_Friday_, 12.10 A.M.--Not quite so well as it looked when House met at three o'clock yesterday afternoon. Ministerialists then in state of trepidation; Ministers assuming air of resignation. Odds distinctly in favour of defeat of Government. HENRY FOWLER, formally recognising situation, had declared they were prepared for the worst. Somehow things got mixed; explosion took place as arranged; gun-cotton went off with genial roar; but it was HENRY JAMES blown into the air, and with him JOEY C. 109 Members mustered under new Opposition Leadership; 304 going with Ministers. Majority, 195. "Glad I didn't engage the messenger with a wooden leg," said HENRY JAMES with deepened gloom. "Awful to have a man of that kind going stamping through a quiet thoroughfare in the dead of the night carrying news of Government majority of a trifle under 200. Wish PRINCE ARTHUR would stick to his post and not take colds at such inconvenient seasons." _Business done._--HENRY JAMES and JOEY C. go out to shear and come back shorn. _Friday_, 8 P.M.--House counted out. Members gone home in state of hair-bristling perturbation. BRUNNER brought under notice of SPEAKER circumstances attendant upon mysterious disappearance of JOEY C. last night. When House cleared for division on JAMES'S motion, JOE seen to leave and go into Lobby. Thereafter all trace lost of him. Name does not appear in division list. Witnesses report he was seen endeavouring to induce SERJEANT-AT-ARMS to unlock door and let him pass through. SERJEANT incorruptible, inflexible. JOSEPH turned back and straightway lost to human ken. "When I was a lad," says WILFRID LAWSON, "I used to be baffled by inquiry, 'Where was MOSES when the candle went out?' That a plain proposition compared with this new one, 'Where was JOSEPH when the division was taken?'" House faced by mystery could not set itself down to business. Something uncanny about the place. Accordingly got itself counted out at eight o'clock. _Business done._--Second reading of London Waterworks Bill carried. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 108, March 2nd 1895, by Various