"'Mr. Chairman,'" he said, "'and gentlemen,'" and then word for word he repeated the whole speech of Mr. Gladstone from which he had made his quotation, duly introducing the particular passage which the Liberal leader had denied. Then he paused and looked across at his rival. The challenge was not to be avoided, and Mr. Gladstone bowed. He would have raised his hat did he wear one in the House, which, in the phraseology of the ring, was equivalent to throwing up the sponge. Mr. Disraeli afterwards informed a friend that, working backwards, he had recalled the whole of Mr. Gladstone's speech to his mind. Beginning at the disputed quotation, he recovered the context which led up to it, and so step by step the entire oration. Then he was enabled to repeat it from the outset, exactly as he had read it. I saw Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons on the occasion of his last visit to that chamber in which he had been the moving spirit. I well recollect that morning. There had been an Irish all-night sitting: the House was supposed to be listening to the droning of some Irish "Mimber." The officials were weary, the legislative chamber was untidy and dusty, and many of those present had not had their clothes off all night. Lord Beaconsfield, scented, oiled, and curled, the daintiest of dandies, sits in the gallery, examining the scene through his single eye-glass. Leaning over him stands the ever-faithful Monty Corry--now Lord Rowton. I sat within a few yards of them, and made a sketch which happens to be the most successful study I ever made. The _Academy_ wrote of it: "In humour Mr. Harry Furniss generally excels; but his portrait of Lord Beaconsfield on his last appearance in the House of Commons is something else than amusing--it is pathetic, almost tragic, and will be historical;" and columns of flattering notices must be my excuse for confessing in these pages that I myself consider it to be the best portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, and in no way a caricature. [Illustration: THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE.] A caricaturist is an artistic contortionist. He is grotesque for effect. A contortionist twists and distorts himself to cause amusement, but he is by nature straight of limb and a student of grace before he can contort his body in burlesque of the "human form divine." Thus also is it with the caricaturist and his pencil. The good points of his subject must be plainly apparent to him before he can twist his study into the grotesque; to him it is necessary that the sublime should be known and appreciated ere he can convert it into the ridiculous, and without the aid of serious studies it is impossible for him fully to analyse and successfully produce the humorous and the satirical. Perchance he may even entertain a feeling of admiration for the subject he is holding up to ridicule, for serious moments and serious work are no strangers to the caricaturist. [Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.]