_Friday Night._--"What's the business at to-night's sitting?" asked SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, looking over Orders of the Day. "Home Rule all round? Very well. Shall give practical proof of adherence to principle by stopping at home." JOHN MORLEY did same, most other Ministers following suit. CAWMEL-BANNERMAN sacrificed himself on altar of country. But insisted that he might at least dine out in interval between morning and evening sitting that made last day of Parliamentary week. His snowy shirt front gave air of almost reckless joviality to desolate Treasury Bench. PRINCE ARTHUR, not to be outdone in chivalry, also looked in after dinner, brightening up Front Bench opposite Minister for War. But two swallows don't make a summer, nor two gentlemen in evening dress a festive party. TREVELYAN only man in earnest, and he terribly so. _Business done._--Home Rule all round decreed by majority of 26 in House of 230. * * * * * THE NEW CHIVALRY. ["In a case heard before Judge FRENCH at Shoreditch, the Judge remarked that the plea of infancy was not a very meritorious one. 'No,' replied the defendant, 'but it's jolly convenient.'"--_The Globe._] When, toddling along with a swell, I pretend Not to notice a shabby (though excellent) friend,-- Well, it is _not_ lofty, to that I assent, But then, "it's so jolly con-ve-ni-ent!" When a tenant has built up a business with care, And saved to his landlord all cost of repair, It may not be kind just to double his rent, Yet somehow "it's jolly con-ve-ni-ent!" If you've suffered, in polling, a "moral defeat," Then to grab each Committee and every paid seat Some might say was the act of a "cad," not a "gent"; But, you see, "it's so jolly con-ve-ni-ent!" Then your house is for sale, and, if gifted with brains, You, of course, do not mention the damp, rats, and drains Which is not what the ancients by "honesty" meant, But, still, it _is_ "jolly con-ve-ni-ent!" * * * * * Transcriber's Note Page 159: Footnote [A] refers to [www.] gutenberg.org/ebooks/30739 Page 168: 'progess' corrected to 'progress'. "FRANCIS POWELL, usually mild-mannered man, went so far as to move to report progress." * * * * * End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 108, April 6, 1895, by Various