djourn
for "Uncle Tom's Cabin"! A score of members crowded into the aisles, but
the Speaker's voice again rose above the tumult.

"The doorkeepers will close the doors! Mr. Jameson of Wantage moves that
the report of the Committee be accepted, and on this motion a roll-call
is ordered."

The doorkeepers, who must have been inspired, had already slammed the
doors in the faces of those seeking wildly to escape. The clerk already
had the little, short-legged desk before him and was calling the roll
with incredible rapidity. Bewildered and excited as Wetherell was, and
knowing as little of parliamentary law as the gentleman who had proposed
the woodchuck session, he began to form some sort of a notion of
Jethro's generalship, and he saw that the innocent rural members who
belonged to Duncan and Lovejoy's faction had tried to get away before
the roll-call, destroy the quorum, and so adjourn the House. These,
needless to say, were not parliamentarians, either. They had lacked a
leader, they were stunned by the suddenness of the onslaught, and had
not moved quickly enough. Like trapped animals, they wandered blindly
about for a few moments, and then sank down anywhere. Each answered the
roll-call sullenly, out of necessity, for every one of them was a marked
man. Then Wetherell remembered the two members who had escaped, and Mr.
Duncan, and fell to calculating how long it would take these to reach
Fosters Opera House, break into the middle of an act, and get out enough
partisans to come back and kill the bill. Mr. Wetherell began to wish he
could witness the scene there, too, but something held him here, shaking
with excitement, listening to each name that the clerk called.

Would the people at the theatre get back in time?

Despite William Wetherell's principles, whatever these may have been,
he was so carried away that he found himself with his watch in his hand,
counting off the minutes as the roll-call went on. Fosters Opera House
was some six squares distant, and by a liberal estimate Mr. Duncan and
his advance guard ought to get back within twenty minutes of the time he
left. Wetherell was not aware that people were coming into the gallery
behind him; he was not aware that one sat at his elbow until a familiar
voice spoke, directly into his ear.

"Er--Will--held Duncan pretty tight--didn't you? He's a hard one to
fool, too. Never suspected a mite, did he? Look out for your watch!"

Mr. Bixby seized it or it would h