DE MUSSET? 'A young man with a
great future--behind him.' There he goes."

"Don't you believe it, my Lord," I said, with the frankness that
endears me to the aristocracy. "You'll make a grave mistake if you act
upon that view of GRANDOLPH's position."

"Ah, well," said the MARKISS, a little hastily; "I must go and see
STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL about this Portugal business."

As he strode off I thought how precise and graphic remains
Lord LYTTON's description of him, written before he came to the
Premiership:--

"The large slouching shoulder, as oppressed
By the prone head, habitually stoops
Above a world his contemplative gaze
Peruses, finding little there to praise."

Sorry I vexed him.

Some disappointment at GRANDOLPH's appearance. Hoped he might do
honour to occasion by presenting himself in the attire clad in which
he of late roamed through Mashonaland. It would have been much more
picturesque than either of the uniforms in which mover and seconder
of Address are obviously and uncomfortably sewn up preparatory to
reciting the bald commonplace of their studiously conned lesson.

"He might at least," said CHAPLIN, who, as Minister for Agriculture,
takes an interest in specimens of animal produce, "have brought with
him the skin of one of those nine lions he shot from the oak in which
CHARLES THE FIRST took refuge."

[Illustration: "No gun made would carry so far."]

GRANDOLPH affects not to hear this whispered remark. It was
addressed to NICHOLAS WOOD, who, leaning over back of Treasury
Bench, laboriously explains that CHAPLIN is a little mixed; that the
oak-tree to which he alludes was grown on English ground--wasn't it
in Worcestershire?--and therefore could not afford a safe place of
retreat whence lions might be potted in Central Africa.

"There is," said NICHOLAS, emphatically, "no gun made that would carry
so far."

"Pish!" said CHAPLIN, somewhat inconsequentially.

GRANDOLPH looks across at Front Opposition Bench, and wonders how
Mr. G. is enjoying himself in the Sunny South. "Younger than any of
'em," GRANDOLPH admits. "Odd that with a general sweeping away of the
Leaders in their places last Session, only he should be left. Expect
he'll see us all out."

"Order! order!"

'Tis the voice of the SPEAKER. I thought he'd complain.

"Notices of Motion!" he calls, in sonorous voice. Then the dreary
business begins, MILMAN having all the fun to himself as he pulls
a lucky number put