It is part of this perpetual little game by which I am used for the convenience of others, that you get all the talk about my being Premier. I am not at all sure that I should not be shouldered into _that_ by-and-by, if it were not for GR-ND-LPH. I do not pretend to see further through a ladder than an ordinary passer-by; but it is clear to me that you can never have a Government rival to the regular Liberals (observe, I do not say a Conservative Government) without GR-ND-LPH. It is no secret that I have never hankered after GR-ND-LPH, neither liking him, nor believing in him. You know what Dr. J-HNS-N said about C-LL-Y C-BB-R. I don't exactly, but it was something to the effect that "as for CIBBER, if you take away from his conversation all that he should not have said, he is a poor creature." That is a way of putting it curiously applicable to GR-ND-LPH. If you take away from his political speeches all that he should not have said, he is a poor creature, a presumptuous rattle-trap, the _gamin_ of Conservative politics. But if I undertake the titular headship of the Conservative Party, I shall have to deal with him, and that, as they say in a circular space of which I now see too little, is not good enough. That is my present opinion. But, bless us all! I may be talked round on this point, and used by a Party as I was when I made my first appearance in the House of Commons nearly thirty years ago, and, a mere stripling, was made the instrument of turning out a powerful Government. Yours dejectedly, H-RT-NGT-N. * * * * * SUSPIRIA. (_By a Disappointed Sportsman._) The plane's broad plates of weather-beaten gold Lie shrunk and sodden in the miry way, Never around the dappled trunk to play Again with tricksy beams, and breezes bold. Night swathes the sober light in thickening fold, Like a grey moth, webb'd in a prison grey, And the wan willow to the dying day Gleams like despair, unsolaced and untold. Now from the village tow'r the bells begin Their sad-soul'd chiming, as a sullen boy Wails on in wantonness. Oh, to greet again Thames's bright Strand, his theatre-studded joy, The postman's frequent rap, the newsboy's din, The constant cab, the ever-circling train. * * * * *