The scattered members who were awake roared with laughter, the Speaker pounded furiously with his gavel, the sleepy little pages jumped up, rubbing their eyes, and ran here and there answering imaginary calls, and the whole House waked to its usual noise and confusion.
The old man raised his massive head and looked to the door leading toward the Senate just as Sumner rushed through. He had slept for a moment, but his keen intellect had taken up the fight at precisely the point at which he left it.
Sumner approached his desk rapidly, leaned over, and reported his defeat and Sherman’s triumph.
“For God’s sake throttle this measure in the House or we are ruined!” he exclaimed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” replied the cynic. “I’ll be here with stronger weapons than articulated wind.”
“You have not a moment to lose. The bill is on its way to the Speaker’s desk, and Sherman’s men are going to force its passage to-night.”
The Senator returned to the other end of the Capitol wrapped in the mantle of his outraged dignity, and in thirty minutes the bill was defeated, and the House adjourned.
As the old Commoner hobbled through the door, his crooked cane thumping the marble floor, Sumner seized and pressed his hand:
“How did you do it?”
Stoneman’s huge jaws snapped together and his lower lip protruded: