The next official call of Mr. Crewe was on the Speaker-to-be, Mr. Doby
of Hale (for such matters are cut and dried), but any amount of pounding
on Mr. Doby's door (number seventy-five) brought no response. Other
rural members besides Mr. Crewe came and pounded on that door, and went
away again; but Mr. Job Braden suddenly appeared from another part of
the corridor, smiling benignly, and apparently not resenting the refusal
of his previous offers of help.

"W--want the Speaker?" he inquired.

Mr. Crewe acknowledged that he did.

"Ed only sleeps there," said Mr. Braden. "Guess you'll find him in the
Railroad-Room."

"Railroad Room?"

"Hilary Vane's, Number Seven." Mr. Braden took hold of the lapel of
his fellow-townsman's coat. "Callated you didn't know it all," he said;
"that's the reason I come down--so's to help you some."

Mr. Crewe, although he was not wont to take a second place, followed
Mr. Braden down the stairs to the door next to the governor's, where he
pushed ahead of his guide, through the group about the doorway,--none of
whom, however, were attempting to enter. They stared in some surprise
at Mr. Crewe as he flung open the door without knocking, and slammed it
behind him in Mr. Braden's face. But the bewilderment caused by this act
of those without was as nothing to the astonishment of those within--had
Mr. Crewe but known it. An oil painting of the prominent men gathered
about the marble-topped table in the centre of the room, with an outline
key beneath it, would have been an appropriate work of art to hang in
the state-house, as emblematic of the statesmanship of the past twenty
years. The Honourable Hilary Vane sat at one end in a padded chair; Mr.
Manning, the division superintendent, startled out of a meditation, was
upright on the end of the bed; Mr. Ridout, the Northeastern's capital
lawyer, was figuring at the other end of the table; the Honourable Brush
Bascom was bending over a wide, sad-faced gentleman of some two hundred
and fifty pounds who sat at the centre in his shirt-sleeves, poring over
numerous sheets in front of him which were covered with names of the
five hundred. This gentleman was the Honourable Edward Doby of Hale,
who, with the kind assistance of the other gentlemen above-named, was
in this secluded spot making up a list of his committees, undisturbed
by eager country members. At Mr. Crewe's entrance Mr. Bascom, with great
presence of mind, laid down his hat over the princi