rately choose a less satirical or flippant method of
expression.

This temperamental characteristic was illustrated by an episode in
the Senate chamber not long ago. Penrose, entering, found his chair
occupied by a Democratic colleague who had overestimated his
capacity for the doubtful stuff that is purveyed in these days of
Volsteadism and whose condition was apparent to everyone on the
floor and in the galleries. Penrose is, perhaps, the most widely
known personage in the Senate. His towering figure makes him
conspicuous. But the most of the myriads of trippers who visit the
Capitol do not know one senator from another. They rely for
identification upon little charts showing the arrangements of the
seats on the floor each one of which is labeled with a senator's
name.

Now Penrose, might or might not have suspected that these trippers
following their charts, would pick out the snoring recumbent figure
as his own. He decided to remove all possibility of error and
addressing the chair with usual solemnity said, "Mr. President, I
desire the chair to record the fact that the seat of the senior
Senator from Pennsylvania has not been occupied by himself at the
present session. It is occupied by another." The galleries roared;
the somnolent Senator shambled over to his own side of the aisle
and Senator Penrose was given credit, by the unwise, for humor
quite unintended.

Life with Mr. Penrose is a much more serious business than most
people imagine. And it became even more serious a little while ago
when illness laid hold of him and his brother, a physician,
prescribed dietary rules restricting the freedom that he had once
exercised without restraint. There was something lion-like in the
gaunt figure in the rolling chair which he occupied when he
returned to the Senate from his sick bed. It was amazing that he
recovered; it was even more amazing that he should have submitted
to the rigorous rules laid down by his doctor, even if that doctor
was his own brother. The bated breath with which Pennsylvania
politicians awaited bulletins from his bedside was a striking
acknowledgment of the power he wields.

The evolution of Boies Penrose is an amusing commentary upon
American politics in more ways than one. Three years after he was
graduated from Harvard College he was elected to the Pennsylvania
State Legislature on a reform ticket. His election was made the
occasion for great rejoicing on the part of the good people of