e. Stranger things had happened, and
grateful States had been known to reward benefactors.

At length comes the gala night of nights,--the last of the old year,--and
the assembling of the five hundred legislators and of the army that is
wont to attend them. The afternoon trains, steaming hot, are crowded to
the doors, the station a scene of animation, and Main Street, dazzling in
snow, is alive with a stream of men, with eddies here and there at the
curbs and in the entries. What handshaking, and looking over of new
faces, and walking round and round! What sightseeing by the country
members and their wives who have come to attend the inauguration of the
new governor, the Honourable Asa P. Gray! There he is, with the whiskers
and the tall hat and the comfortable face, which wears already a look of
gubernatorial dignity and power. He stands for a moment in the lobby of
the Pelican Hotel,--thronged now to suffocation,--to shake hands genially
with new friends, who are led up by old friends with two fingers on the
elbow. The old friends crack jokes and whisper in the ear of the
governor-to-be, who presently goes upstairs, accompanied by the
Honourable Hilary Vane, to the bridal suite, which is reserved for him,
and which has fire-proof carpet on the floor. The Honourable Hilary has a
room next door, connecting with the new governor's by folding doors, but
this fact is not generally known to country members. Only old timers,
like Bijah Bixby and Job Braden, know that the Honourable Hilary's room
corresponds to one which in the old Pelican was called the Throne Room,
Number Seven, where Jethro Bass sat in the old days and watched
unceasingly the groups in the street from the window.

But Jethro Bass has been dead these twenty years, and his lieutenants
shorn of power. An empire has arisen out of the ashes of the ancient
kingdoms. Bijah and Job are old, all-powerful still in Clovelly and
Leith--influential still in their own estimations; still kicking up their
heels behind, still stuttering and whispering into ears, still "going
along by when they are talking sly." But there are no guerrillas now, no
condottieri who can be hired: the empire has a paid and standing army, as
an empire should. The North Country chiefs, so powerful in the clan
warfare of bygone days, are generals now,--chiefs of staff. The
captain-general, with a minute piece of Honey Dew under his tongue, sits
in Number Seven. A new Number Seven,--with electric l