"Then," said Denviers, "their strange monarch was not disappointed after all in his sentence being carried out—only it affected his own subjects."
"That," said Hassan, "is not an infrequent occurrence in the East; but so long as the proper number perishes, surely it matters little who complete it fully."
"A very pleasant view of the case, Hassan," said Denviers; "only we who live Westward will, I hope, be in no particular hurry to adopt such a custom; but go and see if you can find out where our berths are, for we want to turn in." The Arab obeyed, and returned in a few minutes, saying that he, the unworthy latchet of our shoes, had discovered them.
From Behind the Speaker's Chair.
II.
(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)
Looking round the House of Commons now gathered for its second Session, one is struck by the havoc death and other circumstances have made with the assembly that filled the same chamber twenty years ago, when I first looked on from behind the Speaker's Chair. Parliament, like the heathen goddess, devours its own children. But the rapidity with which the process is completed turns out on minute inquiry to be a little startling. Of the six hundred and seventy members who form the present House of Commons, how many does the Speaker suppose sat with him in the Session of 1873?
