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 lights and a bathroom and a brass bed. Tempora mutantur. There is an empire and a feudal system, did one but know it. The clans are part of the empire, and each chief is responsible for his clan--did one but know it. One doesn't know it. The Honourable Brush Bascom, Duke of Putnam, member of the House, has arrived unostentatiously--as is his custom--and is seated in his own headquarters, number ten (with a bathroom). Number nine belongs from year to year to Mr. Manning, division superintendent of that part of the Northeastern which was the old Central,--a thin gentleman with side-whiskers. He loves life in the capital so much that he takes his vacations there in the winter,--during the sessions of the Legislature,--presumably because it is gay. There are other rooms, higher up, of important men, to be sure, but to enter which it is not so much of an honour. The Honourable Bill Fleming, postmaster of Brampton in Truro (Ephraim Prescott being long since dead and Brampton a large place now), has his vacation during the session in room thirty-six (no bathroom); and the Honourable Elisha Jane, Earl of Haines County in the North Country, and United States consul somewhere, is home on his annual vacation in room fifty-nine (no bath). Senator Whitredge has a room, and Senator Green, and Congressmen Eldridge and Fairplay (no baths, and only temporary). The five hundred who during the next three months are to register the laws find quarters as best they can. Not all of them are as luxurious as Mr. Crewe in the Duncan house, or the Honourable Brush Bascom in number ten of the Pelican, the rent of either of which would swallow the legislative salary in no time. The Honourable Nat Billings, senator from the Putnam County district, is comfortably installed, to be sure. By gradual and unexplained degrees, the constitution of the State has been changed until there are only twenty senators. Noble five hundred! Steadfast twenty!