ding myself often
in his vacant seat at these times, I watched the proceedings with a good
deal of care; and once was so much excited that I delivered my somewhat
celebrated speech on the Central School-District question, a speech of
which the "State of Maine" printed some extra copies. I believe there is
no formal rule permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.

Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience this
session led me to think that if, by some such "general understanding" as
the reports speak of in legislation daily, every member of Congress
might leave a double to sit through those deadly sessions and answer to
roll-calls and do the legitimate party-voting, which appears stereotyped
in the regular list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain
decidedly in working-power. As things stand, the saddest State prison I
ever visit is that Representatives' Chamber in Washington. If a man
leaves for an hour, twenty "correspondents" may be howling, "Where was
Mr. Pendergrast when the Oregon bill passed?" And if poor Pendergrast
stays there! Certainly the worst use you can make of a man is to put him
in prison!

I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to
this expedient long ago. Dumas's novel of the "Iron Mask" turns on the
brutal imprisonment of Louis the Fourteenth's double. There seems little
doubt, in our own history, that it was the real General Pierce who shed
tears when the delegate from Lawrence explained to him the sufferings of
the people there, and only General Pierce's double who had given the
orders for the assault on that town, which was invaded the next day. My
charming friend, George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a double, who
preaches his afternoon sermons for him. This is the reason that the
theology often varies so from that of the forenoon. But that double is
almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well defined men,
who stand out most prominently on the background of history, are in this
way stereoscopic men, who owe their distinct relief to the slight
differences between the doubles. All this I know. My present suggestion
is simply the great extension of the system, so that all public
machine-work may be done by it.

But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge. Let me
stop an instant more, however, to recall, were it only to myself, that
charming year while all was yet well. After the double had become a