ibrary he studied everything that had been said on
the subject by countless deputies in a century of Parliamentary
government. His friends in the Conference Chamber--the legislative
bohemia of "ex-honorables" and unsuccessful aspirants, who were loyal to
him in gratitude for passes to the floor--were encouraging him and
prophesying victory. They no longer approached him to begin: "When I was
auditor ..." to indulge in a veritable intoxication on the fumes of
their past glory; no longer did they ask him what don Francisco thought
of this, that, or the other thing, to draw their own wild inferences
from his replies and start rumors going based on "inside information."
Now, quite frankly, they "advised" him, giving him hints in accordance
with what they had said or meant to say during that discussion of the
budget back in Gonzalez Brabo's time, to end by murmuring, with a smile
that gave him the shudders: "Well, anyhow, we'll see! Good luck to you!"

And that flock of disgruntled spirits who sat around waiting for an
election that would never come and ran like old war-horses at the scent
of gun-powder to group themselves, as soon as a row started and the bell
began to ring for order, in two factions on either side of the
president's chair, could never have imagined that the young deputy, on
many a night, broke off his study with a temptation to throw the thick
tomes of records against the wall, yielding finally, with thrills of
intense voluptuousness, to the thought of what might have become of him
had he gone out into life on his own in the trail of a pair of green
eyes whose golden lights he thought he could still see glittering in
front of him between the lines of clumsy parliamentary prose, tempting
him as they had tempted him of yore!

II

"Order of the day. Resumption of debate on ecclesiastical
appropriations!"

The Chamber suddenly came to life with a wild movement of dispersion,
something comparable to the stampede of a herd or the panic of an army.
The deputies of quickest motory reactions were on their feet in an
instant, followed by dozens and dozens of others, all making for the
doors. Whole blocks of seats were emptied.

The Chamber had been packed from the opening of the Session. It was a
day of intense excitement: a debate between the leader of the Right and
a former comrade who was now in the Opposition. The jealousy between the
two old cronies was resulting in a small-sized scandal. Mutual se