And it is in connection with this point a little scene occurs which brings out many of the points in this remarkable speech, which I have been trying to make clear.

Mr.Bryce disappears from the House; then he returns: Mr.Gladstone asks him a question; the answer is apparently not satisfactory, for the Old Man lifts his hands to heaven in playful exaggeration of surprise.

The House, puzzled, does not know what it means; but the Old Man soon explains.

He had sent Mr.Bryce to the Library to get a copy of the recent Life of Lord Sherbrooke--Robert Lowe, that was--and Mr.Bryce had brought back the discomforting intelligence that the book was not there.

However, with such a memory as Mr.Gladstone's, this does not matter, for he is able to point out that an Australian Legislature had at one time passed a resolution, and agreed on a petition to the Imperial Parliament, in reference to the Corn Laws.