fare highly spiced. Wars, and rumours of wars, had beguiled him into parting with stray coppers for the purchase of "specials" and "extra-do. ;" and now such mild fare as family jars in the Cabinet failed miserably to tempt the "halfpennies" from their snug retreat in breeches-pockets.

Besides, the members of the Cabinet were continually disagreeing. Scarcely a day passed without the political atmosphere being darkened by reports that this, that, or the other Minister was about to resign. But none of them did. And so the indignant Briton began to feel that Ministers were playing it rather low upon him,* and made up his mind that the Ministry might hang together -figuratively, of course or go to pieces, or do anything else it pleased, so long as it didn't impose any extra taxes, without his troubling himself in the least about the matter.

"Hekker, sir-just out sir, sp'shl, sir!" panted a youthful but leather-lunged street Arab, brandishing a copy of the evening paper in the face of a gentleman, who, with hat drawn down over his brows, and chin on breast, was walking slowly eastward, looking nervously about him at intervals, as if he feared recognition.

66

What's in to-night, my lad?” he said, taking a paper of the youngster.

"Orful row at to-day's Kabbernet-reg'lar scrimmage, sir," replied the lad, with a grin.

"Anybody hurt?"

They don't go at it with fists, sir. Hekher, yes, sir. But old Floppy'll have to give some on 'em the kick out, or else chuck up the sponge," was the reply, given with the air of conviction and superior knowledge characteristic of people talking on a subject of which their ignorance is almost phenomenal, if any degree of ignorance could fairly merit that adjective.

"I should let Floppy know, if I were you," said the stranger, with grim sarcasm, as he strode on, leaving the newspaper lad staring at him, and whistling contemplatively as he stared. Then muttering, "I've seen that mug afore," he dropped the contemplative whistle, and resumed the ear-splitting business cry.

"So Floppy had better kick some of them out or throw up the sponge. Easily said, my lad, easily said; but the doing of it-ay, there's the rub."

"What a night for May!" he murmured, as he drew his coatcollar higher up, and let his chin sink lower down. "Nature's as inconsistent as myself, but more permanent. I wonder whether the modern philosophy is right, and that even Nature is not unconscious. If so, to judge by myself, she must regret ever having

*It is worthy of remark that this phrase, now used by the gravest writers, was, at the period treated of, considered an American vulgarism. See last edition of Pugil's "History of Modern Idioms." The distich of Drychurch (who, with something of Pope's condensed brilliancy, combines not a little of his scurrility) will be fresh in every one's memory :

"For classic phrases, like patrician clans,
Owe birth to scoundrels and to harridans."

allowed mankind to evolve speech. That boy is right; the times are out of joint. Oh, cursed spite, that ever I was born to set them right! Even Hamlet hadn't a Cabinet to tackle, where every man is for himself, though all say they're for the State. The State's for them, rather," he chuckled.

This soliloquy, which wasn't rattled straight off, but ran disconnectedly and jerkily through the mind of the Unknown but not the Unknowable as he strode along the Strand, will ere this have let the discriminating reader into the secret of his identity. Mysteries are bores and best avoided. The gentleman was Floppy himself. "Floppy" was the abbreviation more or less affectionately used by all classes when speaking of the Right Honourable Arnold Floppington.

The Right Honourable Arnold Floppington was Premier of an Empire on which the sun never set, and in the centre of which it occasionally manifested evident indisposition to rise. He belonged to a family, whose members took to politics as a matter of course. A House of Commons might have existed without a member of the Floppington family on its benches; but the experiment was never tried. He belonged to one of the two great parties into which the State was divided. He was born a "little Conservative," and as years rolled on he became, in every sense of the term, a big one. Family connections, brilliant oratory, and, perhaps, the mutual jealousies of stronger if not abler men, had made him the leader of his party. By instinct and training he was an old-fashioned Tory, but being of a reflective turn of mind, he could not escape from living in a state of doubt, honest enough, it is true, but in which his enemies did not believe there lived more faith than in the accepted party creeds. And if his enemies doubted his honesty, his friends were not always sure of his sanity. Once at the epoch of a general election, his then opinions happened by a strange coincidence to be those of the majority of the electors, and very much to his own surprise he became Home Secretary in a Conservative Cabinet. But unfortunately the Minister's opinions were constantly in a state of flux, and so he had not held office long. And now when, having by his opposition brought about the defeat of the Reform Bill of the Liberals, he had with much hesitation consented to form an Administration, he still retained his old habits of conscientiousness, and was still liable to be tossed about on the "fell incensed points" of opposite opinions. Wherefore seeing that his colleagues had only one opinion, that it was better to be in office than in opposition, the reports of dissension in the Cabinet naturally had quite enough truth in them to deprive the morning papers of the pleasure of contradicting the evening ones.

