'Chiefly to legislate for the Millennium, I think,' replied the Owl. 'They have been legislating now for a considerable time, but it hasn't come yet. It is late. We expect, however, that it will arrive when the New Democracy is in power. There has been a good deal of annoyance with the Established Church lately for not telegraphing for it sooner, and people say that but for the Church's neglect the Millennium would have been here a very long time ago. Therefore, when the New Democracy comes, it intends, as the Democrat was saying, to be mild but firm, and see if the Millennium can't be got to travel faster. And the first mild but firm thing it will do will be to pull down the Established Church of England and level it with the—with other denominations.' 'What _is_ the Millennium?' said Queen Mab. 'Some think one thing and some another,' returned the Owl. 'Perhaps we had better not discuss it; it is so easy to be profane on the subject before you know where you are. But you can hear Parliament legislating for it any day, and see people living up to it under the gangway.' 'I should like to go and see how they do it,' said Mab, 'just for once.' 'Well, so you can,' said the Owl. 'We can start directly if you like. It is the safest place in London now that the session is on, because of the Home Rulers. The dynamiters couldn't very well blow it up with the Irish members in, and it would look too pointed for them all to be away at the time of its being blown up. Make me invisible and we will go.' So Queen Mab made them both invisible, and they flew away to the House of Commons. There ensconcing themselves on a high beam, they soon forgot the cobwebs in the interest of the debate. It was a remarkable debate, and, what is also remarkable, I can find no traces of it in the Hansard for that year, and it hardly conforms to the latest rules. Sometimes I am inclined to think that the Owl must have invented it or dreamed it, but he says that every word is mathematically correct, and I know him for a most truthful bird, who never told, or at all events never meant to tell, a lie. The debate was on a Bill introduced by Government for the colonisation of the lunar world by emigration of the able-bodied unemployed, and the House was full. All the Home Rulers were present, a fact which gave the Owl a feeling of pleasant security, and members generally were wide awake and very attentive. In a brief speech of three hours the Prime Minister advocated the principles of the Bill. 'I am not what is vulgarly called a Jingo' (hear, hear!) he said finally, 'and measures of simple aggrandisement, sir, I have never been known to advocate.' 'How about Bechuana?' from Mr. Jacob Bright. 'If the rules of courtesy demanded a reply to that interruption,' said the Prime Minister, 'I would answer,' and he did so for an hour by Shrewsbury clock. He then proceeded: