“Now, Mr. Speaker, as I was about to remark when I yielded to the perplexing question of the distinguished gentleman from Pike--” Mr. Meredith was not often on his feet, as they say in legislative bodies, but when he took part in a debate all the other members kept still and listened with their hands behind their ears, which they didn’t do when any one else spoke. Mr. Meredith was a leader--many called him a reformer. Jamie decided that when he grew up he would be a lawyer, a leader and a reformer. Now, when the session was about over there was a bill in the house which almost all the Chicago members hoped to see made into a law; but Mr. Meredith was against it. The country members, too, for the most part, were against the bill, and Jamie noticed that when it first came over from the senate there was a stir in the house, and that every time it came up, after that, all the members would rush in from the cloak-rooms, or the lobbies, or the supreme court library, or the rotunda of the state house, to speak about it and to vote on it. Jamie did not understand the bill, or know what it was for; he only knew that it was something about a franchise in Chicago, and that every week a party of rich-looking gentlemen would come down to Springfield and stand about in the house, or sit on the big red lounge behind the speaker’s chair, and whisper and try to get men to vote for it. And Jamie knew, too, that it was called senate bill No. 578; he impressed that number firmly on his mind and could never forget it. He soon observed that on any day when he saw S. B. 578 on the calendar--which is a kind of program printed every morning to tell what bills are coming up--Mr. Meredith would be on his feet and make motions and speeches, and that the gentlemen on the speaker’s red lounge would scowl at him and the other city members try to answer him. And Jamie noticed that Mr. Meredith always succeeded in having the bill referred back to some committee, or did something to keep it from becoming a law. Jamie read the newspapers now and then. He always turned first to the base-ball news--the season was just opening--and then to the legislative news, although he never read that as carefully as he did the base-ball news. Often he saw Mr. Meredith’s name in the types--the papers said he was making a gallant fight against the franchise grab. Jamie hoped with all his soul that Mr. Meredith would win in that fight; not, of course, that he cared about the franchise grab--he had, like many older persons, very hazy ideas about that--but he always wished to see Mr. Meredith win.