It was particularly hard lines, after getting Clause XXVII. through last Wednesday with a majority of over half a hundred, to be compelled to recommit Bill, in order that CLANCY might chortle, and REDMOND rage. SQUIRE advised to resist; condemned from his own side when he yielded. But what happened? At quarter past ten to-night Bill recommitted in respect of this clause, and on stroke of midnight the whole thing was done with. "We Liberals," said the Member for SARK, "always know better than our leaders. As there are many of us, and as we each take our individual view, result somewhat chaotic. Good thing if in comparative leisure of week end we think over how the Budget Bill was passed, and what would have happened if we had worried the SQUIRE into going one of our diverse ways." _Business done._--Budget Bill. _Tuesday._--Enter the apothecary. It was Cap'en TOMMY BOWLES who brought him on. The last person in any one's mind. House in Committee on Army Estimates; HANBURY to the fore. Bound to live up to the 534 speeches he made and questions he put last year. TOMMY then beat him by fourteen, and promises to be equally ahead in the current Session. The CAP'EN hitherto had peculiar advantage, seeing that for many weeks he has been, so to speak, cruising in home waters. Having been brought up on legacy tax, teethed on death duties, TOMMY surprised himself and the House with the command he displayed over intricacies of Budget Bill. HANBURY then fell behind. Now, with House in Committee on Army Estimates, he can show TOMMY a clean pair of heels, a spectacle in which that eminent and able Marine may or may not take keen personal interest. HANBURY began at once raising point of order; MELLOR ruled him out like a shot; so went off on another tack. Adventured the startlingly novel proposition that "promotion should be by merit." Enlarged on the theme for twenty minutes; sat down only when he concluded that audience had fully mastered the proposition, contemplation of which was new to their bewildered mind. It was at this stage TOMMY towed in the apothecary. He appeared on the scene quite as abruptly as _Romeo's_ acquaintance in the streets of Mantua:-- I do remember an apothecary, And hereabout he dwells. CAP'EN omitted details; but House gathered that his friend the apothecary was, like _Romeo's_, meagre of looks, worn to the bones by sharp misery. This condition engendered by circumstance that he had been brooding in his needy shop, among the green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, upon fact that whilst there are surgeon-majors in the Army, there are no apothecary-majors. On behalf of his absent friend, TOMMY demanded an explanation from SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR.