PELLY pensive in manner and enigmatical in allusion; felt it particularly hard thus to be placed in the dock, as if he were an Irish County Councillor under Prince ARTHUR's new Bill. Only last Friday, in debate preceding the very Division now under discussion, he had delivered an Address which disclosed intimate acquaintance with topographical bearings of rarely trodden wilds in Central Africa. Had shown how an Agent of East Africa Company, setting forth from So-and-so, had, after perilous passage, reached So-on. After a night of broken rest, his pillow soothed by the roar of GRANDOLPH's nine lions, he had set out again. Crossing the River So-forth he wandered for hours, carrying the flag of his country through the limitless plains of Etcetera.
House listened entranced, whilst PELLY hurried them from So-on to So-forth.
"Excellent speech," said the SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, himself not unfamiliar with land-surveying; "but the country seems a little monotonously named."
"It's not that," cried PELLY, interrupting; "the fact is, I can't pronounce the names in the despatches, and call them So-on."
House delighted with this explanation; PELLY found himself at one bound in front rank of Parliamentary orators. This only last Friday; to-day called upon to defend himself from charge of breaking written law of Parliament. Bad this, but worse to come. When PELLY's pensive voice died away, COURTNEY rose from Chair and sternly said, "In accordance with practice of the House, the three Hon. Members will now withdraw." So they strode forth, clothed with innocence. PULESTON first, with ghastly smile on his face; BURDETT-COUTTS next, wondering what they would think of this in Stratton Street; PELLY bringing up the rear, the forlornest file that ever passed between ranks of jeering spectators, slowly making their way from So-on to So-forth. _Business done._--None.
[Illustration: The Salvationist Solicitor-General.]
_Thursday._--"The Leadership isn't all beer and skittles, is it?" I said to Prince ARTHUR just now, trying to put the best face on a melancholy business.
"No," he said, shortly, "and it isn't public business at all."
Quite true. What officers in command of sham-fights call "the general idea" of the Sitting to-night, was--questions beginning at half-past three; over probably at four; House in Committee; take up Army Estimates; peg away at them till midnight; then "Who goes home?" Time-table of what actually took place slightly, but firmly different. House met at three; prayers, which appropriately prefaced HENRY FOWLER's motion to permit Salvation Army to go its own way on quiet Sabbaths at Eastbourne. Debated this till twenty minutes past six, the SOLICITOR-GENERAL heartily joining in the service; then questions, seventy or eighty of them, not seven or eight of public interest, the rest of character that might be raised on dull days in Vestry-hall.