[Illustration: THE DOG STAR]
"Take care of the plank, Sir," I said, as my esteemed master lightly
skipped across the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying
a scythe; "we don't have many visitors here. One who looked in the
other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we've never seen him since.
Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have
reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter. It was useful to us, seeing
that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our
precise distance from that planet. For him, I fancy, it must have
been inconvenient."
"Are you serious, TOBY?" said _Mr. Punch_, stepping with added
caution.
"No, Sir, _I'm_ not. This," I said, waving my hand with graceful and
comprehensive gesture around the orb where I am temporarily located,
"_this_ is Sirius."
"Ah, I see," said _Mr. P._, glad to find himself with his foot on
our native heath; "I want to present you to an old friend, whom, I am
afraid, you have sometimes misused. TIME, this is TOBY, M.P., a humble
but faithful member of my terrestrial suite. I am showing the young
fellow round, TOBY, and we looked in on you, hearing that you had a
Parliament that should serve as a model for the firmament."
"I am afraid," observed TIME, whittling a piece of stick with his
scythe, "that we may have looked in at a wrong season. As far as I can
judge from a consideration of the temperature, and a glance round your
landscape, we are now at Midsummer--in the dog days, if I may so put
it without offence. Of course your legislators would not be in Town
just now, sweltering at work that might as well be performed in winter
weather, when, regarded as a place of business or residence, Town has
attractions superior to those of the country." "Ah, young fellow," I
said, perhaps a little sharply, not relishing his somewhat round-about
way of putting things, "when you are as old as me or my esteemed
master, you will not be so cock-sure of things. Our Parliamentary
Session begins on the threshold of Spring; we stop in Town hard at
work, through the pleasantest months of the year; we toil through
Summer nights, see August out, and, somewhere about the first week
in September, when the days are growing short, the air is chill, and
Autumn gets ready to usher in Winter, we go off to make holiday."
"Dear me, dear me!" cried _Mr. P._, "how very sad. How deliberately
foolish. We manage things much better than that down in our tight
little Earth. When we take that in turn, you will find, my good TIME,
that we burrow at our legislative work through the Winter months,
getting it done so as to leave us free to enjoy the country in the
prime of Spring, and amid the wealth of Summer. But come along, TOBY,
let's get on to your House."
"It will be no use going now," said TIME, holding up his hour-glass;
"it is five o'clock; the working day is practically over, and we shall
find these sensible dogs travelling off to take a turn in the park,
or pay a round of visits in search of the culinary receptacle that
cheers, but does not intoxicate."
[Illustration]
"Wrong again, young Cock-sure," I said; "we shall just find our house
of Commons settling down to the business of the night. We begin about
four o'clock in the afternoon, and peg away till any hour to-morrow
morning that one or two Members please. It is true we have a rule
which enjoins the suspension of business at midnight; but instead of
suspending business we can (and do) suspend the Rule, and sometimes
sit all night."
"Ah!" said _Mr. Punch_, gravely shaking his head, "we manage things
much better than that at Westminster."
Got my two friends with some difficulty across Palace Yard, eyed
suspiciously by the police-dogs on duty. One concentrated his
attention on _Mr. Punch's_ dorsal peculiarity.
"We have strict orders from the Sergeant-at-Arms," he said, "to
examine all parcels carried by strangers."
"That's not a parcel," I said, hurriedly, and taking him on one side,
succinctly explained the personal peculiarity of my esteemed Master.
"Humph!" said the police-dog. "Exactly," I responded, and he let us
pass on, though evidently with lingering apprehension that he was
allowing a valuable clue to slip out of his hands, as it were.
"Wait here a moment," I said, "till I get an order for your
admission."
[Illustration]
Absent only a few minutes; when I got back terrible commotion; _Mr.
P.'s_ friend was in the hands of the Police; they had attempted to
take his scythe from him, and he had smartly rapped one on the head
with his hour-glass.
"I've carried it a million years," he said, swinging the scythe with
practised hand, till he made a clean sweep of the police-dogs.
"Make it a couple of millions, whilst you are at it, young man," said
a sarcastic police-dog.
With some difficulty calmed him; explained that no one, not even a
Member, was permitted to enter House with a scythe, or other lethal
weapon. Only exception made once a year, when Hon. Members, moving
and seconding Address, are allowed to carry property-swords, which
generally get between their legs. TIME partially mollified at last,
consented to leave scythe behind chair of door-keeper, where the late
TOM COLLINS used to secrete his gingham-umbrella.
"It seems to me," he said, "that the public are treated in this place
worse than jackals. Hustled from pillar to post, suspected of
unnamed crimes, grudged every convenience, and generally regarded as
intolerable intruders."
"Ah," said _Mr. P._, "we manage things much better at Westminster."
