those two lieutenants variously to a score of members. These were
sounded on the engaging topic of committee chairmanships, and one by one
such coigns of congressional, not to say personal, advantage as the
heads of Ways and Means, the Appropriations, the Foreign Affairs, the
Naval, the Military and a number of other great sub-bodies were disposed
of--bartered away on the contingency always of Mr. Frost's selection to
be the Speaker. The entire House was laid off into lots like real estate
and sold, the purchaser promising his vote and influence in the party
caucus, taking therefor a verbal contract to give him the committee
place he preferred.

This labor of an advance partition of the spoils and the linking of
every possible faction with the campaign of Mr. Frost, was concluded
about a fortnight prior to Mrs. Harley's dinner to Mr. Gwynn. As Senator
Hanway ran his experienced eye over the list and counted the noses of
Mr. Frost's array, he saw that it was not enough. The pontoon would not
reach; there was still a wide expanse of water between his candidate and
the coveted Speakership. As matters rested, and every morsel of House
patronage disposed of to this hungry one or that, the enemy, Mr.
Hawke--being doubly the enemy for that he was become an open supporter
of Governor Obstinate and made no secret that his candidacy for the
Speakership was meant to be a step towards making that gentleman
President--would still rise victorious in caucus by full forty votes.

Senator Hanway's anxious wits were driven hard. He had drawn to Mr.
Frost every splinter of power he could command by barter, and thrown in
his own State delegation in the House by sheer stress of that machine
which he had upreared for his own defense at home. It was not enough;
even the subtraction of two State delegations from the standards of the
foe, by the adroit scheme, applied to each delegation, of dragging one