The official stenographer of the committee throughout the hearings had been Milton W. Blumenberg, who stood high in his profession. One Saturday afternoon when the Burns stenographer was testifying, Blumenberg stood behind his chair looking at the witness’s notes. The hearing was adjourned for dinner to be renewed in the evening. The evidence disclosed that upon leaving the room on adjournment Blumenberg met a woman employed by the committee who immediately, and, strangely enough, challenged his opinion on the genuineness of the notes. He declared them “manufactured,” “faked,” and immediately after that Edward Hines and others of the Lorimer party appeared upon the scene and Blumenberg’s opinion was repeated for their edification. At the hearing that night Blumenberg broke in unexpectedly with a declaration that the notes were manufactured, and when the startled members of the committee undertook to question him as to his motive they were told they were “not the most important people in the world.” He was immediately placed under arrest for contempt and placed in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, with instructions that no one should be permitted to communicate with him. The whole atmosphere had become so colored with the idea of corruption that the incident created a painful impression. He was discharged from the service of the committee, and the matter was dropped on the representation of Blumenberg’s friends that he was the victim of a nervous breakdown. But hard on the heels of this incident another sensational incident fed the public curiosity when a twenty-year-old telegraph operator of the Postal Company, stationed at the New Willard Hotel, who had sent a telegram for the Burns detective, testified that Edward Hines had attempted to bribe her with a roll of bills in his hand to let him read the message given in by the detective. The girl had not sought the notoriety and was so transparently truthful in her charming girlish way that no one not directly interested in the case could have doubted her veracity. Thus the trail of the serpent seemed to lead directly back to Washington. IV After the conclusion of the hearings the chief concern of the supporters of Lorimer was to postpone a vote in the senate as long as possible; and the first step toward this end was to indefinitely postpone the filing of a report. The hearings closed February 9, 1912, and it was not until May 20th that a report was presented to the senate, and it was largely due to the insistence of Kern, Kenyon and Lea that the delay was not greater. The proceedings of the committee when it met on March 27th to vote on a report are of historic importance and belong to the public.