Final Word. . .

This week's Final Word comes from Queen Victoria's favourite novelist:

"At last just as Big Ben chimed the quarter to eleven, one man whom I instantly recognised as a well-known Cabinet minister came walking briskly towards the House... then, and then only, He, whom I had known as Lucio, advanced smiling.

Greeting the minister cordially, in that musically rich voice I knew of old, he took his arm - and they both walked on slowly, talking earnestly. I watched them till their figures receded in the moonlight... the one tall, kingly and commanding . . . the other burly and broad, and self-assertive in demeanour; I saw them ascend the steps, and finally disappear within the House of England's Imperial Government - Devil and Man - together!"

The winner of last week's competition, who identified Will Hutton's The State We're In , is Mrs A. Warren of Stockport, Cheshire.