The Senator read his dispatches aloud at the breakfast table.  Laura was troubled beyond measure at their tone, and said that that sort of comment would defeat the bill; but the Senator said: 

“Oh, not at all, not at all, my child.  It is just what we want.  Persecution is the one thing needful, now—­all the other forces are secured.  Give us newspaper persecution enough, and we are safe.  Vigorous persecution will alone carry a bill sometimes, dear; and when you start with a strong vote in the first place, persecution comes in with double effect.  It scares off some of the weak supporters, true, but it soon turns strong ones into stubborn ones.  And then, presently, it changes the tide of public opinion.  The great public is weak-minded; the great public is sentimental; the great public always turns around and weeps for an odious murderer, and prays for-him, and carries flowers to his prison and besieges the governor with appeals to his clemency, as soon as the papers begin to howl for that man’s blood.—­In a word, the great putty-hearted public loves to ‘gush,’ and there is no such darling opportunity to gush as a case of persecution affords.”

“Well, uncle, dear; if your theory is right, let us go into raptures, for nobody can ask a heartier persecution than these editorials are furnishing.”

“I am not so sure of that, my daughter.  I don’t entirely like the tone of some of these remarks.  They lack vim, they lack venom.  Here is one calls it a ‘questionable measure.’  Bah, there is no strength in that.  This one is better; it calls it ‘highway robbery.’  That sounds something like.  But now this one seems satisfied to call it an ’iniquitous scheme’.  ‘Iniquitous’ does not exasperate anybody; it is weak—­puerile.  The ignorant will imagine it to be intended for a compliment.  But this other one—­the one I read last—­has the true ring:  ’This vile, dirty effort to rob the public treasury, by the kites and vultures that now infest the filthy den called Congress’—­that is admirable, admirable!  We must have more of that sort.  But it will come—­no fear of that; they’re not warmed up, yet.  A week from now you’ll see.”

“Uncle, you and Brother Balaam are bosom friends—­why don’t you get his paper to persecute us, too?”

“It isn’t worth while, my, daughter.  His support doesn’t hurt a bill.  Nobody reads his editorials but himself.  But I wish the New York papers would talk a little plainer.  It is annoying to have to wait a week for them to warm up.  I expected better things at their hands—­and time is precious, now.”

At the proper hour, according to his previous notice, Mr. Buckstone duly introduced his bill entitled “An Act to Found and Incorporate the Knobs Industrial University,” moved its proper reference, and sat down.

The Speaker of the House rattled off this observation: 

“‘Fnobjectionbilltakuzhlcoixrssoreferred!’”

Habitues of the House comprehended that this long, lightning-heeled word signified that if there was no objection, the bill would take the customary course of a measure of its nature, and be referred to the Committee on Benevolent Appropriations, and that it was accordingly so referred.  Strangers merely supposed that the Speaker was taking a gargle for some affection of the throat.