SCENE--_Breakfast-table of an Illustrious Statesman of stalwart proportions and "Gladstonian" politics. Illustrious Statesman discovered, admiringly perusing three closely-printed columns of leading Morning Paper._ [Illustration] _I. S._ (_soliloquising_). Hah! Really reads very well, _very_ well indeed. Points neatly put, hits smartly delivered! They shan't call me the "Champion Slugger" for nothing. American pugilist, named SULLIVAN, original bearer of that honorific title, I believe. Should like to see SULLIVAN. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous--curious. _Not_ kind, always, or JOSEPH and WILLIAM--but no matter. Hm--m--m! Hm--m--m--m! Excellent! Sparklers calculated to illuminate Lewes, startle Sussex, electrify the country. Slugging and sparkling my specialities. One or two decent speakers about; "our distinguished leader" can--distinguish, at great length and with considerable verbosi--I mean eloquence. RANDOLPH can rattle, and MORLEY can pound, and ROSEBERY twitter pleasantly. But they can't coruscate _and_ crush. The power of the bolt, which at once shines and smashes, is Jovian--not Rhodian, as DIZZY once nastily suggested. "My thunder," and I'm proud of it. By the way, wonder what the _other_ "Thunderer" thinks of it. Touches a tender chord, the chord of memory. Lost chord now, indeed. But no matter, let's see. [_Turns paper._ Hm--m--m! Hm--m--m--m! Hah! _Too_ bad! "His bludgeon, or--considering his present connection--may we say his shillelagh?" Tut-tut! The Cloud-Compeller as a bludgeon-man, the Titan-queller flourishing a blackthorn like a tenth-rate Theseus, a Hibernian Hercules! Absurd! No sense of keeping whatever. "Swashbuckler," too! Nasty, and not even new! As to "beating the big drum in Sussex"--why, how often have I done it--to their delight--in their own pages! "Travesty of contemporary history"--this to their own omniscient HISTORICUS! Shows the "Champion Slugger" has struck home, though. Your hard-hitter--your fellow who smites, as the appreciative rustic (Sussex man, I wonder?) put it, "blooming hard, blooming high, and blooming often," generally scores--even in the cricket-field. I am the BONNOR of debate, the THORNTON of the platform. And doesn't the "Ring" like it? Knocked holes in the "Jubilee Session," I fancy, "Ignorant people who mistake the flush of fever for the bloom of health, the torpor of apoplexy for the tranquillity of sleep," think that blazing BALFOUR and stertorous SMITH are never "a penny the worse" for my repeated poundings. Pooh! "Salted with fire"--_my_ fire--they--not being of the indomitable race of DIZZY--will _not_ "undecaying live" much longer. I prophesy--but no, prophecy, _private_ prophecy at least, is not profitable. Don't suppose a Delphic priest, or even a Derby tipster ever wasted time in prophesying _to himself!_