"The gentleman from Leith, Mr. Crewe."

As though sensing a drama, the mutterings were hushed once more. Mr.
Jacob Botcher leaned forward, and cracked his seat; but none, even those
who had tasted of his hospitality, recognized that the Black Knight had
entered the lists--the greatest deeds of this world, and the heroes of
them, coming unheralded out of the plain clay. Mr. Crewe was the calmest
man under the roof as he saluted the Speaker, walked up to the clerk's
desk, turned his back to it, and leaned both elbows on it; and he
regarded the sea of faces with the identical self-possession he had
exhibited when he had made his famous address on national affairs. He
did not raise his voice at the beginning, but his very presence seemed
to compel silence, and curiosity was at fever heat. What was he going to
say?

"Gentlemen of the House," said Mr. Crewe, "I have listened to the
gentleman from Putnam with some--amusement. He has made the statement
that he and his committee are giving to the Pingsquit bill and other
measures--some other measures--their undivided attention. Of this I have
no doubt whatever. He neglected to define the species of attention he is
giving them--I should define it as the kindly care which the warden of a
penitentiary bestows upon his charges."

Mr. Crewe was interrupted here. The submerged four hundred and seventy
had had time to rub their eyes and get their breath, to realize that
their champion had dealt Mr. Bascom a blow to cleave his helm, and a
roar of mingled laughter and exultation arose in the back seats, and
there was more craning to see the glittering eyes of the Honourable
Brush and the expressions of his two companions-in-arms. Mr. Speaker
Doby beat the stone with his gavel, while Mr. Crewe continued to lean
back calmly until the noise was over.

"Gentlemen," he went on, "I will enter at the proper time into a
situation--known, I believe, to most of you--that brings about a
condition of affairs by which the gentleman's committee, or the
gentleman himself, with his capacious pockets, does not have to account
to the House for every bill assigned to him by the Speaker. I have taken
the trouble to examine a little into the gentleman's past record--he
has been chairman of such committees for years past, and I find no trace
that bills inimical to certain great interests have ever been reported
back by him. The Pingsquit bill involves the vital principle of
competition. I have read it