[Sidenote: No Tory Leader.]

The Tories ought to have at once perceived the value of the weapon which
a Liberal had thus placed in their hands. Some of them did so, and,
undoubtedly, if a man with the Parliamentary instinct of Lord Randolph
Churchill had been at their head, they would at once have made deadly
and, haply, destructive use of the opportunity. But Mr. Balfour was
away. Lord Randolph sate, dark and solitary, at a remote seat, and Mr.
Goschen can always be confidently relied upon to do the wrong thing. It
will be seen presently how he helped to save the Government it was his
duty to destroy. No; the danger of the situation came not from the Tory,
but from the Liberal benches. There are in the Liberal, as in every
party of the House, a number of young and new members who have not yet
learned the secret and personal springs of action, and who, moreover, do
not at once realize the vast underlying issues on an apparently small
question. To them the Liberal intriguers against the Government had
steadily and plausibly addressed themselves, and many of them were under
the impression that the question raised by Dr. Hunter would decide
nothing more serious than the special purpose to which one day of the
Session could be devoted.

[Sidenote: A coming storm.]

But anybody with the slightest acquaintance with the House of Commons
would have soon perceived that matter of much greater pith and moment
was at stake. The Senior Ministerial Whip is the danger-signal of the
House of Commons; and the danger-signal was very much in evidence. Mr.
Marjoribanks--of all Whips the most genial, even-tempered, and
long-suffering, as well as the most effective--was to be seen, rushing
backwards and forwards between the lobby and the Treasury bench, where,