I guessed from her presence that Drury was about to speak; it was an important debate on some question of the hours of labour, and by this time everyone “in the know” was not willing to miss a chance of hearing John Drury.
So, when our dinner was over, I bundled my little party upstairs, saw the ladies into their gallery, succeeded in wedging the men in “Under the Clock,” and got back to my own seat, as soon as I could.
It was very lucky I did so, for I heard a fine speech, which I had expected and hoped for, and witnessed a scene which I had neither expected nor hoped for.
John Drury made his speech, and a very able speech it was, spoken with a Saxon simplicity and straightforwardness, which reminded me a little of Bright, but enriched with an amount of illustration, which showed a far wider reading than Bright’s.
In its way I don’t think I ever heard a better speech. I daresay I didn’t agree with all his arguments—that didn’t matter at all; it was a real pleasure to listen to such a speech. Its very defect, in being too eloquent for the modern conversational standard debate in the House of Commons, gave it a freshness and a charm of its own.
Drury, too, had one great secret—he never wearied his audience. He never uttered a sentence, never uttered a syllable too much. He said all that he wanted to say, fully and finely, and then he sat down, as he always sat down, amidst rapturous applause.
On this particular evening he spoke at his best; and when he sat down the applause, on his side, was loud and long. While it lasted, I glanced up at the gilded bars, which hide the occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery, and thought of that dark, beautiful face which watched its lover’s triumph, of the glorious dark eyes that widened with delight at their lover’s success.
By the time that I had sighed the little sigh of envy, which one pays as a tribute to the happy possessor of youth and beauty, the applause, which had rung out for Drury’s eloquent championship of the poor, had died away, and I noticed that a pert young member of the Government had jumped to his feet to answer him.
“On this particular evening he spoke at his best.” (Page [222])