Those who are accustomed to the Old Man are in the habit of noting a few premonitory signs which will always pretty well forecast the kind of speech he will make.

If he starts up flurried and excited, it is ten chances to one that the speech will not remain vigorous to the end; that there will be a break of voice and a weakening of strength, and that the close will not be equal to the opening.

But when the voice is cold--though full of a deep underswell at the moment of starting--when Mr.Gladstone moves his body with the easy grace of perfect self-mastery, then the House is going to have an oratorical treat.

So it was in this initial speech.

There was just a touch of hoarseness in the voice, but it had a fine roll, the roll of the wave on a pebbly beach in an autumn evening; and he carried himself so finely and so flauntingly that there was no apprehension of anything like a loss or a waste of strength.
[Sidenote: A pounce.] At once he pounced on a passage in the speech of Mr.Balfour, who had made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the disintegration and destruction of empires.