and boy for forty years; seen him in divers moods; watched him through
various occupations. These have been so many that I have had time to
forget he was once Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was, and
upon my word, listening to him to-night, and knowing something
about figures myself, I believe he would have made a splash at the
Treasury."

[Illustration: Genial George.]

JOKIM doesn't enjoy performance quite so much as GENIAL GEORGE. Oddly
enough, Budget Night, which ought to be the apex of comfort and
glory for CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, is with him ever the season of
tribulation. House of Commons is, regarded as audience, always at its
best on Budget Night. Will laugh immoderately at feeblest joke
uttered by CHANCELLOR; cheers to the echo his moral sentiments; sits
enraptured when he soars into eloquence; and is undisguisedly grateful
when he has completed his peroration. JOKIM'S muddle of Thursday
night made the best of. Opposition silenced by promised legislation
establishing Free Education. Everything in sunshine-glow of
prosperity. Thought JOKIM might keep some of the sunbeams for himself.
Then comes HARCOURT with the abhorrëd shears of facts and figures,
and slits the thin-spun web of JOKIM'S ingenious fancy; shows that,
instead of a surplus, he has, when honest arithmetic is set to work, a
deficit; instead of increasing the rate of reduction of National Debt,
he has done less in that direction than his predecessors; and that
whilst expenditure on Army and Navy has exceeded any figures reached
by former Chancellors of the Exchequer, the floating debt is ever
growing.

JOKIM sits on Treasury Bench affecting the virtue of a smile though