In this letter Joe had lamented the disappearance
of those courteous manners of an elder and more Chesterfieldian time, to
which he suggested he belonged. The origin of this delicious lament over
a venerable and more courteous past by so flagrant a type of modernity,
was a statement that Sir William Harcourt had played the dirty trick of
putting down a notice to suspend the twelve o'clock rule at a shorter
notice than usual. The suspension of the twelve o'clock rule simply
means that the Tories shall not be allowed to obstruct by the mere fact
that the House is compelled automatically to close at midnight under the
existing rules. 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.
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