Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/137

 members from three to seven dollars a day. It passed with a whoop.

Uncle Pete Sawyer a coal-black fatherly looking old darkey from an Eastern county made himself immortal in that debate.

"Mistah Speakah!" he bawled drawing himself up with great dignity, and holding a pen in his left hand as though he had been writing. "What do dese white gem'men mean by ezposen dis bill? Ef we doan pay de members enuf, dey des be erbleeged ter steal. Hit aint right, sah, ter fo'ce de members er dis hon'able body ter prowl atter dark when day otter be here 'tendin' ter de business o' de country. En I moves you, sah. Mistah Speakah, dat dese rema'ks er mine be filed in de arkibes er grabity!"

They were filed and embalmed in the archives of gravity where they will remain a monument to their author and his times.

As Tim's great financial measures made progress, the members began to wear better clothes, assumed white linen shirts, had their shoes blacked, and put on the airs of overworked statesmen.

When they had used up all the funds of the state in mileage and per diem, they sold and divided the school fund, railroad bonds worth a half million, for a hundred thousand ready cash. It was soon found that Simon Legree, the Speaker of the House, was the master of financial measures and Tim Shelby was his mouthpiece.

Legree organised three groups of thieves composed of the officials needed to perfect the thefts in every branch of the government while he retained the leadership of the federated groups. The Treasurer, who was an honest man, was stripped of power by a special act.

The Capitol Ring merely picked up the odds and ends about the Capitol building. They refurnished the Legis-