tone, joined to a skilful though school-boyish delight in dialectics,
suggested that though the name was George Wyndham, the writer was an
eminent chief. When at last Mr. George Wyndham made his appearance in
the House and delivered himself of his maiden speech, Mr.
Campbell-Bannerman--one of the wittiest men in the House, though you
would take him for a very serious Scotchman without a joke in him, at
first sight--expressed his satisfaction to find that there was such a
person as Mr. Wyndham, as he had been inclined to rank him with Mrs.
'Arris and other mythical personages of whom history speaks. Mr. Wyndham
is a tall, handsome, slight fellow--with an immense head of black hair,
regular features, hatchet but well-shaped face, and a fine nose, Roman
in size, Norman in aquilinity and haughtiness. He is a smart rather
than a clever man, but has plenty of vanity, ambition, and industry, and
may go far.

[Sidenote: Who said "Rats"?]

Mr. Jesse Collings has changed from a respectable Radical, with good
intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous,
wrong-headed hater of Mr. Gladstone and all the proposals which come
from a Liberal Government. On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely
ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining that there was no
care for the agricultural labourer on the part of a Government which has
undertaken the largest scheme of agricultural reform ever presented to a
House of Commons. This had the effect of rousing the Old Man to one of
those devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he
sometimes delights the House of Commons. Jesse had spoken of the
proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon
came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that
infested ancient buildings; the words derived additional significance