The rain having stopped, the wind having ceased from troubling, and the hats being at rest, the unwonted calm caused him to look up from his reverie. He had reached that joint shrine of Thespis and Venus, the Gaiety Theatre. The notices "Stalls full," Dress Circle full," attracted him. He smiled at the thought of the people whom he had found it so hard to govern, enjoying themselves, regardless of him and his government.

"Foolish theory of Hobbes," he thought, "that the Commonwealth is a gigantic man. In this case the head aches, while the legs dance. If the gigantic man's head ached like mine, the only dance his legs would care for would be the 'Danse Macabre.""

He was now in Fleet Street, where he would have had a glorious view of St. Paul's, had it not been for the rapidly gathering shades of night, and the intervention of a railway bridge: a piece of barbarism which we, in our more æsthetic age and with our improved means of locomotion, can hardly comprehend.

Unthinkingly turning a corner, he found himself in a side street, and paused to look at a bill displayed in the window of a public-house. From it he learnt that the "Antient Society of Cogers" held their meetings there; that the meetings were open to the public, and that strangers were invited to take part in the discussions, which were on politics. "The Antient Society of Cogers" was well known; but the Right Honourable Arnold Floppington had never heard of it. The subject for debate, "The Events of the Week-Will Mountchapel resign?" attracted him and roused him from the train of thought into which he had fallen. To hear what that abstraction "the People" had to say on the great question of the day would be a novelty He knew that in a sort of theoretical fashion, he and his Cabinet were supposed to carry out the wishes of "the People." But he also knew, that neither he nor his colleagues ever got to know at first hand what "the People" really said and thought. That only reached him after passing through many media, and being refracted out of all shape in the process.

"Haroun Alraschid be my guide," he murmured, as, without stopping to think of consequences, he walked boldly in.

He found himself in a long, narrow room, with a row of tables at each side, and another row down the centre. At these tables were seated some thirty or forty men, busily engaged in smoking and drinking. They were listening gravely, as befitted members of so ancient à Society, to a speaker who eked out the feebleness of his arguments by the violence of his gesticulations. At the end of the room sat the "Grand," whose duty it was to keep order, and see that no speaker exceeded the regulation time of twenty minutes; though when the speaker did not please those assembled, loud cries of "Time" were heard before the twenty minutes had expired It was noticeable, moreover, that those who had most to say, never took long in saying it.

Dropping into a quiet corner seat, the Right Honourable Arnold Floppington seemed to realise what he had done. He might at any moment be recognised, as his portrait figured in the shopwindows side by side with those of the fashionable beauties though it must be reluctantly admitted that it did not sell so well. Having gone so far however, he determined to see it out, and hear what treatment he and his colleagues would meet with. Hiding his face as much as possible by leaning it upon his hand, he called the waiter, and ordered a tankard of bitter. He had often dilated on the noble part that beverage had played in making the British

workman what he was; he hau, when in opposition, objected to its being taxed; he had done everything but taste it. After doing so, he determined to tell his Chancellor to tax chemicals in his next Budget.

Cries of "Time" roused the Premier from the fit of abstraction into which the People's beer had cast him. He looked up, not knowing what the cries might mean. He soon learnt they denoted that the audience had had enough of the gentleman who was addressing them, and after a peroration which failed to be heard above the din, the unfortunate debater subsided.

Scarcely had he done so when loud cries of "Floppy! Floppy!" resounded throughout the room. The Premier looked up, and felt himself turning pale, He had hoped he would not be recognised; he had not for a moment thought that, if recognised, he would be thus addressed by the democracy. He had coquetted with democracy, it is true, but he never forgot that he was allied to Conservatism. Among his many changing veins of thought, democracy had found a place. But such democratic familiarity was like to make him an oligarch for ever.

