Business done.—Two votes in Army Estimates.
House of Lords, Friday.—Peers not habitually given to tears. To-night the Markiss plunged them (especially Ministers) into condition of abject woe. Only said that England was the head-quarters of the Anarchist operations, the laboratory in which all their contrivances were hatched. Rosebery jumped at opportunity with intuition of Old Parliamentary Hand. Enlarged upon it with skill of born debater. Markiss saw his mistake. Hadn't meant anything; only his way of putting a case. But here was Rosebery pitilessly making it clear how the Leader of the Patriot Party had given his country away to the Paris gossips; how he had assumed a state of things which, set forth on authority of ex-Prime Minister and ex-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, would be made much of by the enemy abroad.
Markiss for once so singed by his own blazing indiscretion that he did not wait for Schomberg Macdonnell's convenient correspondent, but forthwith endeavoured to explain away his remarks. This led only to tears coursing more rapidly down Rosebery's pained face, whilst Spencer forlornly shook his beard as if it were the flag of England drooping under the shamed skies, and Kimberley dolefully dropped his head. A pretty scene, admirably staged and acted.
Business done.—The Markiss puts his foot in it.
The Two Sarahs.
O Woman, you romp in with ease!
If you're not proud you're hard to please:
Men talk to-day on every hand
Of "the Grand Sara" and "Sarah Grand."