It was pending the division on the third reading of the Empress of India Bill that Mr. Disraeli won over this irate Irishman. The Premier was anxious to have the third reading carried by a rattling majority, and spared no pains to gain doubtful votes. One night in a division on another Bill he came upon Dr. O'Leary in the Ministerial lobby, a place the then budding Parnellite party fitfully resorted to. Dizzy walked a few paces behind the member for Drogheda. Quickening his pace, he laid a hand on his shoulder and said: "My dear Doctor, you gave me quite a start. When I saw you I thought for a moment it was my old friend Tom Moore." From that day the delighted Doctor's vote was unreservedly at the disposal of his eminent and discriminating friend. [Sidenote: A WORD IN SEASON.] Mr. Disraeli, while Leader of the House of Commons, turned the necessary idle moments of the division lobby to better account than finishing up his correspondence. In the winter months he used to station himself at a fire in one of the recesses, standing with coat-tails uplifted, in an attitude which showed that, though of Oriental lineage, he had a British substratum. As the throng of members trooped towards the wicket, Dizzy, keenly watching them, would signal one out and genially converse with him for a few moments. Those thus favoured were generally members who had recently made a speech, and were gratified for the rest of their lives by a timely compliment. Others--those in the Conservative ranks much rarer--were men reported by the Whips to be showing a tendency towards restiveness, whom a few genial words brought back to the fold. [Sidenote: MR. GLADSTONE'S HAT AND STICK.] In a recent number, talking of hat customs in the House of Commons, I observed that there are not many members of the present Parliament who have seen Mr. Gladstone seated on either Front Bench with his hat on. An exception was mentioned with respect to the Session of 1875, when, having retired from the leadership and looking in occasionally to see how things were getting on under Lord Hartington, he was accustomed to sit at the remote end of the Treasury Bench wearing his hat and carrying stick and gloves. An esteemed correspondent, whose knowledge of Parliament is extensive and peculiar, writes: "There was a time when Mr. Gladstone most ostentatiously and designedly wore his hat after the year you mention. It was when, during the Bradlaugh scenes, he left the leadership, with the responsibility of persecuting Bradlaugh, to Stafford Northcote. He brought stick and hat into the House, and put the latter on during Northcote's proceedings, as much as to say, 'Well, as you have the House with you, carry your tyrannical procedure through yourself. I am not in it.' I think all this must be in your Parliament books."