below they were passing the Kelley Bill!

He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud
noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And
then at last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent
lobbyist, sat down on a box and nursed his fury.

Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the
building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and
he whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as
if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were
straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses
were descending, literally, upon his stubby red head.

It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to
the doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the
Kelley Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief.
The great thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach "S" on
roll-call before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey
moustache could come in and say something to the fair-haired member
with the weak mouth who sat near the rear of the chamber.

Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came
back Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great
crowd of men were standing around slapping him on the back. The
Governor himself was standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber;
his eyes were bright, and he was smiling.

Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all
alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was