"It was a base Saxon trick!" roared the infuriated Member for Cork County. "On a par with the mane, dirty doings of puppets and spalpeens like the Mimbers opposite." "Order! order!" cried the Speaker. "The hon. Member must withdraw that expression." "I'll not withdraw anything except by adding that they're all liars on the Tory benches." "The hon. Member must withdraw." The Doctor "exits" with a flourish, glares at the Conservative benches below the gangway, and hisses at them: "Better order a ton of plaster, for you'll want it after I meet ye outside." Mr. Labouchere and two or three Irish Members rise at once. My neighbour sneers. "Oh, sit down, ye rubbishy lot! Labby,--better keep yer jokes for yer paper. Bless me if Conybeare ain't left standing! Now for an hour of boredom." "He _is_ a bore," I remark. "Yes, I've stood Kenealy and Wharton, but this bore I can't. I'll chuck it up. Kenealy did his best for the Claimant, and was amusing at times; and Wharton,--well, he had good snuff, and his hat was a treat; but this Conybeare is a bore and nothing else." So he went on. The "descendant of kings," Sir William Harcourt, rose to pulverise Torydom and put an end to the Government and everything in general, when the Speaker rose and said that the question before the House was whether black sticking-plaster could be used in public hospitals. "Oh, that's right, he wants putting down; too much of the grand Old Bailey style. Make yer fortune in plush and knee breeches as a prize flunkey; platform stuff won't do for us. What are you?" I feel smaller! "_Punch._" "You take Harcourt off with the chins?" "Yes." "Shake hands!" We were friends ever afterwards. [Illustration: "I FEEL SMALLER!"] One day when I arrived,--actually with my Gallery ticket,-a fresh pleasant official sat in my old friend's place, wearing his gold chain and badge. "Should this meet the eye" of his predecessor, soliloquising in the retirement of his suburban home, I trust it will not disturb the serenity of his well-earned repose, for he was a capital fellow, and I can answer for much good sense in his "official utterances." If a politician were not a caricature by nature, I made him one. Mr. Gladstone's collar I invented--for the same reason a journalistic friend of mine invented Beaconsfield's champagne jelly--for "copy." When Members suggested nothing new, I turned my attention to officials. The Sergeant-at-Arms in that way became known as the "Black Beetle." I watched Captain Gosset from the Press Gallery walk up the floor of the House in court dress, his knee-breeches showing off his rather bandy legs, elbows akimbo, and curious gait; his back view at once suggested the beetle, and as the Black Beetle he was known. This, I was assured, gave offence, so that I was rather anxious to see how I should be greeted when Professor Thorold Rogers took me into the Sergeant's presence, after I had been drawing him as the "Beetle" for some time.