“A point of order! A point of or-der!”
When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, “reconsidered,” the “Breaker” was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and Uncle Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the Statehouse in the cold February slush and rain.
He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon him, the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at him; the red, maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging at him—all the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as he made his slow, unseeing way through the wet streets.
He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having wandered far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very well how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious that he was there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After a while he mechanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve.
An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle Billy raised his head and said gently:
“Come in.”
He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor was. It was Hurlbut.
The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the “dry cigar” wagged between gritting teeth.
“Will ye take a chair?” faltered Uncle Billy.
The room rang to the loud answer of the other: “I'd see you in Hell before I'd sit in a chair of yours!”