been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private
interest they controlled. There were frauds rushed through; there were
long-suffering, righteous demands shelved; there were honest, unpaid
debts dishonored by scant appropriations; there were closing scenes
which only the saving sense of American humor kept from being utterly
vile. The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it, and laughed
at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it; the
audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it. And
nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances,
might be otherwise.

The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business. The claimant
himself, haggard, pathetic, importunate, and obstinate, was among the
Unfinished Business. Various Congressmen, more or less interested in
the success of the claim, were among the Unfinished Business. The member
from Fresno, who had changed his derringer for a speech against the
claimant, was among the Unfinished Business. The gifted Gashwiler,
uneasy in his soul over certain other Unfinished Business in the shape
of his missing letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with
his brothers, was King of Misrule and Lord of the Unfinished Business.
Pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, prudently escorted by her husband, but
imprudently ogled by admiring Congressmen, lent the charm of her
presence to the finishing of Unfinished Business. One or two editors,
who had dreams of a finished financial business, arising out of
Unfinished Business, were there also, like ancient bards, to record with
paean or threnody the completion of Unfinished Business. Various unclean
birds, scenting carrion in Unfinished Business, hovered in the halls or
roosted in the Lobby.

The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gashwiler, drank
deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the
half-empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But, alas! in
the very rush, and storm, and tempest of the unfinishing business, an
unlooked-for interruption arose in the person of a great Senator whose
power none could oppose, whose right to free and extended utterance at
all times none could gainsay. A claim for poultry, violently seized by
the army of Sherman during his march through Georgia, from the hen-coop
of an alleged loyal Irishman, opened a constitutional question, and with
it the lips of the great Senator.

For seven hours he spoke