But Mr. Lowther, in these days, is not to be put down, and doubtless he
feels in his inner breast that wrong which has been done for years to
his talents and his services; doubtless he remembers the silence and
obscurity to which he has been condemned, while Mr. Balfour has been
figuring largely before the general public, in the very situation which
Jimmy held himself in days when Mr. Balfour stumbled and trembled from
his place below the gangway. At all events, Jimmy has determined to
revive; and in these sad days, when nothing but the sheer brutality of
obstruction is required, he is not a man to be trifled with. And so he
defied Mr. Balfour and insisted on a division. Mr. Balfour
ostentatiously left the House, but the majority of the Tory party
followed Jimmy.

[Sidenote: The pity of it.]

All this resuscitation of obstruction necessitated, on Mr. Gladstone's
part, an extreme step. Before this time Mr. Gladstone was very rarely in
the House after eight o'clock. About that hour, he silently stole away
and left the conduct of the business of the House to Sir William
Harcourt. He was thus able to get to bed at a reasonable hour, and to
attend during the day to the business of the nation. But when the
emergency arises, Mr. Gladstone is never able to listen to the dictates
of prudence, or selfishness, or peril. He was determined to show the
Tories that if they were going to play the game of obstruction, they
would have to count with him more seriously than they imagine. To his
friends--who doubtless were aghast at the proposition--he announced that
he was going to break through those rules which had been imposed upon
him by a watchful physician and by his age. At eleven o'clock he
announced he would be in the House again, and accordingly, at eleven
o'clock--quietly, unostentatiously, without the welcome of a cheer--he