P. W. (hopelessly). “I said the poor man had no friends, sir.”
Chairman (with sudden fire). “Then you lied, sir! I am the poor man’s friend! so are my colleagues, sir!” (Here the rogues’ gallery tried to look benevolent.) “Speak the truth, sir!” (with sudden change from the manner admonitory to the manner mandatory). “Now, you sit down quick, or get out of this somehow!”
This put an end to the sleek gentleman, and his place was taken by a fellow-professional of another type—a great, burly man, who would talk to you on private matters in a perfectly natural tone of voice, but who, the minute he began to speak of the Wrongs (with a capital W) of Labor (with a capital L), bellowed as if he had been a bull of Bashan. The Colonel, by this time pretty far gone, eyed him malevolently, swaying to and fro in his chair. However, the first effect of the fellow’s oratory was soothing rather than otherwise, and produced the unexpected result of sending the chairman fast asleep sitting bolt upright. But in a minute or two, as the man warmed up to his work, he gave a peculiarly resonant howl which waked the Colonel up. The latter came to himself with a jerk, looked fixedly at the audience, caught sight of the speaker, remembered having seen him before, forgot that he had been asleep, and concluded that it must have been on some previous day. Hammer, hammer, went the gavel, and—
“I’ve seen you before, sir!”
“You have not,” said the man.
“Don’t tell me I lie, sir!” responded the Colonel, with sudden ferocity. “You’ve addressed this committee on a previous day!”
“I’ve never—” began the man; but the Colonel broke in again:
“Sit down, sir! The dignity of the chair must be preserved! No man shall speak to this committee twice. The committee stands adjourned.” And with that he stalked majestically out of the room, leaving the committee and the delegation to gaze sheepishly into each other’s faces.
OUTSIDERS.
After all, outsiders furnish quite as much fun as the legislators themselves. The number of men who persist in writing one letters of praise, abuse, and advice on every conceivable subject is appalling; and the writers are of every grade, from the lunatic and the criminal up. The most difficult to deal with are the men with hobbies. There is the Protestant fool, who thinks that our liberties are menaced by the machinations of the Church of Rome; and his companion idiot, who wants legislation against all secret societies, especially the Masons. Then there are the believers in “isms,” of whom the women-suffragists stand in the first rank. Now I have always been a believer in woman’s rights, but I must confess I have never seen such a hopelessly impracticable set of persons as the woman-suffragists who came up to Albany to get legislation. They simply would not draw up their measures in proper form; when I pointed out to one of them that their proposed bill was drawn up in direct defiance of certain of the sections of the Constitution of the State he blandly replied that he did not care at all for that, because the measure had been drawn up so as to be in accord with the Constitution of Heaven. There was no answer to this beyond the very obvious one that Albany was in no way akin to Heaven. The ultra-temperance people—not the moderate and sensible ones—are quite as impervious to common sense.