Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/267

 bent upon vindicating the right of a private member to interpose when the constituted authorities of the House had agreed in the opinion that a debate had been continued long enough. A roar of execration from the fagged legislators greeted the intruder. He expected this, and was in no degree perturbed. In earliest practice he had a way of dropping his eye-glass as if startled by the uproar, and searched for it with puzzled, preoccupied expression, apparently debating with himself what this outburst might portend. He did not love the British House of Commons, and delighted in thwarting its purposes. But he knew what was due to it in the way of respect, and, however angry passions might rise, however turbulent the scene, he would never address it looking upon it with the naked eye. As his eyeglass was constantly tumbling out, and as search for it was preternaturally deliberate, it played an appreciable part in the prolongation of successive Sessions.

What has become of Frank Hugh now, I wonder? Vanishing from the House of Commons, he reappeared for a while on the scene, characteristically acting the part of the petrel that heralded the storm Mr. Pigott ineffectively tried to ride. It must be a consolation to Mr. O'Donnell, in his retirement, wherever it is passed, to reflect on the fact that it was he who directly brought about the appointment of the Parnell Commission, with all it effected. His action for libel brought against the Times preluded and inevitably led up to the formal investigation of the famous Charges and Allegations.

The member for Dungarvan was, in his day, the most thoroughly disliked man in the House of Commons, distaste for Mr. Parnell and for Mr. Biggar in his early prime being softened by contrast with his subtler provocation. An exceedingly clever debater, he was a phrase maker, some of whose epigrams Mr. Disraeli would not have disowned. He was a parliamentary type of ancient standing, and apparently ineradicable growth. In the present House of Commons fresh developments are presented by Mr. Seymour Keay and Mr. Morton. These are distinct varieties, but from the unmistakable root. Both are gifted with boundless volubility, unhampered by ordinary considerations of coherency and cogency. Neither is influenced by that sense of the dread majesty of the House of Commons which keeps some members dumb all through their parliamentary life, and to the last, as in the case of Mr. Bright, weighs upon even great orators. The difference between the older and the new development is that whilst over Mr. O'Donnell's intentional and deliberate vacuity of speech there gleamed frequent flashes of wit, Mr. Morton and Mr. Keay are only occasionally funny, and then the effect was undesigned.

Since we have these two gentlemen still with us, it would be rash to say that if Mr. O'Donnell could revisit the glimpses of Big Ben he would find his occupation gone. He would certainly discover that his opportunities had