“Mr. Speaker!”
As sure as you live I had caught him at last. There was nobody else had spoken quick enough, and it was as clear as preachen I had the floor.
“Gentleman from Squashborough,” says he, I heard him say it.
Now, thinks I to myself, I must begin, whether or no. “Mr. Speaker!” says I, again, but I only said it to gain time, for I could hardly believe I actually had the floor, and all the congregated wisdom of the commonwealth was listening and looking on: the thought of it made me crawl all over. “Mr. Speaker!” says I, once more. Everybody looked round at me. Thinks I to myself, “there’s no clawing off this hitch. I must begin, and so here goes!”
Accordingly I gave a loud hem! said, “Mr. Speaker!” for the fourth time. “Mr. Speaker, I rise to the question——” though it did not strike me I had been standing up ever since I came into the house. “I rise to the question, Mr. Speaker,” says I. But to see how terribly strange some things work. No sooner had I fairly rose to the question, and got a chance to make my speech, than I began to wish myself a hundred miles off.
Five minutes before I was as bold as a lion, but now I should have been glad to crawl into a knot-hole. “Mr. Speaker, I rise to the question,” says I again, but I am bound to say, the more I rose to the question, the more the question seemed to fall away from me. And just at that minute, a little fat round-faced man, with a bald head, that was sitting right before me, speaks to another member, and says:
“What squeaking fellow is that?”
It dashed me a good deal, and I don’t know but I should have sat right down without another word, but Colonel Crabapple, the member for Turkeytown, gave me a twitch by the tail of my wrapper:
“That’s right, Turniptop,” says he, “give them the grand touch.”
This had a mighty encouraging effect, and so I hemmed and hawed three or four times, and at last made a beginning.