ritten in the French translation of _Great
Expectations_, in the passage reporting conversation between _Pip_
and _Joe Gargery_. Moreover than which, we'll put a spoke in business
arrangements of Mr. G., and stave off Home Rule by so long."

"Be careful," said PRINCE ARTHUR; "ticklish subject, you know. They're
sure to have HALSBURY up, and there unquestionably was a degree of
monotony about his appointments to Commission of Peace."

"Oh bother HALSBURY," said CURZON, to whom nothing is sacred. "He's
used to it by this time. You know what happened to the viper who bit
the Cappadocian's hide? HALSBURY's all right."

"Boys will be boys," said PRINCE ARTHUR, looking at them regretfully,
and thinking of his own forty-five years. "But perhaps it will be just
as well if I clear out;" which he did, and so missed a lively debate.

That Elderly Young Man, HANBURY, not in best form for such operations.
Lacks lightness of touch. HENRY JAMES also better out of it. Gave
performance serious turn, when he declared that in borough of Bury
BRYCE, as soon as he came into office, appointed eight Magistrates,
all Liberals. That sounded very bad; Mr. G. looked serious; some
disposition shown on Treasury Bench to draw apart from BRYCE. All very
well to talk about HALSBURY'S goings on; but if this sort of thing
done by Liberal purists, things seem rotten all round. When BRYCE came
to reply, he quietly added to JAMES'S statement of case that, when
he went to the Duchy, he found of eighteen Magistrates sixteen were
Unionists, only two Liberals. He had, it is true, appointed six
Liberals and two working-men, whose politics he did not know.
Bury Bench, accordingly, now consisted of sixteen Unionists, eight
Liberals, and two working-men. Members wondered if JAMES knew that
when he made his statement? Hoped he didn't. All very well with wig
and gown on, and brief in hand; but House doesn't like this kind of
thing in debate.

CURZON'S statement about sad condition of Magisterial Bench at
Southport, owing to machinations of an iniquitous Chancellor of the
Duchy, turned out to be not more completely based on fact than was
JAMES'S. But difference of manner in dealing with case, everything.
No one took CURZON seriously, and so no harm done. His explanation
of preponderance of Conservative Magistrates on Lancashire Bench
delightful. As good as some touches of DIZZY, of whose younger,
lighter manner, he much reminded old-stagers. It was true, he admi