstone had resigned on the 12th of June, and that Lord Salisbury on the next day had been hastily summoned by the Queen to Balmoral and had accepted office. From Trondhjem I made hot haste by rail to Christiania, and taking the first steamer for Hull, which to me seemed to make haste slowly, returned to my own country to face the unexpected fact that a great political revolution had suddenly occurred, and that the Tories were once more in power. INDEX. A Addison Road North, Author's residence in. Adullamites. Albrecht, Archduke, Author's visit to estate of. American Civil War, Conclusion of. Armstrong, Lord, as a solicitor at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; as president of British Association. Arundel Club in 1868. Aurora Borealis in 1870. Ayrton, Mr., Attack of, on Queen Victoria. B