France must take up her traditional rôle
(Of grabbing all she can do)
So, JOHNNY, my boy, don't you annoy;
Make room for DELONCLE, do!
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
EXTRACTED FROM
THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, July 21.—RITCHIE got another Bill through; not a measure of high imperial policy; nothing to do either with Heligoland or Zanzibar; only proposes to improve in various ways the dwellings of the industrial classes. Still, as JOKIM has shown in connection with one or two of his little Bills, it is quite possible nearly to wreck a Ministry even on matter-of-fact business arrangements. But RITCHIE isn't JOKIM, and so his Bill passes to-night, taking two steps at a time, both sides uniting in congratulation and cheers. WALTER FOSTER, rising, salutes the Minister with a quite touching bless-you-my-child attitude. FOSTER rather hints that the Bill everyone is so pleased with, is really his. True, RITCHIE'S name is on back, and he took charge of it in its passage through Committee and House. But the real man was FOSTER; his Amendments had made the Bill; he had moulded it in Committee, and now here he was to give it his blessing. Rather delicate position; sort of cracking up himself, which FOSTER would not do for the world; blushed a little, as he praised the Bill; otherwise accomplished his task with ease and grace, whilst RITCHIE, listening, twitched his eyebrows, and thought unutterable things.
"I wish," said OLD MORALITY, "we had an embarrassment of RITCHIES, or even two or three more like him."