Mr. Jesse Collings has changed from a respectable Radical, with good intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous, wrong-headed hater of Mr. Gladstone and all the proposals which come from a Liberal Government. On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining that there was no care for the agricultural labourer on the part of a Government which has undertaken the largest scheme of agricultural reform ever presented to a House of Commons. This had the effect of rousing the Old Man to one of those devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he sometimes delights the House of Commons. Jesse had spoken of the proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that infested ancient buildings; the words derived additional significance from the fact that, as he used them, the Prime Minister directed on Jesse those luminous, large, searching eyes of his, with all their infinite capacity for expressing passion, scorn, contempt, and disgust. The House was not slow to catch the significance of the phrase, and jumped at it, and yelled delightedly until the roof rang again. [Sidenote: A tumble for Joe.] This naturally called Joe, pliant creature, to the rescue of his beloved friend. That, however, was far from a lucky week with Joe; he had begun to look positively hang-dog, with baffled hate. He attempted to stem the splendid tide of enthusiasm on which the Grand Old Leader was swimming triumphantly, by stating that at one time Mr. Gladstone had separated himself from Mr. Collings's proposals for the reform of the position of the agricultural labourers. When anybody makes a quotation against Mr. Gladstone, the latter gentleman has a most awkward habit of asking for the date, the authority, and such like posers to men of slatternly memory, and doubtful accuracy. I have heard several of the wonderful Old Man's private secretaries declare that they had never been able to get over the dread with which this uncanny power of remembering everything inspired them--it was awe-inspiring, and produced a perpetual feeling of nervousness--as though they were in the presence of some extraordinary and incomprehensible great force of nature. It is rather unfortunate for Joe that nature did not endow him with any bump of veneration, and that he is thus ready to embark on hazardous enterprises, in which he oftens comes to grief. When he made this quotation against Mr. Gladstone, the Old Man at once pounced on him with a demand for the date and the authority. Joe was nonplussed, but he stuck to his point.