CHAPTER VII

Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies--Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--The shoeless legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Ceylon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay