have been here twenty
minutes ago."

By this time they had come to the entrance of the State House, and
Wetherell followed Mr. Duncan in, to have a look at the woodchuck
session himself. Several members hurried by and up the stairs, some
of them in their Sunday black; and the lobby above seemed, even to the
storekeeper's unpractised eye, a trifle active for a woodchuck session.
Mr. Duncan muttered something, and quickened his gait a little on the
steps that led to the gallery. This place was almost empty. They went
down to the rail, and the railroad president cast his eye over the
House.

"Good God!" he said sharply, "there's almost a quorum here." He ran his
eye over the members. "There is a quorum here."

Mr. Duncan stood drumming nervously with his fingers on the rail,
scanning the heads below. The members were scattered far and wide
through the seats, like an army in open order, listening in silence to
the droning voice of the clerk. Moths burned in the gas flames, and June
bugs hummed in at the high windows and tilted against the walls. Then
Mr. Duncan's finger nails whitened as his thin hands clutched the rail,
and a sense of a pending event was upon Wetherell. Slowly he realized
that he was listening to the Speaker's deep voice.

"'The Committee on Corporations, to whom was referred House Bill Number
109, entitled, 'An Act to extend the Truro Railroad to Harwich, having
considered the same, report the same with the following resolution:
Resolved, that the bill ought to pass. Chauncey Weed, for the
Committee.'"

The Truro Franchise! The lights danced, and even a sudden weakness
came upon the storekeeper. Jethro's trick! The Duncan and Lovejoy
representatives in the theatre, the adherents of the bill here!
Wetherell saw Mr. Duncan beside him, a tense figure leaning on the rail,
calling to some one below. A man darted up the centre, another up the
side aisle. Then Mr. Duncan flashed at William Wetherell from his blue
eye such a look of anger as the storekeeper never forgot, and he, too,
was gone. Tingling and perspiring, Wetherell leaned out over the railing
as the Speaker rapped calmly for order. Hysteric laughter, mingled with
hoarse cries, ran over the House, but the Honorable Heth Sutton did not
even smile.

A dozen members were on their feet shouting to the chair. One was
recognized, and that man Wetherell perceived with amazement to be Mr.
Jameson of Wantage, adherent of Jethro's--he who had moved to a