ton in Truro
(Ephraim Prescott being long since dead and Brampton a large place now),
has his vacation during the session in room thirty-six (no bathroom); and
the Honourable Elisha Jane, Earl of Haines County in the North Country,
and United States consul somewhere, is home on his annual vacation in
room fifty-nine (no bath). Senator Whitredge has a room, and Senator
Green, and Congressmen Eldridge and Fairplay (no baths, and only
temporary).
The five hundred who during the next three months are to register the
laws find quarters as best they can. Not all of them are as luxurious as
Mr. Crewe in the Duncan house, or the Honourable Brush Bascom in number
ten of the Pelican, the rent of either of which would swallow the
legislative salary in no time. The Honourable Nat Billings, senator from
the Putnam County district, is comfortably installed, to be sure. By
gradual and unexplained degrees, the constitution of the State has been
changed until there are only twenty senators. Noble five hundred!
Steadfast twenty!
A careful perusal of the biographies of great men of the dynamic type
leads one to the conclusion that much of their success is due to an
assiduous improvement of every opportunity,--and Mr. Humphrey Crewe
certainly possessed this quality, also. He is in the Pelican Hotel this
evening, meeting the men that count. Mr. Job Braden, who had come down
with the idea that he might be of use in introducing the new member from
Leith to the notables, was met by this remark:--"You can't introduce me
to any of 'em--they all know who I am. Just point any of 'em out you
think I ought to know, and I'll go up and talk to 'em. What? Come up to
my house after a while and smoke a cigar. The Duncan house, you know--the
big one with the conservatory."
Mr. Crewe was right--they all knew him. The Leith millionaire, the summer
resident, was a new factor in politics, and the rumours of the size of
his fortune had reached a high-water mark in the Pelican Hotel that
evening. Pushing through the crowd in the corridor outside the bridal
suite waiting to shake hands with the new governor, Mr. Crewe gained an
entrance in no time, and did not hesitate to interrupt the somewhat
protracted felicitations of an Irish member of the Newcastle delegation.
"How are you, Governor?" he said, with the bonhomie of a man of the
world. "I'm Humphrey Crewe, from Leith. You got a letter from me, didn't
you, congratulating you upon your election? We did
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