Months before ever Senator Hanway was granted the honor of knowing Mr. Gwynn, he had been burrowingly busy about the Speakership. As a primary step he was obliged to suppress his ebullient brother-in-law. Mr. Harley, the moment a conquest of the House in the interests of Senator Hanway was proposed, waxed threateningly exuberant. He was for issuing forth to vociferate and slap members upon their backs and jovially arrange committeeships on the giffgaff principle of give us the Speakership and you shall become a Chairman. The optimistic Mr. Harley, whose methods were somewhat coarse and who did most things with an ax, was precisely of that hopeful sort who would advertise an auction of the lion's hide while it was yet upon the beast. Senator Hanway, with instincts safer and more upon the order of the mole's, forbade such campaigns of noise. "You must keep silent, John," said he, "and never let men know what we are about. You are inclined, apparently, to regard a Speakership as you might a swarm of bees; you think one has only to beat a tin pan long enough or blow a tin horn loud enough in order to hive it according to one's wish. The Speakership, however, so far from being a swarm of bees is more like a flock of blackbirds, and the system to which you incline would prove the readiest means of frightening away our every chance. In short, you must work by my orders and meet no one, say nothing, except as I direct." Then Senator Hanway sent Mr. Harley, much modified of his vigor, with a secret invitation to Mr. Frost; when that personage was brought to the privacy of the Harley house, he laid open to his ambition those gavel prospects which he, Senator Hanway, had already constructed in his thoughts. There was no conflict of argument with Mr. Frost; he rose to the suggestion like a bass to a fly. Knowing himself to be of a genius too openly bluff and frank, and no one to conquer those elements which his campaign would require, he put himself in the hollow of Senator Hanway's hand to be controlled by him with shut eyes. This voluntary prompt submission on the part of Mr. Frost had a further subduing effect upon Mr. Harley. In imitation thereof he, too, began to speak in whispers and step with care, and ask his eminent relative for orders in all he went about. Now when Senator Hanway had trained his partner and his candidate to come to heel he began to unravel his diplomacy. By his suggestion, Mr. Frost took into confidence two of his party colleagues in the House. These would on every occasion act as his agents or lieutenants. Senator Hanway and Mr. Harley were not to appear too obviously.