Time after time--again and again--in this form and in that--the Tories,
young and old, experienced and senseless, rose to try and corner Mr.
Gladstone. Mr. Frank Lockwood, examining a hostile witness in the
divorce court, could not have been more persistent than the Lowthers,
and the Cranbornes, and even Mr. Balfour. But he was equal to them
all--met them man after man, question after question, and, though he had
to be on his feet a score of times in the course of a few minutes, was
always ready, firm, alert. How we enjoyed the whole splendid display--a
brilliant intellect playing with all the ease of its brightest and best
powers; but, after all, what a flood of holy rage the whole thing was
calculated to rouse in any but rancorous breasts. However, we had our
revenge. The resurgence of Jimmy Lowther seems to be a phenomenon, as
disturbing to his friends as to his foes. The ugly necessity for sharing
responsibility for his vulgar and senseless excesses has come home to
Mr. Balfour. There was something very like a scene this night between
him and the Newmarket steward. Mr. Balfour was ready to accept the
assurances which had been given to him by Mr. Gladstone--assurances
which, if anything, erred on the side of conciliation--but Jimmy has
entered on the frenzied campaign of obstruction to all and everything
which his dull, narrow, and obstinate mind has mistaken for high policy.
This led to a strange and striking scene. Mr. Balfour, speaking on some
question, was interrupted by Mr. Lowther--and then, in front of the
whole House--in words which everybody could hear, with gesture of his
whole arm--sweeping, indignant, irritated--the gesture with which a
master dismisses an importunate servant--the Tory leader rebuked the
interruptions of Mr. Lowther.

[Sidenote: Jimmy flouts Mr. Balfour.]