bably dines at a large dinner-party. Once a session he must dine in
full dress with the Speaker; once he must dine at, or give, a full-dress
dinner "to celebrate her Majesty's Birthday." On the eve of the meeting
of Parliament he must dine again in full dress with the Leader of the
House, to hear the rehearsal of the "gracious Speech from the Throne."
But, as a rule, his fate on Wednesday and Saturday is a ceremonious
banquet at a colleague's house, and a party strictly political--perhaps
the Prime Minister as the main attraction, reinforced by Lord and Lady
Decimus Tite-Barnacle, Mr. and Mrs. Stiltstalking, Sir John Taper, and
young Mr. Tadpole. A political dinner of thirty colleagues, male and
female, in the dog-days is only a shade less intolerable than the greasy
rations and mephitic vapours of the House of Commons' dining-room.

At the political dinner "shop" is the order of the day. Conversation
turns on Brown's successful speech, Jones's palpable falling-off,
Robinson's chance of office, the explanation of a recent by-election, or
the prospects of an impending division. And, to fill the cup of boredom
to the brim, the political dinner is usually followed by a political
evening-party. On Saturday the Minister probably does two hours' work at
his office and has some boxes sent to his house, but the afternoon he
spends in cycling, or golfing, or riding, or boating, or he leaves
London till Monday morning. On Wednesday he is at the House till six,
and then escapes for a breath of air before dinner. But on Monday,
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, as a rule, he is at the House from its
meeting at three till it adjourns at any hour after midnight. After
dinner he smokes and reads and tries to work in his room, and goes to
sleep and wakes again, and towards midnight is unnaturally lively.
Outsiders believe in the "twelve o'clock rule," but insiders know that,
as a matter of fact, it is suspended as often as an Irish member in the
'80 Parliament. Whoever else slopes homewards, the Government must stay.
Before now a Minister has been fetched out of his bed, to which he had
surreptitiously retired, by a messenger in a hansom, and taken back to
the House to defend his Estimates at three in the morning.

"There they sit with ranks unbroken, cheering on the fierce debate,
Till the sunrise lights them homeward as they tramp through
Storey's Gate,
Racked with headache, pale and haggard, worn by nights of endless