House listened with impatience to this tirade, calling again and again for the division. When it was taken it appeared that 351 voted for Third Reading and 274 against, a majority of 77. Redmondites leaped to their feet and wildly cheered. Ministerialists did not respond to enthusiastic outburst. They were dumbly glad that a measure wrangled over for three sessions was out of the way at last, leaving behind, it is true, the shadow of an Amending Bill. _Business done._--Both Houses adjourn for Whitsun recess. Commons resume 9th of June; Lords six days later. * * * * * From an advertising tailor's guarantee:-- "If the smallest hole appears after six months' wear, we will make another absolutely free." It is a very kind offer, but we would always rather find somebody who would mend the first hole. * * * * * "It is an interesting fact that Mr. Gidney (Marlborough) went round the course in, approximately, 97, which is, we understand, a record for the Hungerford course, the bogey for which is 82." _Marlborough Times._ Somebody must have done it in more than this. Personally we are always good for a century. * * * * * THE MOUSE OF MYDRA. When Mr. Walford Sploshington bought Hydra House we all hoped that beyond papering and painting, dabbing on a bit of plaster where it was needed, and grubbing the groundsel in the drive, he would allow it to remain in the state of old-world picturesqueness in which he had found it. We would not have objected even if he had decided on having water laid on; although this would be getting dangerously near our limit, as there was a dear old draw-well in the garden and one in the ripping old courtyard. We were justly proud of the fact of Hydra House being the finest and purest example of Tudor architecture in our corner of England. When I say "we" I mean the Weatherspoons, the Malcomson-Pagets, Gaddingham, and one or two others, and myself. It was as near to being a mansion as it is reasonable to expect a house to be without its being actually a mansion; and there was a romance in its very name that compelled our reverence. The first owner--the ancestor in a direct line of the gentleman who, because of the increased cost of petrol combined with the Undeveloped Land Tax, was obliged to sell it to Mr. Walford Sploshington, the highest bidder--was one of those fine fellows who in the spacious days of ELIZABETH did so much towards making England what she is to-day, or rather what she was until the General Election of 1906. On one of his voyages of adventure he visited the Hydra Islands, in the Gulf of AEgina, where he became enamoured of the daughter of a vineyard proprietor. As she heartily reciprocated his affection, he married her, and, bringing her home to England, installed her as mistress of a brand-new home presented to him by a grateful Queen and country.