Sm-ll and B-gg-r.
Tuesday.—Lords had a real good afternoon's work. The Lord Chancellor (with his usual grace—rather suggestive of the pavan in the Gray's Inn Maske) took his seat at 4·30. Squabble about the Woman's Suffrage Bill, which, after being deferred for six months, had come up again—scowling. Lord Denman proposed "previous question," but Lord Chancellor (great tactician, but not great lawyer) suggested the matter should stand over until the next sitting. Reproach of "got no work to do" consequently removed from the Upper House.
Lords adjourned at Five o'Clock for a week, to recover from their exertions.
"Whist, bhoys, be aisy now," said Tim, in the Commons, when King-Harman was seen going to his dinner. Then came the deluge.
"It is grand, Sorr," said the only Home-Ruler who does not use an accent; "it is just illigant, Sorr; and it's myself is proud of this day."
Tim walked into the Under Secretary with "joy." He "scathed" him, and said all manner of things about him. He used, amongst other weapons his legal knowledge (Tim is a great authority upon all legal questions) to describe him as a "returned convict."
"Look at that now!" observed Joseph Gillis. "It's disgraceful that we should be ruled by a man who has assaulted the perlice!"
In the midst of the excitement King-Harman suddenly returned from his dinner. No doubt he had sacrificed, in his haste to defend himself, or rather, what the only Home-Ruler who does not use an accent calls his "Ka-rack-tare," from the aspersions of the "inimy," three courses, a dessert, to say nothing of a cup of coffee and a chasse. He drew a picture of being a lad of two-and-twenty when he assaulted the police at Cremorne. Would not Hon. Members of Home-Rule persuasion have done the same at that age? Indignant denial of the entire Home-Rule Party, who are horrified this suggestion! "Would they tread on the tail of anybody's coat? And at two-and-twenty? Look at that, now! Bedad! they would just like to get at the Under Secretary's head with a shillelagh for making such a suggestion."
And so the war was carried on, Tim's heart being at last softened by King-Harman declaring that he had saved him from ill-treatment at Dungannon at the hands of some gentlemen who wanted to show him "how to cheer for the Queen" with a stick. "I got hold of the men by the neck and hurled them back," cried King-Harman, unsuccessfully controlling his emotion, "and now he—he—he says I got into a ro—ow—ow at Cremorne."
