uld express their opinion
of that governor. So reasoned loyal Democrats. Legislatures are not
cheap, taken at their lowest valuation, and a special session, costing
something like one hundred thousand of the people's dollars, is an
extravagance before which a governor may well hesitate. This particular
convocation of the Hoosier lawmakers, summoned easily enough by a
stroke of the pen, proved to be expensive in more ways than one.

On the third day of the special session, when the tardiest member,
hailing from the remote fastnesses of Switzerland County, was just
finding his seat, and before all the others had drawn their stationery
and registered a generous computation of their mileage, something
happened. The bill for an act entitled an act to lift the lid of the
treasure chests was about to be read for the first time when a page
carried a telegram to Morton Bassett in the senate chamber.

Senator Bassett read his message once and again. His neighbors on the
floor looked enviously upon the great man who thus received telegrams
without emotion. It seemed, however, to those nearest him, that the bit
of yellow paper shook slightly in Bassett's hand The clerk droned on to
an inattentive audience. Bassett put down the telegram, looked about,
and then got upon his feet. The lieutenant-governor, yawning and idly
playing with his gavel, saw with relief that the senator from Fraser
wished to interrupt the proceedings.

"Mr. President."

"The senator from Fraser."

"Mr. President, I ask leave to interrupt the reading of the bill to make
an announcement."

"There being no objection, the senator will make his announcement."

Senators who had been smoking in the cloakroom, or talking to friends
outside the railing, became attentive. The senator from Fraser was
little given to speech, and it might be that he meant at this time to
indicate the attitude of the majority toward the appropriations asked by
the governor. In any event, it was always wise to listen to anything
Morton Bassett had to say.

The senator was unusually deliberate. Even when he had secured the
undivided attention of the chamber he picked up the telegram and read it
through again, as though to familiarize himself with its contents.

"Mr. President, I have just received the following message from a
personal friend in Washington: 'The Honorable Roger B. Ridgefield,
United States Senator from Indiana, while on a hunting trip in
Chesapeake Bay with a party