Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, November 19, 1887

D-v-nsh-re House, Saturday.
Dear Toby,
I daresay you will have been expecting for some time to hear from me, and it is quite true I owe you a letter. But the fact is, I'm sick of letter-writing, which, always a bore, has of late been invested with fresh terrors. The way I am being used up by our Conservative friends is perhaps a little audacious. It certainly is quite embarrassing. Whenever any of their men get into a tight place, or embark upon a difficult enterprise, they write to me for a character, quite regardless of my personal predilections, and even of my actual pledges. You will have seen a good deal of this, including the latest production touching the Aberdeen University Election, where G-sch-n hopes to ride in on my back.
But that was nothing to the letter they got me to write about the Glasgow University Rectorship. That was, unhappily, not my first production on the subject. Months ago I was asked what I thought of R-s-b-ry as Rector, and I let them have my opinion straight. A better fellow, take him all round, there isn't in either House. Just the man to be Lord Rector of a Scotch University, if he cares to undertake the office. Since then, however, L-tt-n comes along, and with that stupendous ambition for personal distinction which I don't understand, not satisfied with being Ambassador to Paris, wants to be Lord Rector of Glasgow University. Of course they come to me to back him up,—a peculiarly hot corner to put a fellow in. It happens not only that I have published my opinion about R-s-b-ry, but all the world knows what I think of L-tt-n. Still, as the M-rk-ss says, we must keep out Gl-dst-ne from Downing Street; and so we'll put in L-tt-n for Glasgow University. A hard pill to swallow, but I gulped at it, and the letter was written. But between you and me, Toby, I felt nearer being mean than I ever did in my life, and would go a long way round rather than look a Glasgow University lad in the face.
Still, it is no new experience for me to be persuaded to do things I don't like. I'm swallowing hard pills in the Conservative interest now, but many a box I've cleared out in former days to make things pleasant for Gl-dst-ne. You've seen me, I daresay, reluctantly brought up to the box on the table of the House, patted, pushed, placed in position, and made to support all kinds of things, which a few months or weeks earlier I honestly believe I loathed. As I write I see Gl-dst-ne nodding encouragingly as I proceed. I hear the rapturous cheers of the Radicals, delighted to find me won over. I am conscious of the chilling silence on the benches immediately behind, and I am roused to more desperate declaration by the satirical cheers of my friends on the benches opposite. I recall, as it were but yesterday, the effect H-rc-rt's cheer used to have upon me—the strong temptation to turn round, publicly chuck up the whole business, and go back to the expression of my opinion on the particular topic before Gl-dst-ne took me in hand.