binson the lawyers, Smooth and Slow the literary
characters, various lobbyists, and various lawgivers.

"Work, gentlemen, and capitalize Fastburg and get your dividends," was
his inspiring message to one and all. He promised Smith and Brown ten
dollars for every editorial, and five dollars for every humbugging
telegram, and two dollars for every telling item. Jones and Robinson
were to have five hundred dollars apiece for concurrent legal
statements of the claim of the city; Smooth and Slow, as being merely
authors and so not accustomed to obtain much for their labor, got a
hundred dollars between them for working up the case historically. To
the lobbyists and members Pullwool was munificent; it seemed as if
those gentlemen could not be paid enough for their "influence;" as if
they alone had that kind of time which is money. Only, while dealing
liberally with them, the inspired one did not forget himself. A
thousand for Mr. Sly; yes, Mr. Sly was to receipt for a thousand; but
he must let half of it stick to the Pullwool fingers. The same
arrangement was made with Mr. Green and Mr. Sharp and Mr. Bummer and
Mr. Pickpurse and Mr. Buncombe. It was a game of snacks, half to you
and half to me; and sometimes it was more than snacks,--a thousand for
you two and a thousand for me too.

With such a greasing of the wheels, you may imagine that the machinery
of the ring worked to a charm. In the city and in the legislature and
throughout the State there was the liveliest buzzing and humming and
clicking of political wheels and cranks and cogs that had ever been
known in those hitherto pastoral localities. The case of Fastburg
against Slowburg was put in a hundred ways, and proved as sure as it
was put. It really seemed to the eager burghers as if they already
heard the clink of hammers on a new State-House and beheld a perpetual
legislature sitting on their fences and curbstones until the edifice
should be finished. The great wire-puller and his gang of stipendiaries
were the objects of popular gratitude and adoration. The landlord of
the hotel which Mr. Pullwool patronized actually would not take pay for
that gentleman's board.

"No, sir!" declared this simple Boniface, turning crimson with
enthusiasm. "You are going to put thousands of dollars into my purse,
and I'll take nothing out of yours. And any little thing in the way of
cigars and whiskey that you want, sir, why, call for it. It's my treat,
sir."

"Thank you, sir,"