A cup of water stood on his desk, and he drank from it frequently in the agony of getting through the ordeal that was necessary to supply the voters in his far-away Ohio district with copies of that speech. By the time it got into the _Congressional Record_, it would be well parenthesized with applause, and thus paint for his constituents a scene of a decorous, black-coated House, hanging rapt upon his words, and breaking occasionally into cheers that could not be controlled. The members lolled and read, and all about this speaker seats were empty, standing there in wooden patience as if waiting for him to end. At last the Speaker of the House turned from the man to whom he had been whispering, and his gavel fell. "The gentleman's time has expired," he said. The Ohioan stopped, and when he asked leave to extend his remarks in the _Record_, it was granted with the only enthusiasm his effort had produced. "It's stupid," said Dade, turning to her lieutenant. "Let's go ovah to the Senate." "It's worse there," Beck answered. "This seems to be an unexciting day." "What ah they talking abaout?" "Goodness knows, I don't." "Do they?" "Hardly. But--wait a minute!" The soldier leaned over the railing. A laugh had rung below him. Sharp words had been spoken. A question had been flung across the House. On both sides, Republican and Democratic, members had sprung to their feet. The Speaker had arisen, and stood with his gavel alertly poised. There were several nervous cries of, "Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!" Beck saw one member who had arisen with the rest, and who now stood with one hand raised, his finger leveled at the speaker. "Mr. Speaker," said the member confidently. The Speaker nodded in his direction. "The gentleman from Illinois," he said. The member began to speak, talking in a low tone for several moments. Something he said provoked a laugh around him. Then the House was still. He was a tall man, and his long black coat hung from heavy shoulders. As he warmed to his subject, and his coat tails swung away from his loins, they revealed a protuberant abdomen; as he warmed still more, the perspiration rolled down his cheeks and on to the neck that lay in folds of fat over his rapidly softening collar. His voice increased in volume. He became excited, he turned around in a vehement outbreak, to address directly some member who, with head bent respectfully to the fictions of parliamentary etiquette, had crept in creaking boots to a desk near the speaker, and there he now sat, a palm nursing his deaf ear. The orator turned yet more directly about, and-- "Why!" Dade cried, "that's Jerry Gahwood! He's ouah congressman!" She craned her pretty chin forward, and leaned her elbows on the wide marble rail to hear the better. "Do you know him?" Beck asked. "Why, he's ouah congressman! He mah'ied Emily Ha'kness--don't yo' remembuh? The gyrl who was with me that wintah at the Van Stohn's in St. Louis?" "Oh!" said Beck.