s
cleverest and wittiest speakers. I was called to the chair because
Cook knew that I would take care of him the best I could in the
conduct of the bill through the committee of the whole. We got
along with the bill very well for a good part of the day, until
Knott took the floor and made one of his incomparably funny speeches,
depicting the situation on Pennsylvania Avenue, with its fine
carriages and outfits, with buckles on the coachmen's hats as big
as garden gates. He made so much fun of the bill that Cook, being
unable to stand it, moved that the committee rise. We never heard
of the bill afterwards.

S. S. Marshall, a Democrat from Southern Illinois, and prominent
as such, was a member of Congress for many terms, and at one time
was the leader of the minority in the House. At that time the
Democrats in the House were so few in number that occasionally they
were unable to secure the ayes and noes. They exercised very little
influence on legislation, and were not much in evidence in debate,
the main contest then being between the radical and conservative
elements of the Republican party over Reconstruction.

General John F. Farnsworth of St. Charles was quite influential as
a member, and a very strong man, but was particularly noted for
his dauntless courage. On one occasion I saw him shake his fist
in General Benjamin F. Butler's face, daring him to resent it.
Butler did not resent it, as the House was in session; and, any
way, excepting with his tongue, Butler was not a fighting man.

Ebon C. Ingersoll, who was familiarly called by his friends Clark
Ingersoll, served in that Congress. He was a very clever man,
possessed of considerable talent, and could on occasions deliver
a capitally witty speech. I remember a rather ingenious passage
from one of his speeches delivered when the controversy between
the President and Congress was at its height. He asserted that
the country was sorely afflicted; that it suffered all sorts of
troubles, trials, embarrassments and difficulties. First, he said,
it was afflicted with cholera, next with trichinae, and then with
Andy Johnson, all in the same year, and that was more than any
country could stand. Ebon C. Ingersoll was a brother of the famous
Robert G. Ingersoll, the world's greatest agnostic.

Robert G. Ingersoll was one of the most eloquent men whom I have
ever heard. He could utter the most beautiful sentiments clothed
in language equally beautiful. S