Rapidly the hour hand describes the passage which marks the circle lying between 11 o’clock and 12. “Only a moment,” begs Atkins, “to put myself right before the country!” Hale, of Maine, intercedes for a moment in which he “may set the Republican party all right, and fix the responsibility for all the calamities which may follow future Democratic legislation.” Anxious eyes glance at the clock. Only twenty-five minutes left. A voice is heard pleading that the crowd of ladies, composed largely of those who include members in the “family,” be permitted to occupy the floor. Speaker Randall asks if there is any objection. None being raised, in an instant the doors become sluiceways through which pour a flood of feminine humanity. This element spills itself in every direction; sinks into crevices made vacant by retreating forms of members. In vain Speaker Randall asserts “the ladies are not to occupy the chairs within the circle.” The timid ones slink back, but a few charming ones stick, and strange to say the members seem to like it. Conger, of Michigan, beckoned his pretty daughter Florence to a seat beside him. In an instant the vinegar and aggressive spleen disappeared from his countenance, proving that the ugly face he wears in Congress is only a mask. One aged sinner, at least one old enough to know better, slipped his arm around the back of a chair, and though no apparent damage was done it was enough to prove the crookedness of the legislative mind. The flirtations on the floor occupied very little time, and divided the space consumed in receiving messages from the Senate. All at once a tall man rises in the gallery, and says audibly to the people around: “A half dozen men on each side do the business; all the rest are drummers!” After this mercantile speech, the stranger subsides. In the midst of the excitement a burly form is seen entering a doorway, and a face lights up the surroundings as a beacon flame flings its beams far out on a turbulent sea. Haul down the canvas; let go the pumps; it is ex-Secretary Robeson, at last safely beached. Republican sympathy clings to him because he has no money, and thought it his duty to repair our war vessels so long as the port holes showed no signs of decay. Leaning carelessly back, but in an attitude of inimitable grace stands Joe Blackburn of Kentucky, the “blue grass” boy who will be entered in the coming session for the Speaker’s race. Possessed of remarkable points of physical beauty, few men in Congress in this respect can be called his peers. Tall and slender, made up entirely of bone, nerve and muscle, he seems the embodiment of life’s fiercest forces. The energy of his mind is in keeping with the casket, and his chances for the Speakership at the present time seem best of all.