There was, of course, much stronger reason for that little bit of consideration in the case of Mr.Gladstone, than in that of a young man like Mr.Balfour.
[Sidenote: The epoch of brutality.] But the Tories, in the new and brutal mood to which they have worked themselves up, have taken means for depriving Mr.Gladstone of what small benefit he got from this postponement of the questions to him till the end of question time.

The puniest whipster of the Tory or the Unionist party now is satisfied with nothing less, if you please, than to have his questions addressed to and answered by Mr.Gladstone himself.

One of this impudent tribe is a Scotch Unionist named Cochrane.
The Scotch Unionist is one of the most bitter of the venomous tribe to which he belongs.

Mr.Gladstone is a man of peace and unfailing courtesy, but the old lion has potentialities of Olympian wrath, and when he is stirred up a little too much his patience gives way, and he has a manner of shaking his mane and sweeping round with his tail which is dangerous to his enemies and a delight and fascination to his friends.

He took up the witless and unhappy Cochrane, shook him, and dropped him sprawling and mutilated, in about as limp a condition as the late Lord Wolmer--I call him late in the sense of a person politically dead--when that distinguished nobleman was called to account for his odious calumny on the Irish members.
[Sidenote: Baiting the lion.] At last, however, the Cochranes and the rest of the gang that had thought it fine fun to bait an old man were silenced; but even yet the ordeal of Mr.Gladstone was only beginning.