A Distinguished Stranger.
House of Commons, Monday, March 3.—Old Morality, decently dressed in black, stood at table to-night, reading through the space of an hour his discourse on Report of Parnell Commission. A decorous, almost funereal function. J. G. Talbot enjoyed it thoroughly. "So like being in church on Sunday afternoon," he said. "Wish Old Morality could have seen his way to put on white neck-tie, and brought his notes bound up in black cover."
Service proceeded very well without these details. Jemmy Lowther early fell victim to gentle influence of occasion. Long before Old Morality had reached his fourthly, James, with head reverently bent on his chest, sweetly slept; dreamt he was a boy again, sitting in the family pew at Easington-cum-Liverton, listening to his revered grandfather bubbling forth orthodoxy. Up in Distinguished Strangers' Gallery sat a little boy on his father's knee. Long he listened to the gentle murmur, broken now and then by a yawn from a back bench, or the rustling of the manuscript as it was turned over folio by folio. It was a great occasion for him; his first visit to the Chamber which still echoed with the tones of his father's uncle, John Bright. He kept gallantly awake as quarter-hour sped after quarter-hour, and then, reminiscent of a nursery story somewhere told, his too audible whisper broke in upon the slumbering gallery.
"Papa, hasn't the Gentleman brought his Amen with him?"
It came at last. Perhaps none so grateful as Old Morality. Curious to note how, when beholding the welcome last folio of his discourse, Old Morality, uplifting his voice, said, "And now to——", there was a sudden movement in the crowd, a shuffling of feet, a rustling of garments, a motion as if the congregation were about to rise to receive the benediction. But Old Morality was only about to observe, "And now to bring these imperfect remarks to a conclusion, I would entreat the House to consider the great interests at stake, to vindicate the reputation of this House, and to do their duty to their Queen and Country."
After peace, the storm. Gladstone ruffled prevalent calm with a tornado of virile eloquence. Grand Old Man in fine form. If he had had the arrangement of course of events, nothing could have been more successfully designed than the contrast. For Old Morality's gentle commonplaces, his pallid platitudes, his copy-book headings strung together in timid flight after the Good and the True, here rushed a flood of burning eloquence, carrying with it the whole audience; jubilant the Opposition, faintly resisting the Ministerialists. Gladstone had no copy-book before him, only the merest skeleton of notes. These, with what seemed to the intently-listening audience the fewest, simplest touches, he informed and inflamed with flesh and blood. Spoke for an hour and forty minutes—a marvellous feat for any man, a miracle of mental and physical force for an octogenarian.
