wealth who did not hear of this
bill and did not talk of it, it was because that citizen was as deaf as
a post and as dumb as an oyster. Ordinary political distinctions were
forgotten, and the old party-whips could not manage their very
wheel-horses, who went snorting and kicking over the traces in all
directions. In short, both in the legislature and out of it, nothing
was thought of but the question of the removal of the capital.

Among the loudest of the agitators was Mr. Pullwool; not that he cared
one straw whether the capital went to Fastburg, or to Slowburg, or to
Ballyhack; but for the money which he thought he saw in the agitation
he did care mightily, and to get that money he labored with a zeal
which was not of this world alone. At the table of his hotel, and in
the barroom of the same institution, and in the lobbies of the
legislative hall, and in editorial sanctums and barbers' shops, and all
other nooks of gossip, he trumpeted the claims of Fastburg as if that
little city were the New Jerusalem and deserved to be the metropolis of
the sidereal universe. All sorts of trickeries, too; he sent spurious
telegrams and got fictitious items into the newspapers; he lied through
every medium known to the highest civilization. Great surely was his
success, for the row which he raised was tremendous. But a row alone
was not enough; it was the mere breeze upon the surface of the waters;
the treasure-ship below was still to be drawn up and gutted.

"It will cost money," he whispered confidentially to capitalists and
land-owners. "We must have the sinews of war, or we can't carry it on.
There's your city lots goin' to double in value if this bill goes
through. What per cent will you pay on the advance? That's the
question. Put your hands in your pockets and pull 'em out full, and put
back ten times as much. It's a sure investment; warranted to yield a
hundred per cent; the safest and biggest thing agoing."

Capitalists and land-owners and merchants hearkened and believed and
subscribed. The slyest old hunks in Fastburg put a faltering forefinger
into his long pocket-book, touched a greenback which had been laid away
there as neatly as a corpse in its coffin, and resurrected it for the
use of Mr. Pullwool. By tens, by twenties, by fifties, and by hundreds
the dollars of the ambitious citizens of the little metropolis were
charmed into the portemonnaie of this rattlesnake of a lobbyist.

"I never saw a greener set," ch