The emergency demanded swift work. To offer a motion to adjourn, just after settling down to business, would certainly have aroused suspicion and a general rumpus. Here I worked in a bit of strategy or what might have more properly been called chicane, which I trust may be pardoned me in my final account. Senator John S. Hager was the leader of what might be called the “reformers” and had quite a following among his fellow members. He was the unwearied foe of anything like a job. Among other measures, he had opposed the Montgomery Street Extension bill. But there were several bills on a special file that afternoon that were his pet abominations and he justly feared that they might slip through. While in this frame of mind, a certain gentleman called him aside and advised him that several members were anxious for an adjournment, that if he would make the motion it would probably carry and the obnoxious bills would lose their places on the special file and their chance of final passage. The Senator swallowed the bait--hook, sinker and all. While he was lining up the “reformers,” somebody else was attending to the “performers,” and when the gentleman made his motion to adjourn he must have been gratified at the unexpected support. It went through _nem con_, as the lawyers say. The officers of the Senate were hurried out of the room on one pretext or another and in a few minutes the chamber was vacant. Dr. Edward R. Taylor, later Mayor of San Francisco, was the very efficient private secretary of Governor Haight. I was in an agony of fear lest he should pop into the Chamber with the fatal message before the adjournment could be arranged. For this reason, I had several effective conversationalists stationed between the Governor’s office and the Senate, to engage the secretary for a few minutes if he chanced to appear. This they actually did, although Dr. Taylor has forgotten the incident. What he does remember was that he found much to his surprise an empty Senate Chamber, and after ruminating over the situation for a time, carried back the veto message to the Governor’s office and laid it on his desk. On the following day the Governor attempted to deliver his message, but the Senate held he was too late. His Excellency refused to certify the bill to the Secretary of State as passed and I brought a mandamus suit to compel him to take that action. The title of the case was _Harpending_ vs. _Haight_, and attracted a wide attention at the time. It was carried to the Supreme Court on an agreed statement and decided within fifteen days in my favor. The decision can be found in Vol. 39, Cal. Reports, page 189. Other Governors have been cautious not to hold back their vetoes till the last day. Hager roared like a wounded bull buffalo when he found out how he had been used, but his lamentation bore no fruit.