"Order! Order!" cried an angry voice, and _Mr. P._ and his companion
were within an ace of being trundled out of the gallery, where
strangers are permitted to see and hear whatever is possible from
their position--and it is not much.
"What are they talking about?" asked TIME, in guarded whisper, being,
by this time, completely cowed.
"They haven't reached public business yet," I explained. "Been for
last two hours debating a private Bill, providing that the pump-handle
in the village of Plumberry shall be chained at eight o'clock at
night. The Opposition want it done at nine."
"Well, I suppose they know all about it," said TIME. "Probably been
down to Plumberry, examined into bearing of whole question, and formed
their opinion accordingly?"
"Nothing of the sort; some of them don't even know where Plumberry
is--never heard its name before this Pump-handle business came up.
Don't even now wait in House to hear question, debated by Members
with local knowledge. You see only twenty or thirty Members in their
places. But, when bell rings for division, four hundred will troop
in, and their vote will settle the question whether Plumberry shall be
privileged to pump water as late as nine o'clock, or whether at eight
the handle shall be chained."
So it turned out: In House of four hundred and seventy-nine Members
Bill was read a second time by majority of twenty-three. Division
occupied twenty minutes, which, with debate, appropriated two of the
most precious hours of the sitting.
_Mr. P._ narrowly escaped expulsion, attention being awkwardly
concentrated upon him, owing to the exuberance of his delight
in recollection of how much better these things are managed at
Westminster.
After this, public business was approached, beginning with questions.
Of these there were a list of eighty, the large majority on
exceedingly trivial circumstances. Nine-tenths of them could have been
answered in a sentence by the Minister addressed, supposing the Member
had dropped him a private note, or crossed the floor of the House,
to speak to him. TIME openly contemptuous at such a way of doing
business, more especially when, on question which appeared on
printed paper having been answered, half-a-dozen Members sprang up
from different parts of House, and volleyed forth supplementary
interrogations. Explained to him things used to be worse when
questions were propounded _viví voce_, and at length.
"Now," I said, not liking _Mr. P.'s_ crowing over us, "the SPEAKER
will not allow the terms of a question to be recited. They appear on
printed paper, and are taken as read."
"Then," queried TIME, "what are these Members putting questions
'arising,' they say, 'out of the answer just given? They don't spare a
syllable, and take up five times as much of the Sitting as Members who
put their questions on the Paper, and are not allowed to read them.
You don't mean to say that such a transparent evasion of the rule is
permitted?"
"It looks very like it," said _Mr. P._; "but it's not at all the sort
of thing that would be permitted in our House of Commons. We make
Rules, and the Speaker sees that they are obeyed in the spirit, as
well as in the letter."
By the time questions were over, following on the prelude of private
business, the evening was getting on. Members evidently tired out; had
crowded in to vote on the Pump-handle question; sat in serried rows
during the squabbles of question-time; and as soon as business was
actually reached, House swiftly emptied, leaving about a score of
Members. TIME more than ever distracted. _Mr. P._ increasingly perky.
"Ho! ho!" he said, rubbing his hands, "I don't wonder at this Star
going to the Dogs. Stop till you come over to Westminster, TIME, dear
boy, and we'll show you how public business should be carried on."
[Illustration]
Explain to them that House is now in Committee on a Bill that had at
earlier stages occupied some months of the Session, practically the
greater portion of its working time. Now Session drawing to a close;
agreed on both sides that it is too late to conclude Bill this
Session; will be dropped after another night or two; Members knowing
this, do not think it worth while to give up more time to Bill. Next
Session it will be brought in again, and if the Government have better
luck, and get earlier stages through in less time, there will be a
chance of it passing.
"What!" shrieked TIME, forgetting where he was, "you don't mean to say
that after devoting nearly a whole Session to a measure, laboriously
shaping it up to a certain stage, you chuck away all your work because
the Almanack says it's August? Why don't you, when you meet again
in February, take the Bill up at the stage you dropped it? Why don't
you--"
Here our friend's observations were brought to a sudden close. TIME
was, as _Mr. P._ subsequently remarked, reduced to the status of
a half-Timer. Angry cries of "Order! Order!" broke in on his
unpremeditated speech. Two attendants, approaching him on either
flank, seized him, and led him forth under the personal direction of
the Sergeant-at-Arms. _Mr. P._, following his friend, and endeavouring
from the top of the staircase to assure him that, "we manage these
things better at Westminster," was promptly taken into custody, and
led forth beyond the precincts, a combination of circumstances that
interrupted and, indeed, as far as my friends were concerned, finally
closed what was beginning to promise to prove an agreeable and
instructive evening.
_Business Done_.--_Mr. Punch_ and another Stranger expelled from the
Gallery, and TOBY's narrative completed.
* * * * *