Joe appeared in his place swelling with visibly virtuous indignation; evidently he had come, ready to bear down on Sir William and the Government generally with the cyclone of attack.

But this notable design was prevented by two accidents.

First, Sir William Harcourt got up and explained that the notice he had given was exactly the same kind of notice that was always, and had been always, given in like circumstances.

Everybody who knows anything about Parliamentary matters knows that this was the literal truth.

The dirty trick which Mr.
Chamberlain had attributed to Sir William Harcourt existed only in his own uninstructed and treacherous memory; and so he was crushed.