alamitous in public and private experience
was clearly traceable to that combination of power in a minority over
weakness in a majority--known as a Ring.

Haply there was a body of demigods, as yet uninvoked, who should
speedily settle all that. When Smith of Minnesota, Robinson of Vermont,
and Jones of Georgia returned to Congress from these rural seclusions
so potent with information and so freed from local prejudices, it was
understood, vaguely, that great things would be done. This was always
understood. There never was a time in the history of American politics
when, to use the expression of the journals before alluded to, "the
present session of Congress" did not "bid fair to be the most momentous
in our history," and did not, as far as the facts go, leave a vast
amount of unfinished important business lying hopelessly upon its
desks, having "bolted" the rest as rashly and with as little regard to
digestion or assimilation as the American traveller has for his railway
refreshment.

In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of one
of its second-rate hotels, the Honorable Pratt C. Gashwiler sat at
his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with whom the
omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of an indecent
exposure. The Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and shirt, was a sight
to be avoided by the modest eye. There were such palpable suggestions of
vast extents of unctuous flesh in the slight glimpse offered by his open
throat that his dishabille should have been as private as his business.
Nevertheless, when there was a knock at his door he unhesitatingly said,
"Come in!"--pushing away a goblet crowned with a certain aromatic herb
with his right hand, while he drew towards him with his left a few proof
slips of his forthcoming speech. The Gashwiler brow became, as it were,
intelligently abstracted.

The intruder regarded Gashwiler with a glance of familiar recognition
from his right eye, while his left took in a rapid survey of the papers
on the table, and gleamed sardonically.

"You are at work, I see," he said apologetically.

"Yes," replied the Congressman, with an air of perfunctory
weariness,--"one of my speeches. Those d----d printers make such a mess
of it; I suppose I don't write a very fine hand."

If the gifted Gashwiler had added that he did not write a very
intelligent hand, or a very grammatical hand, and that his spelling was
faulty, he would