mingled with hoarse
cries, ran over the House, but the Honorable Heth Sutton did not even
smile.

A dozen members were on their feet shouting to the chair. One was
recognized, and that man Wetherell perceived with amazement to be Mr.
Jameson of Wantage, adherent of Jethro's--he who had moved to adjourn 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 i