Eheu fugaces! It is just twenty years, marked by the opening Session, since I first had the opportunity of viewing the House of Commons from a coign of 'vantage behind the Speaker's Chair. It is more than twenty years since I looked on the place with opportunity for closely studying it. But, as I am reminded by an inscription in an old rare copy of "Dod," it was in February, 1873, that I was installed in the Press Gallery in charge of the Parliamentary business of a great daily paper. I first saw the House in circumstances that might well have led me to the Clock Tower. It was in the spring of 1869. I was passing through London, on my way to Paris, where I had proposed to myself to live for a year, master the language, and proceed thence to other capitals of Europe, learn their tongues, and return to storm the journalistic citadel in London, armed with polyglot accomplishments. Even then I had a strong drawing towards the House of Commons, but desired to see it, not as the ordinary stranger beheld it from the gallery facing the Chair, but from the Press Gallery itself. In those days the adventure was far more difficult than in existing circumstances. The country Press was not represented save vicariously in the form of a rare London correspondent, who wrote a weekly letter for some phenomenally enterprising county paper. The aggregate of the London staffs was far smaller than at present, and was, it struck me at the time, composed almost exclusively of elderly gentlemen. The chances of detection of an unauthorized stranger (being, moreover, a beardless youth) were accordingly increased. But I was determined to see the House from behind the Speaker's Chair, and was happy in the possession of a friend as reckless as myself. He was on the staff of a morning journal, and, though not a gallery man, knew most of the confraternity. One night he took me down to the gallery and endeavoured to induce more than one of the old stagers to pilot me in. They stared aghast at the proposal, and walked hurriedly away. We were permitted to stand at the glass door giving entrance to the gallery and peer upon the House, which struck me as being very empty. The door swung easily to and fro as the men passed in and out, taking their turn. The temptation proved irresistible. "I think I'll go in," I said. [Illustration: OLD STAGERS.] "Very well," dear old Walter hoarsely whispered. "Turn sharp to the right, sit down on a back bench, and I daresay no one will notice you."