with considerable care and believe it to be,
in itself, a good measure, which deserves a fair hearing. I have had no
conversation whatever with those who are said to be its promoters. If
the bill is to pass, it has little enough time to get to the Senate. By
the gentleman from Putnam's own statement his committee have given it
its share of attention, and I believe this House is entitled to know
the verdict, is entitled to accept or reject a report. I hope the motion
will prevail."

He sat down amidst a storm of applause which would have turned the head
of a lesser man. No such personal ovation had been seen in the House
for years. How the Speaker got order; how the Honourable Brush Bascom
declared that Mr. Crewe would be called upon to prove his statements;
how Mr. Botcher regretted that a new member of such promise should go
off at half-cock; how Mr. Ridout hinted that the new member might
think he had an animus; how Mr. Terry of Lee and Mr. Widgeon of Hull
denounced, in plain hill language, the Northeastern Railroads and lauded
the man of prominence who had the grit to oppose them, need not be gone
into. Mr. Crewe at length demanded the previous question, which was
carried, and the motion was carried, too, two hundred and fifty to one
hundred and fifty-two. The House adjourned.

We will spare the blushes of the hero of this occasion, who was
threatened with suffocation by an inundation from the back seats. In
answer to the congratulations and queries, he replied modestly that
nobody else seemed to have had the sand to do it, so he did it himself.
He regarded it as a matter of duty, however unpleasant and unforeseen;
and if, as they said, he had been a pioneer, education and a knowledge
of railroads and the world had helped him. Whereupon, adding tactfully
that he desired the evening to himself to prepare for the battle of the
morrow (of which he foresaw he was to bear the burden), he extricated
himself from his admirers and made his way unostentatiously out of a
side door into his sleigh. For the man who had kindled a fire--the blaze
of which was to mark an epoch--he was exceptionally calm. Not so the
only visitor whom Waters had instructions to admit that evening.

"Say, you hit it just right," cried the visitor, too exultant to take
off his overcoat. "I've been down through the Pelican, and there ain't
been such excitement since Snow and Giddings had the fight for United
States senator in the '80's. The place is a