long." When I was in the habit of visiting the
gallery some years since, it was my custom to
fortify myself at Fendall's before entering the
House. But here I am to-day, wanting fortification,
and there is no Fendall's; which
reminds me of the obstinate German shoemaker,
who clung to his shop in Exeter Change, spite
of all sorts of legal notice to quit, until one
morning he arrived with his key and could not
find his door, for the simple yet somewhat
extraordinary reason that his house had been
taken down and carted away in the night, his
stock being left for him neatly done up in a
brown paper parcel on what had once been his
domestic hearth, but which was now merely a
flat stone in the middle of a yawning waste.

Palace Yard without Fendall's appears to me
like a desert without an oasis. Where is the
weary parliamentary agent to sit him down and
rest? Where is the thirsty witness on
committees to cool his fevered tongue, or stimulate
his flagging imagination? Where is the country
constituent to lie snugly in wait, ready to
pounce upon his "member" the moment he
appears in fhe Yard? Where, indeed! Echo
answers, "Where?" for, standing in the midst
of the desert, and sweeping the horizon on all
sides, no more cheering sight meets the eye of
the weary traveller than a humble coffee-shop,
mocking his longings with a mirage of saloop.

Every year, when I read in the papers reports
of the budget speech, I am treated to extra
and special paragraphs giving florid accounts of
the "great excitement which prevailed in and
about the House." Naturally I was anxious to
see this great excitement with my own eyes.
I looked, looked hard for it, but couldn't see it.
The usual stream of pedestrians was passing
along towards the bridge, or onwards by the
Abbey into the penetralia of Westminster proper
—or rather improper—but no one turned his
head towards the Parliament House, or jerked
his thumb in that direction to express his
interest, or indicate that something momentous
was going on there. The cabbies on the boxes
of their vehicles, standing in a stagnant row in
the yard, smoked their pipes and read their
penny papers—the police and sporting department,
for a wager!—the police themselves
sauntered about leisurely, evidently sighing for mobs
to quell, and disturbances to subdue, but giving
no other indication of the great imperial occasion
than the ostentatious display of very clean
white Berlin gloves. The double row of
spectators that lined the entrance to Westminster
Hall, did not comprise more than twenty
persons. No; the only great excitement whicn
I witnessed in the neighbourhood of the House,
was caused by a natty groom, in unexceptionable
buckskins and top-boots, who took a fancy
to show off his horsemanship in a manner more
befitting a circus than the public streets. A
member of the force, sighing to distinguish
himself, had two thoughts about taking the natty
groom into custody; but, probably anticipating
some difficulty with so lively a horse, modified
his intentions at the second thought—
proverbially the best and was content to stigmatise
the rider as a nincompoop, which he was. I
do not mention these comparatively mild
incidents, with any wilful intention of derogating
from the importance of the occasion, but simply
as an illustration of the well-known fact that,
where one pair of eyes with no speculation in
them can see nothing, another pair of eyes with
speculation in the direction of business, namely,
turning an honest penny-a-line, can see a great
deal.

I am rather disposed to think that, when,
with a stiff back and an assured air (owing to
the consciousness that my name was down on
the free list), I walked straight down between
the double row of spectators at the grand
entrance of Westminster Hall—I say I am rather
disposed to think that those spectators took me
for a member of parliament. Now, I am
acquainted with several members of parliament—
I do not say it boastfully—and this manifestation
on the part of the populace did not make
me in the least degree proud. Had it affected
me in that way, it is certain that my pride would
very soon have had a fall; for, on proceeding up
the Hall I went a little too near the side-door in
the left wall, sacred to the entrance of members,
and was peremptorily waved off to a respectful
distance by a very clean white Berlin glove. If
those foolish people craning their necks at the
entrance thought me a member of parliament,
this ornament of the A division knows better.
That white Berlin glove says, in tones of tragic
command, as plain as a white Berlin glove of
that particular pattern can speak, "Back,
common person, and don't get in the way of the
people's anointed."

Now, I had no intention of getting in the way
of the people's anointed, and it was with no
design of obtaining a close view of them, nor of
passing myself off as one of them—which is a
thing I would scorn to do–that I sidled up
towards the left wall. No; I was simply curious
to inspect the old lady who presides over the
one orange-stall which is privileged to plant its
humble trestles on the historic flags of
Westminster Hall. I have always been curious
about that old lady. I have had all sorts of
theories about her—that she is a decayed
widow of a lamented and much-respected
member of the House; that she is a poor descendant
of one of the dead and gone Speakers; that she
is a favoured constituent of an Irish member;
that she was the foster-mother of the Serjeant-
at-Arms; that her ancestors sold Normandy
pippins on that spot before Red William built
the Hall, thus giving a patent of possession to
the family for all time—that she is nobody at
all, but just an old apple-woman from St. Giles's
placed there as a Spartan memento to honourable
and right honourable gentlemen, of the
vanity of pride and ambition. This last was
the theory I was inclined to adopt, when I got
near enough to her stall to observe that her
oranges were of the three-a-penny quality, that
her pippins were as dried up and wizened as her
own august self, and that the rest of the stock