ears do not allow him to perceive so plainly the rude noises and interruptions by which he is often assailed from the Tory Benches.  Moreover, the native chivalry of his disposition, the curious simplicity which has remained his central characteristic, in spite of all the experiences of the baser side of human nature which must have been crowded into all that half a century of official and Parliamentary life—­that unwillingness to see anything but deplorable error in his most rancorous, meanest, and most malignant opponent—­all these things make it difficult for him to understand the ugly realities whose serpent heads show themselves plainly to almost every other eye but his.

There is a dispute among the authorities as to the incidents of that Thursday night—­some, even among those friendly to the Prime Minister, declaring that there was nothing unusual in the interruptions of that night.  My own recollection is clear that there was a great deal of noise, and that it was so bad that Mr. Chamberlain tried to explain it away, and was careful to absolve himself and his friends from all responsibility for it.  In the general body of the Liberal party there is no doubt whatsoever about that business.  Liberal after Liberal came up to me afterwards, in allusion to a few remarks I felt it my duty to make, to declare their entire agreement with the view I had put forward—­that the description of the Daily News, though consciously and obviously written in the vein of parody, was a fair and just description of what had taken place.  Sir Henry Roscoe is not an excitable politician, though no man holds to the Liberal faith more firmly.  He was met on the following Sunday by a friend, and when asked how he viewed the situation, declared that he was rather “low!” Why? he was asked.  Because his heart was saddened and enraged by the treatment of the splendid Old Man by Mr. Chamberlain and the Tories.  To a leading Liberal Minister, two Tories privately declared that their pain and shame and disgust with the conduct of their own side to Mr. Gladstone was so profound, that they had to get up and leave the House to control their feelings.

[Sidenote:  A complex situation.]

When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain came forward with his audacious complaint, this was the curious situation:  that the bulk of the Liberal party, and many even of their opponents, were convinced that the comments of the Daily News were more than justified.  The frantic cheers with which each successive sentence of the scathing attack in the description was punctuated by the Liberal and Irish Benches, as Joe, with affected horror, read them out, sufficiently indicated what they thought.  And, on the other hand, the man in whose defence this reply to his assailants was made was just as convinced that his enemies had been unjustly assailed, and that he himself had been well and courteously treated.  In such a situation it was just possible that Mr. Chamberlain would escape