a busy winter stretched
before him. Morton Bassett's hand lay heavily upon the legislature; the
young man had never realized until he took his seat in the lower house
how firmly Bassett gripped the commonwealth. Every committee appointment
in both houses had to be approved by the senator from Fraser. Dan's
selection as chairman of the committee on corporations both pleased and
annoyed him. He would have liked to believe himself honestly chosen by
the speaker on the score of fitness; but he knew well enough that there
were older men, veteran legislators, more familiar with the state's
needs and dangers, who had a better right to the honor. The watchful
"Advertiser" had not overlooked his appointment. On the day the
committees were announced it laid before its readers a cartoon depicting
Bassett, seated at his desk in the senate, clutching wires that radiated
to every seat in the lower house. One desk set forth conspicuously in
the foreground was inscribed "D.H." "The Lion and Daniel" was the tag
affixed to this cartoon, which caused much merriment among Dan's friends
at the round table of the University Club.

Miss Bassett's debut was fixed for Washington's Birthday, and as Mrs.
Owen's house had no ballroom (except one of those floored attics on
which our people persist in bestowing that ambitious title) she decided
that the Propylaeum alone would serve. Pray do not reach for your
dictionary, my friend! No matter how much Greek may have survived your
commencement day, you would never know that our Propylaeum (reared by the
women of our town in North Street, facing the pillared facade of the
Blind Institute) became, on its completion in 1890, the centre of our
intellectual and social life. The club "papers" read under that roof
constitute a literature all the nobler for the discretion that reserves
it for atrabilious local criticism; the later editions of our _jeunesse
doree_ have danced there and Boxed and Coxed as Dramatic Club stars on
its stage. "Billy" Sumner once lectured there on "War" before the
Contemporary Club, to say nothing of Mr. James's appearance (herein
before mentioned), which left us, filled with wildest surmise, on the
crest of a new and ultimate Darien. Nor shall I omit that memorable tea
to the Chinese lady when the press became so great that a number of
timorous Occidentals in their best bib and tucker departed with all
possible dignity by way of the fire-escape. So the place being historic,
as thin