endid programme, and mean to pull
through every Bill. Didn't do much last year, it is true: but don't
you see the advantage of that? If we'd passed all our Bills last
Session, must have arranged a new programme this year, involving
considerable labour. As it is we turn a handle, and there are all the
old things once more; homely and friendly; as the poet says, 'All,
all, are come, the old familiar faces.' There's the Irish Local
Government Bill, the Tithes Bill, Employers' Liability, and a troop of
others. All been brought in before; everybody knows about them; if we
don't pass them this Session they must come up again next."

"Ha!" said SARK; "so there is to be a next Session."

"Certainly," said OLD MORALITY--"and we would have another, if we
could. In fact, I'm not quite sure whether it may not be managed. We
are always suspending Standing Orders, of one kind or another. It is a
Standing Order of the Constitution that no Parliament shall sit longer
than seven years. Very good--in an ordinary way, excellent; though,
perhaps, a little too liberal in its arrangements when Mr. G. is
in power. But as you, TOBY, may, in earlier years, diligently
striving after improvement in caligraphy, have had occasion to note,
Circumstances alter Cases. Here we are, a contented Government, with
a Parliamentary majority always to be relied upon. Why disturb an
ordered state of affairs, and plunge the country into the turmoil
and expense of a General Election? Why not bring in a short Bill
to suspend the Septennial Act, and let the present Parliament go on
sitting indefinitely? Why should the Long Parliament remain a monopoly
of the Seventeenth Century? I do not mind telling you (this, of
course, in confidence) that we have talked the matter over in the
Cabinet. It was the MARKISS who first started it; and, though one or
two objections have been raised, the idea is rather growing upon us,
and I should not wonder if it came to something. You will find no
mention of it in the Queen's Speech--but that is neither there nor
here."

"I have noticed," said SARK, "that of late it has happened that Bills
mentioned in the Queen's Speech come to nothing, whilst the Session is
largely taken up with discussion of Bills which find no place in that
catalogue. Last year, for example, JOKIM's Compensation Bill wasn't
mentioned in the Queen's Speech; and yet it filled a large part in the
programme of the Session."

"Ah," said OLD MORALITY, changing th