Barry O’Brien, biographer of Parnell, relates a conversation in the smoking room of the House of Commons. Parnell admits, ‘I am no match for him [Gladstone] … he knows more moves on the board than I do’.
He then paused; an Irish member entered from the Terrace. Parnell, shaking the ashes from a cigar, looked at him, adding quickly, with an arch smile, ‘But he thinks he is a match for Mr Gladstone’.
Barry O’Brien takes care to conceal the identities of many of his colleagues. Was this Irish member O’Connor Power?
R. Barry O’Brien, The Life of Parnell, p.323 (1910).