CHAPTER IX.
THE END OF A GREAT WEEK.
[Sidenote: Mr.Goschen.] The Tories were not in good heart at the beginning of the week which saw the second reading of the Home Rule Bill carried on April 21st, and perhaps it was owing to this that they put up one of their very best men.

Mr.Goschen I have always held to be one of the really great debaters of the House of Commons.

It is true that he has almost every physical disadvantage with which an orator could be cursed.

His voice is hoarse, muffled, raucous, with some reminiscences of the Teutonic fatherland from which he remotely comes.

His shortness of sight amounts almost to a disability.