He is a smart rather than a clever man, but has plenty of vanity, ambition, and industry, and may go far.
[Sidenote: Who said "Rats" ?] Mr.Jesse Collings has changed from a respectable Radical, with good intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous, wrong-headed hater of Mr.Gladstone and all the proposals which come from a Liberal Government.

On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining that there was no care for the agricultural labourer on the part of a Government which has undertaken the largest scheme of agricultural reform ever presented to a House of Commons.

This had the effect of rousing the Old Man to one of those devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he sometimes delights the House of Commons.

Jesse had spoken of the proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that infested ancient buildings; the words derived additional significance from the fact that, as he used them, the Prime Minister directed on Jesse those luminous, large, searching eyes of his, with all their infinite capacity for expressing passion, scorn, contempt, and disgust.
The House was not slow to catch the significance of the phrase, and jumped at it, and yelled delightedly until the roof rang again.
[Sidenote: A tumble for Joe.] This naturally called Joe, pliant creature, to the rescue of his beloved friend.

That, however, was far from a lucky week with Joe; he had begun to look positively hang-dog, with baffled hate.