Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/110

 the big dome was full of noisy echoes. The senate kept its coat on—you know how they mimic decorum over there—but the house was in its shirt-*sleeves, huddled like a pack of wolves around the speaker's dais, with faces ripe with whisky, shaking its fists under the umbrella of cigar smoke. Every fellow was trying to get his bill passed in the last hour of the session—you know what it is, Hank?"

"Oah, yes," replied Jennings, "but 'tain't nothin' to what 't used to be under the ol' constitution. We'd stack a pile o' them 'ere private acts up on the clerk's desk, an' pass 'em all t' oncet 'ith a whoop. Them 'as the days—but that 'as 'fore your time."

"Those must have been good old days," assented the lobbyist, "for the gang."

"I reckon! A feller could 'a' done business in them days! Ol' John M.'d better left the ol' constitution alone—it 'as good enough. But there 'as a passion fer change right after the war."

The lobbyist politely nodded concurrence in this view and continued:

"Some of the members clambered on to their desks, filling the air with oaths, ink bottles, and hurtling books with rattling leaves. Sometimes an iron