ts, and coachmen and police were waiting patiently, knowing that with
the Twelve o'clock Rule suspended the length of the sitting was quite
uncertain.  Wearied journalists from the Press Gallery, having finished
their "turns," came out singly or in pairs from their own little side
door in the opposite corner of the yard, wished a cheery "good-night" to
the portly sergeant and the two idling detectives who acted as janitors,
and then hurried on through the chill night over the bridge towards
their homes in Brixton or Clapham.  An autumn session is a weary one,
and weighs quite as heavily upon the Parliamentary journalist as upon
the Leader of the House himself.

On the floor of the House honourable members might stretch themselves
and doze; they might wander about St. Stephen's Hall with prominent
constituents who sought admission to the Strangers' Gallery, entertain
them in the dining-room, or take their ease across the way at St.
Stephen's Club, ready to return by the underground passage on the
ringing of the division-bell; but that gallery above the Speaker, the
eye and ear of the world, was never anything else but a hive of industry
from the moment after prayers until the House rose.  Ever watchful, ever
scribbling its hieroglyphics and deciphering them; ever covering ream
upon ream of paper with the verbose and vapid utterances of ambitious
but unimportant members, its telegraphs clicked on incessantly hour
after hour, transmitting reports of the business accomplished to the
farthermost recesses of the King's Empire.  Truly, a strange life is
that of both legislator and journalist within those sombre walls at
Westminster.

On this night a full House was occupied with serious business.  Within
St. Stephen's men collected in groups, talked anxiously, and awaited the
doom of the Government; for the political horizon was black, and the
storm, long threatened, was now to burst.  Contrary to the usual course
of things, the small band of Irish obstructionists, fluent orators,
whose heckling of Ministers caused so ma