Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/238

 MARK TWAIN

returned to the House and sat out the rest of the thirty-three-hour session.

To merely stand up in one spot twelve hours on a stretch is a feat which very few men could achieve ; to add to the task the utterance of a hundred thou sand words would be beyond the possibilities of the most of those few; to superimpose the requirement that the words should be put into the form of a compact, coherent, and symmetrical oration would probably rule out the rest of the few, bar Dr. Lecher.

III. CURIOUS PARLIAMENTARY ETIQUETTE

In consequence of Dr. Lecher s twelve-hour speech and the other obstructions furnished by the Mi nority, the famous thirty-three-hour sitting of the House accomplished nothing. The government side had made a supreme effort, assisting itself with all the helps at hand, both lawful and unlawful, yet had failed to get the Ausgleich into the hands of a com mittee. This was a severe defeat. The Right was mortified, the Left jubilant.

Parliament was adjourned for a week to let the members cool off, perhaps a sacrifice of precious time, for but two months remained in which to carry the all-important Ausgleich to a consummation.

If I have reported the behavior of the House in telligibly, the reader has been surprised at it, and has wondered whence these lawmakers come and what they are made of; and he has probably supposed that the conduct exhibited at the Long Sitting was far out of the common, and due to special excitement

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