Involuntarily he seized his hat, determined to leave the place, when loud cheers following the words "Mr. Chairman and gentlemen" made him pause. On the opposite side of the room, a plainlydressed man had risen to address the assembly. The Premier rubbed his eyes. Was he dreaming? For in this man, despite the obscuring difference of dress, he saw his fetch, his wraith, his double, his living image. The puzzle was solved. This, then, was Floppy." The man's marvellous resemblance to himself had struck the habitués of the place, and hence they had playfully presented him with the name by which the Right Hon. Arnold Floppington was usually spoken of.

"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," said the man in the dulcet high-pitched tones of the born orator, "I shall be very happy to discuss the question when I have finished discussing my supper." He pointed downward to his plate of bread and cheese, with the easy grace of a man sure of his position, and the burst of laughter and applause that followed the unconventional remark proved unmistakably that he was a prime favourite in the room. The rule of the alternation of speakers of opposite politics was even relaxed for the nonce, for as no Conservative ventured consciously to precede so satirical an opponent, a Radical was permitted to act as a stop-gap till the nonchalant Jack Dawe (for such was "Floppy's" real name) was ready to charm the expectant audience.

The Premier did not carry out his resolution of instant departure. He could not tear himself away. The scene had a weird fascination for him. His eyes rested, by an irresistible attraction, upon the remarkable lineaments of his double; the features so strangely like his, but the whole face so alive with confident strength. The few words spoken by the man had moved him strangely-the same trumpet-like clearness of timbre which he himself commanded in moments of impassioned oratory, thrilled in the tones of his

wraith-and he felt himself chained to his seat by a morbid desire to hear what this almost mysterious being would say of him.

En attendant, the feeble diatribe of the stop-gap fell upon his patient ears; but they were too hardened to tingle.

He heard, as he had often heard in the House of Commons, that everything he had done was wrong; and cynically reflected that, if it were so, the doctrine of chances must have treated him shabbily. As moreover, he had, on certain points of detail, followed diametrically opposite policies, he felt there was a flaw.somewhere or other; but whether in him, in his opponents, or in Nature herself, he had never been able to determine satisfactorily. What gave him a good deal of rather melancholy amusement was to find that he was held responsible for everything, while his colleagues were quietly ignored. He knew it was perfectly constitutional, but as he had not unfrequently done little more than serve as the coloured glass through which the lights of his colleagues shone, he couldn't resist appreciating the joke. He grew somewhat more interested when the speaker touched upon his want of decision.

"If the Prime Minister," he thundered forth, "doesn't know what he wants, we know what we don't want-and that's him! Why doesn't he make up his mind?”

"If it were only as easy as making up one's face," muttered the Premier disconsolately.

"How much longer is this weathercock going to tax our patience ?"

A voice with a strong Irish brogue:

"Hear, hear! Floppy's finished his supper."

Laughter, and some confusion. The speaker, perceiving that his opportunity was over, dashed at once into his peroration:

"But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," he cried; "and if the wind which blows about this weathercock stamps the Ministry with indelible disgrace, and crowns the Opposition with victory amid the crumbling ruins of the Ministerialists, I for one will call down blessings on its head;" and striking the table emphatically, he sat down amid good-humoured applause, which, a moment afterwards, swelled into an outburst of tremendous cheering as Jack Dawe slowly rose to his feet.

Unmoved by the enthusiastic salvo to which he was probably accustomed, the man stood facing his audience, the central figure in the cloud-wreathed atmosphere, his right hand resting upon the rim of a pewter-pot, with the alcoholic contents of which he was wont to moisten his lips from time to time. The Premier, still magnetised by the subtle influence of the strange personage he had chanced upon, bent forward eagerly as though feverishly anxious not to miss a syllable of the coming speech. In the intensity of his interest, he almost forgot his dread of recognition, and he utterly missed the quaint and somewhat old-fashioned charm of the scene-the archaic simplicity of the tableau, made up of the rows of flushed, excited faces of almost every type of physiognomy, and of all ages from seventeen to seventy; the background of imitation