your eyes
become a little used to the mist of the place, and the glare of the
chandeliers below you, you will see that some unimportant personage on
the Ministerial side of the House (to your right hand) is speaking,
amidst a hum of voices and confusion which would rival Babel, but for the
circumstance of its being all in one language.

The 'hear, hear,' which occasioned that laugh, proceeded from our warlike
friend with the moustache; he is sitting on the back seat against the
wall, behind the Member who is speaking, looking as ferocious and
intellectual as usual. Take one look around you, and retire! The body
of the House and the side galleries are full of Members; some, with their
legs on the back of the opposite seat; some, with theirs stretched out to
their utmost length on the floor; some going out, others coming in; all
talking, laughing, lounging, coughing, oh-ing, questioning, or groaning;
presenting a conglomeration of noise and confusion, to be met with in no
other place in existence, not even excepting Smithfield on a market-day,
or a cock-pit in its glory.

But let us not omit to notice Bellamy's kitchen, or, in other words, the
refreshment-room, common to both Houses of Parliament, where
Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals, Peers,
and Destructives, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured
strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where
divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining
during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature
comforts; and whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House is
on the point of dividing; either to give their 'conscientious votes' on
questions of which they are conscientiously innocent of knowing anything
whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance of their
wine-inspired fancies, in boisterous shouts of 'Divide,' occasionally
varied with a little howling, barking, crowing, or other ebullitions of
senatorial pleasantry.

When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present
temporary House of Commons, leads to the place we are describing, you
will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand, with tables
spread for dining. Neither of these is the kitchen, although they are
both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to our left,
up these half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase, however, we
must reque