ur
neighbours. Such circumstances preceding by some twenty-four hours my
rising in the Commons, are calculated to make JOKIM sit up."

[Illustration: Waiting!]

Calculation on this occasion somewhat astray. Rather hard to sit up
all the way through the Squire's speech; an hour and a half long;
bristling with figures; mellifluous with millions, throbbing with
thousands. The Squire is in peculiar degree dependent for success upon
mood of his audience. In crowded House, Members cheering, laughing,
or, if you please, jeering and howling, the Squire improves with every
five minutes of his Speech. To-night House not a quarter full; those
present depressed with consciousness that no real fight meant; Mr. G.
sat it out with some intervals of suspicious quietude. HENRY FOWLER
also faithful found; sitting with folded arms waiting for the time
when a new Chancellor of the Exchequer shall find opening made for
him on a newly-arranged Treasury Bench.

Only JOKIM really listened; nervous, restless, murmuring comment,
muttering contradiction, clutching at himself with strange gestures
reminiscent of hereditary instinct to rend his garments in moments of
tribulation. That was something in recompense for the meditations of
yesterday morning. But as one swallow does not make a summer, neither
does one Minister, however unhappy under criticism, make an audience.
JOKIM followed with a speech scrupulously measured as to length by
that of the Squire's; through the dead unhappy night the rain of talk
fell on the roof, and everyone was glad when midnight, slowly coming,
struck.

_Business done._--Budget Resolutions agreed to.

_Tuesday._--Small Holdings Bill through Committee. Last clause added
amid buzz of admiration from a not too full House.

[Illustration: "In rapt admiration!"]

HAMLEY looked on in rapt admiration.

JESSE COLLINGS rose up and called CHAPLIN blessed.

"Not at all," said CHAPLIN, blushing; "as my friend TOOLE says from
the deck of the Houseboat, anyone could do it."

"The fact is, TOBY," CHAPLIN whispered to me a little later, as we sat
on the Terrace sharing a bottle of gingerbeer imbibed through a couple
of straws, "I've really done a clever thing, only those fellows don't
quite see it. Here we've been for a week pegging away at this Bill,
bargaining and bickering. Sometimes I've yielded a trifle to the
Opposition; sometimes I haven't. But it's pretty much all the same in
the end. The Act will look very well