Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/624

 Mr. Ellis, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Causton, and Mr. McArthur. The Whip's department has not always been a strong feature in a Liberal Administration. In the present Government it is one of the strongest.

Why Mr. Marjoribanks should be content to serve as Whip is one of the mysteries that surround the situation. He does not want a peerage, since that will come to him in the ordinary course of nature. He is one of the personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery, inasmuch as he must be a peer malgré lui. He served a long apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless, his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have found for him office in other department than that of the Whip. But Mr. Gladstone, very shrewdly from the Leader's point of view, felt that no one would be more useful to the party in the office vacated by Mr. Arnold Morley than Mr. Marjoribanks. Mr. Marjoribanks, naturally disposed to think last of his own interests and inclinations, did not openly demur.

The Whip's post, though hard enough, is much lightened by adoption of the twelve o'clock rule. Time was, at no distant date, when for some months in the Session Whips were accustomed to go home in broad daylight. It is true the House at that time met an hour later in the afternoon, but the earlier buckling to is a light price to pay for the certainty that shortly after midnight all will be over. Even now the twelve o'clock rule may be suspended, and this first Session of the new Parliament has shown that all-night sittings are not yet impossible. But so unaccustomed is the present House to them, that when one became necessary on the Mutiny Bill everyone and everything was found unprepared. In the old days, when Mr. Biggar was in his prime, the commissariat were always prepared for an all-night sitting. When, this Session, the House sat up all night on the Mutiny Bill, the larder was cleared out in the first hour after midnight.

It is not generally known how nearly the valuable life of the Chairman of Ways and Means was on that occasion sacrificed at the post of duty. Having lost earlier chances by remaining in the chair, it was only at four o'clock in the morning he was rescued from famine by the daring foraging of Mr. Herbert Gladstone, who, the House being cleared for one of the divisions, brought in a cup of tea and a poached egg on toast, which the Chairman disposed of at the table.

Mr. Mellor is an old Parliamentary campaigner, and remembers several occasions when, living injudiciously near the House, he was brought out of bed to assist in withstanding obstruction. Being called up one morning by an imperative request to repair to the House, he observed a man violently ringing at the bell of the house of a neighbour, also a member of the House of Commons. On returning two hours later, he found the man still there, diligently ringing at the bell.

"What's the matter?" he asked; "anyone ill?"