essed the iron
hand within the velvet glove of the Leith statesman; little they knew the
man they were dealing with. Once aroused, he would not be pacified by
bribes of cheap olive branches and laurels. When the proper time came, he
would fling down the gauntlet--before Rome itself, and then let Horatius
and his friends beware.

The hour has struck at last--and the man is not wanting. The French
Revolution found Napoleon ready, and our own Civil War General Ulysses
Grant. Of that ever memorable session but three days remained, and those
who had been prepared to rise in the good cause had long since despaired.
The Pingsquit bill, and all other bills that spelled liberty, were still
prisoners in the hands of grim jailers, and Thomas Gaylord, the elder,
had worn several holes in the carpet of his private room in the Pelican,
and could often be descried from Main Street running up and down between
the windows like a caged lion, while young Tom had been spied standing,
with his hands in his pockets, smiling on the world.

Young Tom had his own way of doing things, though he little dreamed of
the help Heaven was to send him in this matter. There was, in the lower
House, a young man by the name of Harper, a lawyer from Brighton, who was
sufficiently eccentric not to carry a pass. The light of fame, as the
sunset gilds a weathercock on a steeple, sometimes touches such men for
an instant and makes them immortal. The name of Mr. Harper is remembered,
because it is linked with a greater one. But Mr. Harper was the first man
over the wall.

History chooses odd moments for her entrances. It was at the end of one
of those busy afternoon sessions, with a full house, when Messrs. Bascom,
Botcher, and Ridout had done enough of blocking and hacking and hewing to
satisfy those doughty defenders of the bridge, that a slight,
unprepossessing-looking young man with spectacles arose to make a motion.
The Honourable Jacob Botcher, with his books and papers under his arm,
was already picking his way up the aisle, nodding genially to such of the
faithful as he saw; Mr. Bascom was at the Speaker's desk, and Mr. Ridout
receiving a messenger from the Honourable Hilary at the door. The
Speaker, not without some difficulty, recognized Mr. Harper amidst what
seemed the beginning of an exodus--and Mr. Harper read his motion.

Men halted in the aisles, and nudged other men to make them stop talking.
Mr. Harper's voice was not loud, and it shook a tr