fresh under the inspection of policemen and messengers, all of us

carrying new silk hats and wearing magisterial coats. It is one of

my vivid memories from this period, the sudden outbreak of silk hats

in the smoking-room of the National Liberal Club. At first I

thought there must have been a funeral. Familiar faces that one had

grown to know under soft felt hats, under bowlers, under liberal-

minded wide brims, and above artistic ties and tweed jackets,

suddenly met one, staring with the stern gaze of self-consciousness,

from under silk hats of incredible glossiness. There was a

disposition to wear the hat much too forward, I thought, for a good

Parliamentary style.

There was much play with the hats all through; a tremendous

competition to get in first and put hats on coveted seats. A memory

hangs about me of the House in the early afternoon, an inhumane

desolation inhabited almost entirely by silk hats. The current use

of cards to secure seats came later. There were yards and yards of

empty green benches with hats and hats and hats distributed along

them, resolute-looking top hats, lax top hats with a kind of shadowy

grin under them, sensible top bats brim upward, and one scandalous

incontinent that had rolled from the front Opposition bench right to

the middle of the floor. A headless hat is surely the most soulless

thing in the world, far worse even than a skull…

At last, in a leisurely muddled manner we got to the Address; and I

found myself packed in a dense elbowing crowd to the right of the

Speaker's chair; while the attenuated Opposition, nearly leaderless

after the massacre, tilted its brim to its nose and sprawled at its

ease amidst its empty benches.

There was a tremendous hullaboo about something, and I craned to see

over the shoulder of the man in front. ''Order, order, order!"

"What's it about?" I asked.

The man in front of me was clearly no better informed, and then I

gathered from a slightly contemptuous Scotchman beside me that it

was Chris Robinson had walked between the bonourable member in

possession of the house and the Speaker. I caught a glimpse of him

blushingly whispering about his misadventure to a colleague. He was

just that same little figure I had once assisted to entertain at

Cambridge, but grey-haired now, and still it seemed with the same

knitted muffler he had discarded for a reckless half-hour while he

talked to us in Hatherleigh's rooms.

It dawned upon me that I wasn't particularly wanted in the House,

and that I should get all I needed of the opening speeches next day

from the TIMES.

I made my way out and was presently walking rather aimlessly through

the outer lobby.

I caught myself regarding the shadow that spread itself out before

me, multiplied itself in blue tints of various intensity, shuffled

itself like a pack of cards under the many lights, the square

shoulders, the silk hat, already worn with a parliamentary tilt

backward; I found I was surveying this statesmanlike outline with a

weak approval. "A MEMBER!" I felt the little cluster of people that

were scattered about the lobby must be saying.

"Good God!" I said in hot reaction, "what am I doing here?"

It was one of those moments infinitely trivial in themselves, that

yet are cardinal in a man's life. It came to me with extreme

vividness that it wasn't so much that I had got hold of something as

that something had got hold of me. I distinctly recall the rebound

of my mind. Whatever happened in this Parliament, I at least would

attempt something. "By God!" I said, "I won't be overwhelmed. Iam

here to do something, and do something I will!"

But I felt that for the moment I could not remain in the House.

I went out by myself with my thoughts into the night. It was a

chilling night, and rare spots of rain were falling. I glanced over

my shoulder at the lit windows of the Lords. I walked, I remember,

westward, and presently came to the Grosvenar Embankment and

followed it, watching the glittering black rush of the river and the

dark, dimly lit barges round which the water swirled. Across the

river was the hunched sky-line of Doulton's potteries, and a kiln

flared redly. Dimly luminous trams were gliding amidst a dotted

line of lamps, and two little trains crawled into Waterloo station.

Mysterious black figures came by me and were suddenly changed to the

commonplace at the touch of the nearer lamps. It was a big confused

world, I felt, for a man to lay his hands upon.

I remember I crossed Vauxhall Bridge and stood for a time watching

the huge black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal

of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water

below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into

mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to

the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men

toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be

controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works

have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame into the night, a

livid shivering bluish flame, shot with strange crimson streaks…

On the other side of Lambeth Bridge broad stairs go down to the

lapping water of the river; the lower steps are luminous under the