Mr.Chaplin had quoted a portentous passage from Cavour to show that the great Italian statesman had declared against Home Rule.

Mr.
Gladstone was able to cap this with another passage--which, beginning with a strong indictment of English methods of government in Ireland, wound up with the declaration that Ireland ought to be treated with the same justice and generosity as Canada.

While the Liberals were still cheering this thrust, Mr.Chaplin got up to make the remark that Cavour had said other things quite contradictory of this, whereupon the Old Man--still with a smile of deadly courtesy--pounced upon Mr.Chaplin with the remark, "Is it your case, then, that Cavour contradicted himself ?"--a retort, the rapidity and completeness of which crushed Mr.
Chaplin for the moment.
[Sidenote: Cowed silence of the Tories.] When he dealt with the charge that the Government had unduly curtailed debate, the Old Man had made up his case very thoroughly, and as he read the damning indictment which showed the wild multitudinousness, the infinite variety and the prolonged duration of the speeches of the Opposition, there was plenty of encouraging cheers from the Liberal side; while on the Tory Benches they sat in dumb and stricken silence.
Indeed, throughout the whole speech, the Tories were singularly quiet.
Perhaps it was that they too were carried away by the witchery and the spell which the Old Man had cast over the rest of the House; and, while disagreeing with him, were still sufficiently wound up to the lofty and more empyrean heights which the orator reached to feel that there would be something jarring and even common in a note of dissent.

Whatever the reason, they remained uncommonly silent throughout the whole speech; and, sometimes, when one or two of the more ebullient members spoke, the interjectors got very little change for their pains.
[Sidenote: The readiness of the Old Man.] And this silence was the more remarkable in one or two of the most important passages of the Bill, for the Old Man challenged interruption.
Thus he ranged the objections to the Bill under seven separate heads, and then he proceeded to read out these heads.

They were all a perfectly faithful representation--in some cases even a repetition--of what the Tories had said; but stated baldly, nakedly, in the cold light of early day, they sounded intensely ridiculous.