left the office desk for the desk in office. In Britain the House of
Lords is composed of Princes and Peers, with an admixture of bishops,
brewers, and other political party pullers; it is also an asylum for
stranded political wrecks from the Lower House. Soldiers and sailors,
too, are honoured and are sent there, not as politicians, but merely to
exist for the time being in a sort of respectable retreat, before being
translated to the crypt of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's. John Bull
has made this hereditary hotch-potch, and he must swallow it. Jonathan
selects his senators to his own taste, and has them dished up fresh from
time to time.

The Senate is not sombre and sedate as is our Upper House, but
simplicity itself--no gilded throne, no Lord Chancellor in wig and gown,
no offensive officialism. It looks like a huge auction room, the
auctioneer being the deputy President standing at a table hammer in hand
knocking down the separate business of State lot by lot as put up by the
clerks.

The House of Representatives, like the Senate, reminds one very much of
an auction room. It is a splendid hall, but its size prevents Members
from being heard very distinctly, particularly as they talk away amongst
themselves, except when anything particularly interesting is going on.
In the Senate the table, and the clerks' table, are of dark wood; in the
House of Representatives they are of white marble. The American flag
hanging over the balcony gives it a semi-theatrical look, and the white
marble table resembles an American bar, making one feel inclined to go
up to it and order a brandy-smash, a gin-sling, or a corpse-reviver.

[Illustration]

The House has not met as I enter. The page-boys are playing at leapfrog,
and some early Members are disposing of their correspondence, and
instead of reproving the boys cast glances at them that seem to signify
they would like to join in the game themselves. Presently a Member comes
in backwards through one of the doorways, calling out to something that
is following him. I lean over to see if he has brought his favourite dog
or domestic cat, when a little infant in modernised Dutch costume comes
in waddling laughingly after her parent. Another Member turns round on
his swivel chair as his page-boy runs up to him, shakes him heartily by
the hand, tosses him on his foot and gives him a "ride-a-cock-horse."
Oh, you English sticklers for etiquette! What would you say if Mr.
Labouchere c