is appropriate to the occasion and pleasant to the eye. It was an
indication of Mr. Lewis's character--perhaps too subtly, possibly
erroneously, deduced--that in bleak March weather he should have
breasted an angry House of Commons in a spacious white waistcoat, made
all the more aggressive since it was worn in conjunction with a
stubbornly-shaped black frock-coat and a pair of black trousers of
uncompromising Derry cut. However it be, Mr. Lewis would stand no
reflections upon his white waistcoat, and gave the new _World_ an
appreciable fillip on its career by haling it into court on a charge of
libel, which Lord Coleridge dismissed without thinking it necessary to
trouble a jury.

That was not a hopeful start for a new member. But Mr. Lewis was not the
kind of man to be daunted by repulse. It supplies testimony to his
strong personality that, whilst more or less damaging himself, he
succeeded on more than one occasion in seriously compromising his
political friends and the House itself. In the whirlwind that followed
it was forgotten that it was Mr. Lewis (now Sir Charles, "B.B.K." as the
Claimant put it) who brought about the appointment of the Parnell
Commission and all it boded. When in May, 1887, the _Times_ published an
article accusing Mr. Parnell of wilful and deliberate falsehood in
denying his connection with P. J. Sheridan, Sir Charles Lewis reappeared
on the scene, and, with protest of his desire that the Irish leader
should have the earliest opportunity of clearing his character from the
slur cast upon it, moved that the printers of the _Times_ be brought to
the Bar on a charge of breach of privilege. Mr. W. H. Smith, then fresh
to the leadership, did his best to shake off this inconvenient
counsellor. Sir Charles's proposal was burked; but he had laid the
powder, which was soon after fired and led to the successive explosions
around the Parnell Commission.

That in later life Sir Charles Lewis should have taken this precise
means of bringing himself once more to the front was fresh proof of his
courage. It was on an analogous motion that he had made his earliest
mark. A Select Committee sitting on Foreign Loans, the morning papers
had, as usual, given some report of the proceedings. But though this was
customary, it was, none the less, technically a breach of Standing
Order. Mr. Charles Lewis, availing himself of the existence of the
anachronism, moved that the printers of the _Times_ and the _Daily News_