“Arguing with Nonconformists.”
Lord Halsbury had retired into a monastery, to make his peace with God.
Lord Lansdowne had been suddenly called to the Foreign Office to translate some Frenchified stuff or other in the Sugar Convention.
The Duke of Marlborough was suffering from brain fever, and, in spite of the terribly contagious nature of the disease, Mr. Gerald Balfour was nursing him with all the tenderness of a woman.
His own son, Austen, had that very morning received a letter from a Mrs. Augusta Legge, of Tooting. It was addressed to the Postmaster-General, and complained that a box of fish, despatched by her ten days ago, had been lost in the post. The Postmaster-General always attended to these things himself. It was in the tradition of hard, silent self-denial in which he had himself been brought up, and in which he had brought up his family.
Under the circumstances he thought he would not call any witnesses ... something much more convincing than any number of witnesses was being prepared in the Horse Guards’ parade.
Mr. Chamberlain cordially invited those present to attend, and sat down after speaking two hours and thirty-four minutes, during the whole of which prodigious space of time he kept his audience entranced and speechless.
At the close of these proceedings, Lord Burnham came forward in his robes, his escutcheon borne by pages, and displaying as supporters, Hummim and Thummim, with the legend “Nec Nomina Mutant.” The Venerable Peer presented the Colonial Secretary with a pair of white gloves, according to an ancient and touching custom, which prescribes such a gift when a Court is happily spared the painful duty of delivering a verdict.
Mr. Chamberlain then disappeared through a little door to robe himself as a Roman Emperor, in which character he proposed to address the pageant.
