of
something which he was evidently not over anxious to find. Alighting at
last on the object of this perfunctory search he produced an eyeglass
and, still with closed eyes, he lifted the skirt of his coat and
polished the glass upon its silken lining. It began to occur to Mr
Disraeli's patron that all this slow pantomime was in some way directed
to his address. The House waited, with here and there a rather nervous
expectant laugh. The Labour member, who was originally thrown abroad in
his usual pompous fashion, began to shrivel. His widely-extended arms,
which had been stretched along the top of the bench on which he sat,
crept closer and closer to his sides. He shrank, he dwindled, he wilted
like a leaf on a hot stove, and when Disraeli finally screwed his glass
into his eye and, after surveying him for two or three dreadful seconds,
allowed the glass to fall and resumed his speech at the very word at
which he had broken off, the patron of the House was an altogether
abject figure. The assembly literally rocked with laughter and Mr Burt's
colleague never, never, never ventured to pat Mr Disraeli on the back
again.

It does not fall to the lot of every self-sufficient ass who finds
himself returned to Parliament and who imagines that he can at once make
a figure in that assembly to learn his place in so abrupt a fashion, but
there is no gathering in the world in which a man so inevitably finds
his proper level. Poor Dr Kenealy had gifts enough to have carried him
to a high place almost anywhere, but unfortunately for himself he came
into the House in a mood of passionate defiance against the world. He
chose to defy the rules of the Assembly at its very threshold. It has
been the custom from time immemorial for a new member to be introduced
by two gentlemen who are already officially known to Mr Speaker. I
happened to be in the box apportioned to the _Daily News_ when the
Doctor attempted to evade this rule and to present himself before the
Speaker without the customary credentials. He was of course forbidden to
enter and after some unseemly altercation outside the bar, two members
were found to volunteer to introduce him. He marched up the House with
his umbrella in one hand and the certificate of the Returning Officer
in the other, his eyes flashing a quite unnecessary defiance, poor
gentleman, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, and his whole figure placed
as if for instant combat. It was probably by an inadvertence tha