The arrival of Mr. O'Fake and the Dwarf completed the council, which proceeded promptly to business. Runty took the chair, and in a few earnest and well-chosen words, he dispatched the Ossified Man for a pitcher of beer. The transaction of other routine business occupied the attention of the council for a brief while, but it soon gave way to the pressing business of the hour. This came in the shape of a resolution presented by Mr. O'Fake, in these words: _Whereas_, Mr. T. Scollop, manager of the Universal Dime Museum of Natural Wonders, has seen fit to involve our honorable profession in disgrace by the employment for exhibition as an Animated Freak of Grandmother Cruncher, so called; and, _Whereas_, The said Grandmother Cruncher is not a member of this Honorable Brotherhood, nor a Freak, but merely a person of vulgar notoriety; and, _Whereas_, The said employment by the said T. Scollop of the said Female is in violation of Paragraph 13 of Article 210 of Section 306 of Chapter 194 of Book 8 of the Constitution and By-Laws of this Honorable Brotherhood, therefore be it, RESOLVED, That a committee of three members of this Council be appointed by the Grand Worthy Sublime and Mighty Past High Master to see the said T. Scollop and to inform him of the displeasure which his course herein set forth has excited in this Council, and to insist upon the immediate discharge of the said Cruncher. "Wid the Chair's permission," said Mr. O'Fake, when his resolutions had been read, "I will spake a worrud wid regard to the riserlooshuns. Sor, I hav no apolergy to make for thim riserlooshuns. They manes business. We are threatened, sor, wid a didly pur'l. It has not come upon us uv a sudden, sor, not to wanst. It is a repetition, sor, av an ould offince, an' I am here, sor, in this reshpicted prisence, sor, to say that the toime has come fer this Brotherhood to make its power filt!" Mr. O'Fake brought his clinched fist down upon the back of the Chair in front of him with a smart tap and looked proudly at the admiring faces of his fellow-members. Mr. O'Fake was eminent for his attainments as a speaker, and well he knew it. A murmur of applause broke out as he stopped, but he stilled it with a majestic wave of the hand. "Sor," he continued, "I am wan av those which belaves that the managers nades a lesson. They nades to be towld, sor, that Frakes is not dogs. They have gone on in their coorse--" At this point a shrill "Mr. Cheerman!" sounded out from the rear of the hall, and to the great indignation of Mr. O'Fake and to everybody else's surprise, Mr. Duffer Leech, the Man with the Phenomenal Skull, was observed to be standing with his arm lifted and his index finger extended towards the Chair.