organization of the House, must maintain himself discreetly in the dark.
It was not a task to accomplish blowing a bugle. The House had
surrendered its powers to the Speaker; but it had retained its vanity,
and like all weak animals it was the more vain for being weak. The
members, were it once known and parcel of the common gossip how they
inclined to Senator Hanway's manipulation, would be compelled to rebel.
They would be driven to oppose him as a method of preserving what they
called their self-respect. Aware of this, Senator Hanway never came into
the open, never appeared upon the surface. He secretly pitched upon a
candidate among the older ones of the House and made his deal with him,
working the wires of his diplomacy from below.

There was peculiar demand for effort on Senator Hanway's part. His man,
when now he had selected him, would not find himself uninterrupted or
unopposed in his march for that Speakership. There was another, and if
native popularity were to count a stronger hand stretched forth to seize
the gavel prize. Had it lain in the cards, Senator Hanway, who always
sought his ends on lines of least resistance, would himself have pitched
upon this stronger one. But such was beyond the question. The strong one
claimed to be of that party clan which pushed the offensive Governor
Obstinate for the Presidency; and this not only offered a perfect reason
why Senator Hanway should make no alliance with him, but it multiplied
the necessity for his defeat.

That member upon whom Senator Hanway settled for Speaker owned the
biting name of Frost; it was an instance, however, when there was
nothing in a name. Mr. Frost was a round, genial personage and only
biting with occasional sarcasms; then, it is true, his sentences cut
like a rawhide. He was big, breezy, careless, quick, and coming of an
aquatic ancestry, oceanic in his sort; even his walk reminded one of a