But Mr. Morley may well bear all this, for he was able to strike some very effective blows at Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Chamberlain for a hard-hitter has a wonderfully keen appreciation and a very sensitive skin for anything like a dexterous hit at his own expense. Alluding to the favourite argument of Mr. Chamberlain, that the speeches of Irish members in the past may have been deplorable, Mr. Morley asked were they the only people who had made such speeches? They might be repentant sinners, but who so great a prodigal as the member for Birmingham? The loud and triumphant laughter which this produced at the expense of Mr. Chamberlain, was followed up by another even more victorious thrust. The Irish members had abandoned prairie value in the same way as the member for Birmingham had surrendered the doctrines of "ransom" and natural rights. Mr. Chamberlain was very uncomfortable, and soon showed it by an interrupting cheer. "Seriously," said Mr. Morley, passing from this lighter, but very effective vein. And then he was interrupted by his foe. "Hear, hear," shouted Mr. Chamberlain in that deep, raucous, fierce note, in which he reveals the fierceness of his hatred, as though to say that it was time for Mr. Morley to address himself to serious things. [Sidenote: Mr. Sexton.] So the debate proceeded during the earlier part of the week; as it neared its close it increased in brilliancy, until in the last night it went out in a blaze of splendour and glory. On the Thursday evening Mr. Sexton was the speaker. He made a speech which was two hours and a half in duration; it was in my opinion too long--I think that except in the most exceptional cases no orator ought to speak more than half an hour. And yet I would not have had the speech shorter by one second; and it is a singular proof of the extraordinary command which this man holds over the House of Commons that he kept its attention absolutely without a moment's pause or cessation, during every bit of this tremendous strain upon his attention. With the exception of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sexton is the one man in the House who is capable of such a feat. This is largely due not merely to his oratorical powers but to the extraordinary range of his gifts. To the outside public--even to the House of Commons--he is chiefly known by his great rhetorical gifts; but this is only a part, and a small part, of his great mental equipment. His mastery over figures in its firmness of grasp, its lightning-like rapidity, its retentiveness, is almost as great as that of a professional calculator. He has a judgment, cold, equable, far-seeing, and he has a humour that is kindly but can also be scorching, and that has sometimes been deadly enough to leave wounds that never healed. [Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's arithmetic.]