roposed subject that might have agreeably occupied
Committee for half an hour, when here comes the untameable, irresistible,
peremptory Mr. G., and bundles him off. At first some signs of inclination
to resist. New Chairman, having put question and declared it carried,
should forthwith have stepped away from the table. MELLOR dropped into
Chair again.

A moment of embarrassment. COURTNEY, looking critically on form below
Gangway, grimly smiled. Members under Gallery tittered. Clerk nudged new
Chairman in ribs. MELLOR sat on till, lifting his eyes, discovered Mr. G.
meaningly regarding him. Knew he'd be up again if he didn't go; so with
promising alacrity, hopped out of Chair, and disappeared from ken of House.

"Well, I don't know," said honest BILL CREMER. "Of course I don't hold with
COURTNEY'S goings-on in the political field, and he can scarcely have
expected us to keep him on in a snug berth. But this I will say, the
manners of the new Chairman may, so to speak, be more MELLOR, but, as
Chairman of Committees, COURTNEY'll be hard to beat."

_Business done._--"Ban, ban, Caliban, got a new Premier, get a new man"--in
Chairman of Committees.

_Tuesday._--"The life of Her Majesty's Ministers," said the GRAND YOUNG
GARDNER, moodily contemplating his spats, "is not an entirely happy one. I
think I may add that is peculiarly the case with the MINISTER for
AGRICULTURE. I must say, if the language, be not regarded as too
flowery----"

"The MINISTER for AGRICULTURE," I said, desiring to put GARDNER at his
ease, "would be fully justified in using cauliflowery language."

"Thank you. Then I'll say I go to bed with tuberculosis, and get up with
HARRY CHAPLIN. The casual observer is, doubtless, aware that CHAPLIN has an
eye. He sees it gleaming through the eyeglass. I feel it ever upon me. It
is no slight thing to have succeeded a statesman of the calibre of CHAPLIN.
But when he persistently sits opposite you, critically observing all your
movements with that air of supreme intelligence which more than hints that,
as MINISTER for AGRICULTURE, he was personally acquainted with every one of
the cattle on a thousand hills, it is an ordeal that calls into play all
the higher faculties of Man. As to the tuberculosis, it is always breaking
out in unexpected places; people concerned insist upon regarding me as
personally responsible for the visitation."

[Illustration: THE POLITICAL FANCY DRESS BALL AT COVENT GARDEN.]

"But," I